The name of Thomas MacLaren will probably be unfamiliar to most, if not all, of the readers of this short article, but if you are an inhabitant of Colorado Springs in the USA he will be much better known to you. Born near Callander in Scotland in 1863 he trained as an architect in Edinburgh before moving to London in 1880 and travelling in Europe to further his studies. From 1886 he worked for several architectural practices including that of his brother James. In 1889 he set up on his own in offices in Westminster where his first commission was to design a pair of cottages for The Grange estate belonging to Mr T. H. W. Buckley of Crawley Down. Mr Buckley had inherited The Grange in 1875 on the death of his uncle Richard, but in 1882 had let the house to the Reverend Arthur Meyrick for a school, and had moved with his family to West Hoathly. Continuing as owner of Grange Farm and its land, the cottages Buckley had MacLaren design were for farm workers, adding to an earlier pair of cottages which together with the farmhouse had been built by his uncle.
Evidently Buckley wanted to return to Crawley Down so following the completion of the cottages he asked MacLaren to design him a house on some land he had owned in Sandy Lane. The result was Oaklawn. MacLaren and his brother had both trained as architects at a time when the Arts and Crafts movement was a strong influence, drawing inspiration from natural forms and locally-sourced materials. The famous Glasgow architect, Charles Rennie Mackintosh, was influenced by the work of James MacLaren. So Oaklawn was inevitably going to reflect the Arts and Crafts ethos. Making use of brick and hung tiles, so typical of houses in the Sussex Weald, it has many features seen on buildings inspired by William Morris’s influence, by architects like Philip Webb, who designed Standen, and later by Edwin Lutyens. According to Kelly’s Directory, the Buckleys were in residence there by 1890, but they had moved back to The Grange nine years later. Nowadays the house is called Heatherwood and is divided into two separate dwellings, and (rather confusingly) the house next door is called Oaklawn instead.
Thomas MacLaren also designed a new vicarage at Horne, just over the border in Surrey, but despite only being in his late 20s his health was failing. His brother James had died that year of tuberculosis aged only 37. So after a final commission for some houses in Scotland, Thomas left for the clean air of Switzerland. In 1893 he moved to take advantage of the mountain air of Colorado, where he set up an architectural practice in Colorado Springs, over the next 35 years designing many important municipal buildings and houses there. He died there in 1928.