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europsychologists Lizzy and Rupert Atkins had been living and working in New Zealand before they decided it was time to move back to the UK. Rupert was originally from North Devon and they were keen to live somewhere near the coast. In 2005 Rupert was offered a job in Plymouth, and so the couple relocated.
They rented for a year until a house came up for sale in an area they liked called Mannamead. Mannamead is known for its grand Victorian villas but Rupert and Lizzy wanted something more modern. In 2006 they bought a three-bed, 1930s semi-detached property. Their two sons were born there and the house became the family home for almost 10 years. The house was within walking distance of the boys’ school and the couple’s friends lived nearby. Rupert and Lizzy love to entertain and the house was often full. Despite converting the roof into a fourth bedroom, it was downstairs where the family needed more space.
They were faced with a dilemma: “Round here if you want to move to a bigger property you only have two choices,” explains Rupert. “Either a huge, six bed Victorian house but with a small living area, or the 1930s style which we were already living in.”
Land didn’t come up for sale very often, and so when a large plot came on the market just around the corner from their home, Lizzy and Rupert went to take a look. The house was unusual in that it was a detached, 1980s self- build that had been designed by a local roofer. It was very spacious with four bedrooms, a drive and separate garage. The house itself needed a lot of work: “Inside it was a total disaster,” says Rupert. As well as having to install a new kitchen, bathrooms, electrics, and plumbing,
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there were lots of outdated features including a huge, 80s-style, inglenook chimney which extended up through the entire house. “We thought we would probably have to knock the whole thing down and start from scratch,” says Lizzy.
The house attracted a lot of interest from other homeowners in the area but most people, including Rupert and Lizzy, were put off by the amount of work that needed doing. The house was still on the market a year later – in 2014. The couple were having dinner with friends who had expressed an interest in the house, and drew up sketches of what it could look like. Rupert and Lizzy began to see its potential. As luck would have it, their friends bought a different property and were out of the running. Rupert got in touch with a friend at Bailey Partnership, a construction consultancy in Plymouth that specialises in larger, commercial properties. They sent a junior architect to look at the house. “Our project was relatively small fry for them, but I think they liked it,” says Lizzy.
When the couple saw the architects’ drawings, they were sold: “It was beautiful,” says Rupert. “The biggest risk was that we spent a lot of money but still ended up with an ugly house.” The architect had come up with a design featuring an extension to the left of the house, a new roof and more proportionally-sized bedrooms upstairs.
Rupert and Lizzy made an offer in January 2015 which was accepted, and surveys were carried out the following month. Things then went relatively smoothly; there was only one stipulation in the planning permission, which was that the building’s roofline couldn’t be raised. Two large trees at the front and back of the house were protected, however one of these, an
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“Living round the corner from the house meant we would often pop round after work to check on progress – it became really depressing walking around a derelict space in the dark thinking ‘what am I doing?’ – we stopped visiting so often after a while!” – Rupert
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