Simultaneously classical and subversive, Horace Walpole's estate is a monument of queer design and expression. ♦
I did not anticipate the undefinable mix of emotions that hit me as soon as I entered Walpole’s estate. In Edgar Allen Poe’s Gothic short story “The Oval Portrait,” the narrator describes the metaphysical series of emotions provoked in him by the eponymous portrait: “I had found the spell of the picture in an absolute life-likeliness of expression, which, at first startling, finally confounded, subdued, and appalled me.” Standing in the entryway of Strawberry Hill House, I also felt “confounded” and “subdued,” though not “appalled.” Instead, I felt a strange affinity to this historical home that oddly resembled the set of a low-budget Vincent Price movie. I imagined what it would be like to live here, dramatically strolling down the stairs wrapped in a flowing, impractical gown bedazzled with sequins and jewels.
I was so enthralled by the house that I kept falling behind my group as I peppered the tour guides with a litany of questions. One tour guide snapped at me to stop asking questions about the paintings because “they are not important; they are there to create an effect.” I learned later that Walpole’s paintings had been sold after his death by an alcoholic relative, and these were placeholders on loan from museums. Being an artist who specializes in collage, and who recently spent two hours agonizing over the placement of push pins for a recent work, her flippant dismissal of the importance of small details offended my artistic sensibilities.
But the tour guide’s sour attitude didn’t dampen my enthusiasm: I took nearly 300 photos of Strawberry Hill House and sent them to my boyfriend, even though most were blurry. I gushed over text about how cool it would be to live in that house. My boyfriend appreciated my excitement but did not quite understand why I was so enchanted by some creepy old house.
It wasn’t until after the tour that I gained some insight into my strong emotional connection with Strawberry Hill House. None of the tour guides I talked to mentioned the “male poet friend” who lived with Horace Walopole or the speculation surrounding Walpole’s sexuality. When I discovered this information after the tour, the puzzle pieces fell into place. Strawberry Hill House resonated with me, a queer artist and writer, because it was an artistic expression of queerness. Everything from the plaster walls painted to look like stone to the stained-glass windows imported from around the world to the carved unicorn on the banister merged to create an aesthetic experience that was distinctly and unapologetically queer.
Defining the “queer aesthetic” is as impossible as defining the queer experience because both are individual. One queer person may relate to another queer person’s experience because there are universal themes that unify all human experience (e.g. love, death, etc.) and even more narrowly there are common experiences that apply to many people who identify as LGBTQ+ (e.g., “coming out of the closet,” facing homophobia, feeling different, being the “token gay friend,” etc.) but not all queer people experience life the same way. Furthermore, the way that queerness is expressed aesthetically is up to artistic interpretation, and since experience is individual so is the expression of queerness. A prime example of this is me and my boyfriend: while my boyfriend likes the grunge aesthetic, oftentimes people describe my personal aesthetic as “slutty 80s grandma.” Therefore, it makes sense that we would react differently to Strawberry Hill House, because we prefer different forms of (queer) artistic expression.
While there is no set of visual or stylistic motifs that definitively define a singular queer aesthetic, one common element among all artistic expressions of queerness is the subversion or rejection of normativity. This can range from the abstraction of physical forms to placing mundane objects into “queer” contexts, rebelling against gender norms, or designing your house to resemble a haunted castle hundreds of years old.
So why should we care about Horace Walpole, a literary one-hit wonder of the 1700s? Walpole effectively revived the Gothic aesthetic in literature and the arts. Without his queer vision, we probably would not have Edgar Allan Poe’s extensive body of work or Vincent Price’s cheesy B-horror movies.
Furthermore, Strawberry Hill House is a mecca for queer artists and writers that offers a valuable perspective on modern discussions concerning queer aesthetics. Queer writers and scholars have commented on how queer-coded clothing and accessories have become a “trend,” resulting in traditionally queer forms of self-expression becoming appropriated by straight/cis people. Furthermore, queer aesthetic culture in general has been critiqued by scholars for appropriating Black culture (specifically Black trans culture). Similarly, Horace Walpole appropriated the aesthetics of the Goths, and then later artists and writers appropriated Walpole’s Gothic revival style.
Creating the aesthetics of tomorrow starts with examining the aesthetics of yesterday. Rebelling against the system is not as simple as buying a pride flag to hang outside your house; any individual must be conscious about the ways in which they express themselves, whether through visual, written, or verbal communication. How does your preferred method of self-expression reflect your inner self and your view of the world around you? Are you socially conscious about the ways in which you practice self-expression? Do you respect the pioneers who fought for your right to express yourself?
If you have the opportunity to visit Strawberry Hill House, I invite you to ponder these questions as you experience the Gothic and queer world of Horace Walpole. I hope the house inspires you as much as it inspired me.
