The house was designed and built in 1902–1903 for the academic and mathematician William Garnett, in a mixture of styles that include Arts and Crafts, Art Nouveau and Scottish Baronial. It was inspired by Garnett's love of Lewis Carroll's Jabberwocky poem, "Twas brillig, and the slithy toves/Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:/All mimsy were the borogoves,/And the mome raths outgrabe."[1]
In 1913, Garnett sold the house to the Yorkshire industrialist, Harold Ellis, and his Canadian explorer wife Mina Benson Hubbard.[2][3][4] Hubbard was an advocate of women's suffrage and their guests at the house included the leading suffrage campaigner Emmeline Pankhurst, Isadora Duncan who gave a dance performance there to raise funds for the cause, George Bernard Shaw, Rudyard Kipling and H. G. Wells.[1]
The house was converted into flats in the 1950s.[2][4] The photographer Harrison Marks and his partner the nude model Pamela Green lived in one of the flats.[5] The house was restored to a single dwelling in 1985 after it was purchased by the actor Tom Conti and his wife Kara Wilson.[4] In May 2015, The Wabe has been listed for sale, following a protracted dispute with Conti's neighbour, the former footballer Thierry Henry.[3] In 2015, Conti commented that "this used to be a wonderful place to live, but in the past ten years there's been endless, endless building."[3] Henry had obtained planning permission to demolish his house and build a new one, including a 25,000-litre (5,500 imp gal; 6,600 US gal) aquarium spanning four floors.[3] But he also remarked "“It becomes silly as I sit here looking at my vast heating bills. So we are downsizing", and denied Henry was a reason he would sell. In late 2018 the house was sold to filmmaker Tim Burton for £11million.[6]
