B
ack in 1996, Jo and Louise Roberts bought a village house just outside Totnes in South Devon, which had previously been used as ensuite guest rooms for a neighbouring health spa. The property became their family home, and over the years, they undertook renovation and building work while raising their two children. This experience was to prove invaluable when they later embarked on a far more ambitious project: building a new home in their garden. Tucked away in an elevated position, and with views stretching west towards Dartmoor, it was the garden’s outlook, in particular, that sparked Jo and Louise’s desire to build a home for their retirement, which would make the most of its setting.
“The old house is sunk down a little on the plot and surrounded by trees, which means it doesn’t enjoy such a great view,” explains Jo, a retired GP. “We’d been advised that we would never be granted planning consent to build in the garden though, even by the planning consultant we employed.” Instead, the couple erected a log cabin style
garden building as overfl ow space for the family, which was later used as a holiday let. “10 years on, when planning laws had been relaxed slightly, we decided to try again to gain planning permission to build a house there,” says Louise, a retired anaesthetist. “Having the log cabin defi nitely helped our case, although it hadn’t been built with this in mind.”
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The couple approached renowned
architectural practice, Roderick James Architects, and invited them to design a detached three bedroom house for their plot. “We live about three miles away from the well known timber frame company, Carpenter Oak, and had paid a visit to their framing yard,” says Jo. “They gave us a tour and put us in touch with our architect, Luke Sutton at Roderick James, who really listened to our ideas.” The couple hoped to replicate the open- plan nature of their small log cabin on the site, while increasing the footprint by around 50%. Maximising the view was a priority, and a large beech tree was to be retained in the garden. Luke produced a design concept sketch,
fl oor plans and a model of the house so that Jo and Louise could fully envisage how it would both look and feel. n the ground fl oor, a spacious living/dining/kitchen, a utility room, WC and boot room are stepped down from the entrance hall, with two bedrooms sharing a bathroom at the other end of the plan. “A one-and-a-half storey arrangement is a fantastic way of extracting the most space from the smallest possible volume, and results in some of my favourite oak frame features,” says architect Luke Sutton. Upstairs, the main bedroom enjoys its own balcony, ensuite, a mezzanine library area and study, with voids left above the hallway, bedrooms and bathroom below creating a sense of spaciousness. “The 200 sqm design needed to nestle in the
EXTERIOR: An exposed green oak frame provides character and warmth to the interiors, while the use of natural external materials, such as local stone and cedar weatherboarding, will allow the house to mellow with age
LOW POINT
Having to pay £4,000 to divert a phone cable – a job which took barely any time to complete.
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