CASE STUDY
FOLLOWING A LEARNING CURVE
Despite the tricky construction challenges presented by a crescent-shaped architectural design, a determined couple have succeeded in creating their dream ‘forever’ home in the countryside
TEXT JESS UNWIN IMAGES JOHN NACCARATO LOW POINT
“If I had to pick one thing it would be that to be onsite during the build I was driving down from our old house in Hertfordshire and staying in an Airbnb during the week, then going home at weekends. Although absolutely necessary, that was hard for me – but it also meant that Debra had to manage all the family responsibilities without me there.”
J
ohn and Debra Naccarato’s decision to embrace a striking and unique architectural design certainly threw some ‘curve balls’ their way during the journey to make their self- build dream a reality. Today, curves instead of straight lines and right angles are at the heart of the spectacular crescentshaped layout and climbing roofline of the couple’s now complete award-winning home, The Pump House, in the South Downs National Park. Yet those same curves presented plenty of headaches during construction, repeatedly pushing former solicitor John and his building team to come up with innovative solutions to quite literally bend a range of different materials to his will.
The couple’s self-build story began in 2016 when they spent £400,000 on land that had once been the site of a water authority pumping station. “Plans had already been drawn up when we bought the plot,” says John, “and because of planning requirements it would’ve been
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virtually impossible to start from scratch, so we had to be happy with what we saw”. He adds: “We have made some small tweaks to those original plans, but we’ve always thought it was a beautiful design, so what you see now is pretty much what we saw in plan form then.” With experience gained in refurbishing other
properties, John and Debra had decided some time before 2016 that building their own house was the next logical step and was, says John, “the best way of getting a house that could be our forever home with everything we wanted”. However, John admits: “I’d never built a house before and I felt there was an awful lot I needed to learn, so I retired from my job as a solicitor and between 2016 and 2019 I basically researched how to build a house and meet all the planning requirements. You could say I almost did a degree in housebuilding. Google became my best friend!”
When building work got underway, John
threw himself into project management: “There was a lot of problem-solving onsite and that’s
HIGH POINT
“Going back to the beginning, when we found the plot where our new home now stands, we fell in love with it, so we were delighted when our offer to buy it was ultimately accepted. Fast-forward to the day when we were able to move in at long last, that’s an obvious favourite mo- ment too. However, I still get a sense of achieve- ment every day that after years of this site being something of an eyesore it’s now something that I think is truly beautiful and which sits so well in the landscape.”
nov/dec 2024
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