A chance to design their own home from scratch in their favourite part of London was far too good an opportunity to pass up for Lily Wood and her family
TEXT CAROL BURNS IMAGES PHIL COFFEY
When Lily and Rob Wood began a hunt for a home in need of renovation to make their own, they ended up with a plot of land just a few minutes away from their existing home with an uninhabitable cottage that gave them the chance to design a bespoke family home in Barnes.
“With a growing family, we wanted to upsize without moving out of the area,” says Lily, who is an interior designer. “But the options within Barnes at the time were limited and prohibitively expensive. The sweet but uninhabitable cottage that once stood here was attractive for its detached plot, proximity to the school our children were attending and the potential it presented for us to design our own home.”
But this perfect plot came with many challenges. After seeing the property in 2019, it was another two years before building work began on the site and a further year before they could move in with their three children: sons Joshua and Leo and daughter Marlowe.
“We had a challenging experience with the council, having to deal with frequently changing case officers with varying demands, which meant that the application approval was rather painstaking and certainly lengthy. Once the demolition had been executed, we ran into further delays with party wall agreements, before we would eventually begin the excavation and build in March 2021.”
The frustrating delays in the planning process meant the building reached a critical point at the height of the Covid pandemic. “To be honest, the whole planning process was a very frustrating period whereby avoidable delays, frequent goalpost moving and unreasonable requests cost us, our contractors, architects and neighbours unnecessary money, time and nuisance. Agreeing contracts, sourcing
products and suppliers and managing the programme in the height of the pandemic was also less than ideal.”
The family had previously only undertaken cosmetic changes, such as bathrooms and kitchens in their former homes. But throughout all the delays, work was going on in designing the house, which was conceived by Phil Coffey of Coffey Architects with his cues coming from the original 1930s facade and the unique aspect of the house facing down a garden belt at the rear. “The concept was to remain unassuming and respectful to the architectural precedence of the surrounding houses,” adds Lily, “while delivering an unexpected modern architectural punch upon entry.” Architect Coffey describes
it as an ‘Alice in Wonderland’ feel to entering the house.
Coffey Architects’ brief relied on three key aspects: a distinctive geometry, a palette of earthy materials, and a high level of craftsmanship to complement the clients’ refined taste.
The resulting four storey house incorporates a master suite on the top floor, three further bedrooms and two bathrooms on the first floor and the main living space/kitchen/dining room on the ground floor, with a study, boot room, toilet and butler’s pantry. The lower ground floor features a flexible movie/guest/gym room plus living room, bar, utility, plant room, and toilet. The back of the house looks out onto multi-levelled landscaped gardens.
“I’m inspired by a lot of Australian architecture and interior design. While we have neither the lateral plots or weather here in London, we still had the opportunity with this new build to bring in a sense of expanse and connection to the outdoors as well as play with shape, which I find so energising about modern interiors. We achieved this by working to repeated angles, introducing large format glazing in all directions and carving out double and triple height spaces for ‘wow factor’.”
The house sits in a modest cul de sac of 1930s semis. The family didn’t want to replicate the existing design or create a house that stood out like a sore thumb. “We value modesty and privacy, but we also wanted to take full advantage of the rare opportunity to design a detached new build in London,” adds Lily.
The pre-existing house was a one-off cottage built by the owners of the neighbouring house, who had carved up their plot to build a home for their only daughter. She lived there her entire life before selling to the Wood family in 2019. As a result, the house had a unique standing and style within the street, which was honoured in the new design by Coffey Architects.
The front facade references the original cottage, matching the pitch and the three windows with a simple square face, the design of which blends into the street in scale and design. But the rear of the property takes on a much more modern aspect. Designed at a projecting angle, to draw the eye down the row of gardens beyond, it orients it away from the neighbours on either side. “This introduces plentiful light to the living spaces without compromising our neighbours’ privacy,” says Lily. “Essentially, despite being a new build, the house is the sum of two parts!
