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The Househunter: room by room

Off to Beaconsfield and we’re going modernist this week with this four bedroom Grade II listed house that was built in 1934 and is on the market with The Modern House for £1,999,500 – really who sets these prices – does it make that much difference psychologically that it doesn’t start with a 2? It’s the principle of buying something for £1.99  and feeling that you got a bargain because it was under £2. Except I think we’re all wise to that one now aren’t we?

Anyway, this has been described as a mix of International Modern and Mediterranean  – not a lot of that in Beaconsfield so if that’s the niche you’ve been looking for better get in quick. For those of us who have no clue what that actually means – defined by the Getty Research Institute as a style of architecture that emerged in France, Holland and Germany after WWI and spread throughout the world becoming dominant until the 1970s.

It is characterised by an emphasis on “volume over mass, lightweight, mass-produced materials, rejection of ornament and colour, and the use of flat surfaces with lots of glass” which explains why this one has been listed as a good example of its type.

Be that as it may, it’s all about this extension for me. This is where I will be mostly sitting when I own this, but you can all choose from a study, a tv room, a dining room and a kitchen/breakfast room.

Upstairs the master bedroom has a walk-in wardrobe and a shower room with a glass ceiling and a free-standing bath in front of the window. Click the links if you want to see more, I can’t bring myself to move from this sofa which, by the way, will not have these karate chop cushions when I get the keys.

Staying with the modern but this time it’s a bungalow…. hang on…. it’s not just any bungalow. Come inside and see. It’s in Portbury, outside Bristol, and is for sale with Savills (via on the market) for £1,075,000.

So you walk along this hall with its curved ceiling and come to the sunken sitting room which is so 70s – despite being built in 1991 – that it feels totally right for now. Although I might be tempted to paint out the white for something a little more cosy – especially in Winter.

Go past the book-lined study area, which is next to the octagonal dining room, by the way. And there are three bedrooms in total.

This is one of them – the master – which leads to a walk-through wardrobe at back right of the bedroom and from there to an ensuite. But the main thing is that this house was built in a U-shape so that every single room…

… looks out onto this? Ta Dah! Whaddyafink? Shall I tell you what I think? That’s rhetorical question by the way. I think this would be amazing for the six week summer (school) holiday. Possibly even for a week or two at Easter but I’m  just not sure how this is going to look in the light grey drizzle of November. However, if you could pick it up and take it to Malibu then I’m in. In the meantime I would have masses and masses of plants all around the edges of the pool so that it looked lush and green even in bad weather.

One more? For a change of pace let’s have a wander round this 16th century manor house near Guildford in Surrey. It’s on with Savills for £1,875,000 and has six bedrooms, four receptions as well as a tennis court and a swimming pool – but a more discreet one.

It’s yer classic country cottage innit. Even with the wisteria growing up the back and the slightly wonky roofline. Inside it’s all panelling and beams and original features. It’s the sort of house Richard Curtis would film in if he were making the country equivalent of Notting Hill.

Basically lived in by some hapless English chap who has no visible means of financial support but who floats around in the local bookshop a couple of afternoons a week seemingly oblivious to the fact that his house cost nearly two million quid and he needs to find an American heiress to bail him out sharpish. Only they’re mostly still in Notting Hill because they didn’t get the memo about moving to the country.

She’ll like this bedroom when she does find it though – it’s large and well proportioned by English cottage standards, although when she has a row with him – which she will inevitably do for reasons of story arc and plot – she will chuck him out into this room below where he will bang his head ceaselessly finally knocking some sense into it and realising he needs to get a proper salary-paying job. Only it’s Richard Curtis so he won’t.

So where are you moving to this week then? I’m going to Beaconsfield although I might spend the odd weekend in Guildford being an American heiress. What about you?

 

 

Kate Watson-Smyth

The author Kate Watson-Smyth

I’m a journalist who writes about interiors mainly for The Financial Times but I have also written regularly for The Independent and The Daily Mail. My house has been in Living Etc, HeartHome and featured in The Wall Street Journal & Corriere della Sera. I also run an interior styling consultancy Mad About Your House. Welcome to my Mad House.

9 Comments

  1. Today I’ll have the International Moditerranean (as I feel it should be called), please.

  2. I also did not like the cottage, but on the other hand, the 80s might just be knocking on the door. And within a couple of years we are allover saunawood panelled rooms from top to floor dressed in muddy greens and yellows with mountain feel.

  3. Absolutely love all three. Good contrast – if I had to choose, maybe the bungalow as I love what they have done with the pool, which looks lovely lit up, even on a dismal wintry evening! But the glass extension……and those wooden beams…

  4. I love house number one, from a romantic perspective. However, the practical part of my brain immediately thinks, lots of maintenance, grade 2 listed, and single glazed (if rather lovely) windows!

  5. love your mailings, but being less well off, would love to see you occasionally admiring, and / or making suggestions for (considerably) smaller houses, for those of us with lower budgets!!!!

    1. Yes I know what you mean. The problem is finding houses that look good inside and out – it’s more for that than actually for people to buy. I do keep an eye out but it takes a huge amount of time sifting through all the websites to find even these three but I will try and see what I can find….

  6. Honestly, the second house reminds me of much of what was wrong with 1980s postmodernist architecture. It’s a mishmash of disjointed ideas, with some arches and archaic flourishes mixed in with too much glass that will veer between swelteringly hot or grey and rain streaked. Me no like.

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