A Harry Potter-inspired Mediterranean home, where a Hong Kong artist makes magic happen
Fox Daniels’ home on the Maltese island of Gozo enchants in spellbinding shades of yellow and blue
If Harry Potter had a holiday home in the Mediterranean, it would look like this 17th-century farmhouse on the Maltese island of Gozo. Named Diagon Alley because of its location in a narrow backstreet, the 4,000 sq ft, four-bedroom house is spread over four floors, linked by staircases that lead off and around a central courtyard. It has castle-like crenellations, uneven walls that are more than one metre thick, a maze of rooms with vaulted ceilings and a cavernous underground swimming pool.
This is the third house in the area that ex-Hongkonger Fox Daniels has bought and renovated. She and her husband, Paul, moved to Malta five years ago for a more relaxed pace of life, having had their fill of Hong Kong’s bustle. When Diagon Alley came onto the market last year, the couple snapped it up with a view to renting it out as a holiday home.
“It is one of the oldest farmhouses on the island,” says Daniels, an artist and ardent Harry Potter fan. “A Danish couple holidayed in this house for 30 years and decided to sell it because they were too old to travel. It hadn’t been updated since they bought it so that became my job.”
Fortunately, Daniels has a flair for interior design, having renovated several properties, including a house in Yuen Long that she kitted out to look like a 20th-century Shanghainese bordello.
“My style is very theatrical and I don’t like my homes to follow a standard format,” she says.
A guided tour via FaceTime starts on the ground floor, which is level with the main courtyard and houses the kitchen and living and dining rooms as well as the Severus Snape bedroom and en suite bathroom. Each bedroom is dedicated to one of Harry Potter’s teachers and is announced by an enchanting black-and-white door sign, inscribed with magical-looking calligraphy. The ancient-looking Albus Dumbledore room is hidden in the basement; and the Minerva McGonagall and Aurora Sinistra bedrooms, both of which have private terraces, are on the first floor.
“I gave the best rooms to the witches,” laughs Daniels.