English: The House in the Clouds The village of Thorpeness, north of Aldeburgh, is unusual in that it was built in its entirety as a speculative development holiday centre. The old fishing hamlet of Thorpe was acquired by G. Stuart Ogilvie, landowner, playwright and barrister, who proceeded to build what his copywriters variously described as 'the ideal holiday village' and 'the Home of Peter Pan'. One problem was how to supply expected amenities such as mains water in the Home of Peter Pan without disfiguring the landscape with an obtrusive water tower. The answer came with the removal of a windmill from Aldringham, the next village, to replace the American 'New Mill' which pumped water into as rusty iron tank beside it. A system of lakes and waterways called The Meare complete with a miniature sham fort had been designed by Ogilvie in 1910, but the war intervened and it was not until 1923 that he installed the 'new' old post-mill and cast around for a suitable means of disguising the necessary water tank. Now Ogilvie was very fond of dove-cotes, and had already disguised his own water tower at Sizewell Court a mile up the coast as a dove-cote in 1908, using the bottom part as a carpenter's workshop. What more natural then than to use the same pleasurable idea at Thorpeness, but on a very much larger scale? So The Gazebo was built, a five storey house underneath the brilliantly disguised 30,000 gallon water tank: the tank was disguised as an everyday clapboarded house with pitched roof, chimneys and sham windows, perched incongruously on top of a sixty foot tower. "Who on earth would want to live in it with all the water rushing up and down?" was the major objection to the scheme, but Ogilvie had no difficulty finding tenants. Mr. & Mrs. Malcolm Mason moved in, and Mrs. Mason loved it. She wrote poems for children, and one, inspired by her house, was called "The House in the Clouds":

"The fairies really own this house - or so the children say - In fact, they all of them moved in upon the self same day ..."

When she recited this to Ogilvie one evening at dinner he was enchanted, and exclaimed "The name must be changed to The House in the Clouds - and you are my Lady of the Stairs and Starlight!". So The House in the Clouds it became.