Hollywood producer is rebuilding family’s crumbling English estate

In 2013, Hollywood producer Hopwood Depree was winding down after work with some wine and casual Internet scrolling. Scanning ancestry websites, he discovered a massive English estate bearing his unusual name: Hopwood Hall. His grandfather had always talked vaguely of a “Hopwood Castle” in the family past, and apparently it wasn’t just talk. Depree learned the abandoned 600-year-old, 60-room manor on 5,000 acres in Middleton was, in fact, his family’s long-forgotten ancestral home.

With middle-age looming, the 40-something Depree felt an immediate connection and would soon leave LA for England with a new purpose: To restore his family estate to its former glory. He gave up his Hollywood career, including pitching shows for the McDonald’s TV channel. 

“As much as I loved their McNuggets, I was now off to England to fulfill my destiny,” he writes in “Downton Shabby: One American’s Ultimate DIY Adventure Restoring His Family’s English Castle” (William Morrow), out now. 

Hopwood Hall had been empty since both male heirs were killed during WWI, and was owned by the town council when Depree found it. The estate — which is located near Manchester, a few hundred miles north of London — was collapsing. Despite being surrounded by a 13-foot, razor-topped fence nicknamed the “scrotum shredder,” vandals had already broken many of the 812 windows and pulled priceless wood carvings off walls. Trees grew from the 35 chimneys, the roof was peppered with holes, and water sluiced through walls. Rotted floors collapsed. Much of the mansion was too decrepit to enter, with experts predicting its demise within a decade or a $10 million price tag to restore its former glory. The people of Middleton felt an affinity for the Hall and no one wanted to lose it, but as it sat empty, both time and Mother Nature showed no mercy.

But Hopwood Hall’s history was impressive. From the 1400s until WWI, it housed the Hopwood family (Depree’s branch of the family tree left for America in the late 1700s), through the Crusades, Black Plague, and War of the Roses. Its 60 rooms included a massive reception hall and a “morning room,” whose wall of windows faced the daily sunrise. Elaborate sculptures were carved into walls and intricate paintings covered ceilings. Manicured gardens surrounded the house.   

The Hall’s former guests included Lord Byron (who wrote the four part narrative poem “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage” while staying there) and Frederic Chopin, who performed in the drawing room. In 1992, Queen Elizabeth visited to attend a college opening ceremony. Ozzy Osborne once performed on-site at that college’s “disco,” famously being pelted on-stage with a beer thrown by his future wife, Sharon Osborne.

After discovering his ancestral past in 2013, for the next three years Hopwood Depree made numerous trips to Middletown to visit the manor. By 2017 he’d moved there, intending to “save Hopwood Hall from ruin.”   

Depree was an unlikely choice to lead the renovation: He wasn’t handy, writing his last visit to a home-improvement store ended “in tears in a Home Depot parking lot.” That’s why Middleton natives would later joke that DIY didn’t mean do-it-yourself for Hopwood, but “dim inexperienced Yank.” 

While the locals were enthused about Depree’s efforts to revive Hopwood Hall — many of their ancestors had worked there as cooks and servants, gardeners and chauffeurs — they weren’t sure the newcomer was the man for the job. 

Most initially saw him as a “blond fool from California who had his head in the clouds, bleached teeth, and bronzer on his face,” Hopwood writes. Which isn’t to say Middleton didn’t welcome Depree. With no Hopwoods living in the area for generations, the villagers were thrilled with the American’s presence. When he visited the local pub, the Hopwood Arms, a cheer would invariably break out. 

“Hopwood’s in the Hopwood!” they’d roar. 

With the funding Depree mustered up from organizations like Historic England and the UK’s Department of Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, construction crews and heritage experts have been working on Hopwood Hall since 2017. There have been stops and starts, for reasons that range from a global pandemic to a 500-year-old feud still simmering in the hearts of the Hopwoods’ nearest neighbors. The town council gave him the house as long as he could prove he was taking care of it responsibly. (This was a legal agreement between the council and Hopwood, and it was so serious that his lawyer explained Hopwood would literally be subject to prison if found in violation of the agreement.)

So far the manor’s foundation has been shored up and its roof replaced, the entire building made wind- and water-proof.  When possible the villagers pitched in to help, sweeping up dusty rooms or picking up debris. One local electrician offered his services gratis to make his aged mum proud.  

“I was beginning to get a taste of how the village mentality worked,” Depree writes. 

The reno was a sort of scavenger hunt, too, with a gas mask found under one set of floorboards (likely a leftover from a World War) and a pair of cloth shoes under another (probably placed in the Middle Ages to “ward off witches”). Behind one wall was a “priest hole” (where preachers hid from religious persecution), and inside that an antique chest worth thousands of English pounds. 

While raising funds and managing the project were Depree’s forte as a producer, no one ever asked him to pick up a hammer. Instead the locals teased, “Hopwood, why don’t you make yourself useful and go film a toothpaste commercial!” 

By 2018, the restoration efforts Hopwood Depree led allowed Hopwood Hall to host its first Christmas party since WWI (in a part of the mansion safe enough for guests). Now, the job continues, with as many as 30 workers on-site daily. This summer, Depree will take visitors on tours through the manor’s original medieval doors and into the courtyard, highlighting the Guards Room, Reception Hall, and Family Chapel. 

As for when this labor of love might be finally “done,” Depree can only laugh. “My magic words for that answer is ‘three years.’ But I also said that three years ago!”