FROM THE MOMENT IT ARRIVED, THE DAN-WOOD HOUSE brief encounter
WENT UP AT LIGHTNING SPEED, INTO THE NIGHT, THANKS TO A HARD-WORKING CREW OF JUST FIVE BUILDERS
The Hadley family’s turn-key home came after years of deliberation, and a chance meeting with a nearby architect Written by Mark Williams.
A chance encounter between self-builders George and Jo Hadley and a neighbour set them on the road to their new home. The couple had been thinking about self-build-
ing since 2002 after their first move from a prop- erty in Waltham Abbey, Hertfordshire. They'd owned their first house for five years before mov- ing on and then wondered if their next move might be to a house they'd designed themselves. “In a financial sense the idea seemed good,”
said George, an accountancy professional. “we liked the idea of designing our own living space.” But just as the seed took root, two minor obstacles stood in their way. The first was a nice surprise; the birth of their
GEORGE, JESSICA & KATIE HADLEY
first daughter Jessica: “So we put the idea on hold,” said George. Their second child, Katie, was born two years later in 2005 and, though the idea was still there, raising their new family rightly took precedence.
By 2007 the couple were planning again,
and trying to decide how much of the site man- agement to do themselves: “The self-build mag- azines had outline guides to build cost and, working within those guidelines, the original idea was for me to manage the build after the timber frame had been erected,” said George. The Hadleys nursed that thought and began searching for a plot. The Newhall project in Harlow, established by landowners Jon and William Moen, was in a perfect position to be within reach of family: “I was prompted to look at the development by an article in The Times in 2008,” said George. “But we discovered that all the self-build plots had been sold.” Luck was on their side though, when in 2009 a corner plot came back on the market. They went to see it. “It looks out across parkland and woods, so
we loved it,” said George. Indeed, this phase of the Newhall Project is planned that way. All the
...continued on page 9 selfbuilder & homemaker
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