“The exterior of the house is not exactly what we had in mind. I flirt between symmetrical and elegant Georgian architecture and modern minimalism in my preferred design aesthetic, so the almost ‘twee’ front with its unusual trio of small windows (a nod to its previous life) and its staggered pentagonal rear, was never on the original vision board!” Lily continues. “That said, it perfectly achieves our design objective of a smart and stylish home that is never fussy and always welcoming.”
As a new home there were plenty of opportunities to incorporate sustainable building techniques and materials, as well as create a healthy home, particularly important as Lily and her younger son have asthma. The house is rendered and very well insulated, runs off air source heat pumps, is fully electric and heated via wet underfloor heating. There is also integrated air conditioning in parts of the house for ultimate comfort.
“The natural clay from Clayworks was the starting point for my design intent for the interiors,” says Lily. “I knew I wanted to treat the house top to bottom, wall to ceiling with the same breathable, ununiform, calming texture and it has not disappointed.”
The house strikes a balance between open plan living and answering the demands of modern family life, offering spaces that vary in openness, privacy, and scale. One of the wow factors comes from the triple-height atrium and forms a central, sculptural stair that connects the lower levels.
The design for the atrium on entering the house meant losing square footage in favour of visual impact. “Not your typical approach to designing a family space in London, but it felt crucial,” says Lily of the decision to sacrifice space for design. “The sense of light and space around you is at the heart of this building’s purpose. This can be appreciated throughout, whereby manipulated levels, extended glazing and generous voids prioritise visual impact.
“The site was a few minutes from where we were living at the time of the build, and round the corner from the children’s school, which meant that I could pop in frequently (much to the builders’ delight). Consequently, I could monitor progress and really appreciate both the milestone moments and the daily attention to detail. The day I came in to see the staircase in all its glory was one to remember!”
Lily describes the interior as a palette of quiet luxury. “I think the house is a true reflection of my design aesthetic and our family’s lifestyle in London. I wanted the house to be a place of calm, beauty and refinement, but in a relatively casual way. You want to feel relaxed in a beautiful space, not overwhelmed with fussy details or overly stimulating colours. The palette and selection of finishes are intentionally restrained, speaking the same volume throughout the house,” she explains.
The use of ecru, black and green is repeated throughout (apart from the movie room, where a plush merlot velvet sectional felt almost compulsory). The neutral and saturated colours across the four floors help to create a sense of sophisticated calm and a consistent identity for the whole house. The strong architectural lines are softened with curved furniture and fabrics such as bouclé, velvet and linen to create a more ‘homely’ vibe.
“The house is fairly open plan but with hidden moments dotted all over,” Lily continues. “This keeps the place light and flexible. For example, a dressing room and a guest bed tucked behind mirrored doors, a gym and extensive storage hidden behind a timber wall in the movie room and the messy kitchen/pantry behind flush cabinetry doors in the main kitchen/dining space.
“The simple exterior of the front with restrained windows provides a sense of modesty while the angular architecture of the exterior mimics that of the interior layout, floorplans, joinery and lighting. It was all conceived as one,” she adds. “The degree of those angles are repeated throughout and all the interior decisions and furnishings have been carefully curated to honour that. Where right degree angles and square walls would have been easier to construct, to utilise storage space and organise furniture, it would have been detrimental to the design intent of this building, so design and honour won over ease and speed!”
The black framed large-scale windows face into a stunning garden planted with jasmine, ferns, hydrangeas and pittosporum and anchored by a mature cherry blossom and Amelanchier trees. “Green was the predetermined backdrop colour to all the living spaces and therefore, the natural choice for the accent furnishings too,” explains Lily.
One of their favourite elements is the simplest. “We introduced planters to the perimeter of the primary bedroom terrace which sits slightly higher than the floor level of the bedroom. The effect of this is not only complete privacy but year-round interest in seasonal planting with their beautiful colours and scents, it’s a joy to wake up to.”
One of the brave choices Lily made was to walk away from their original architect, mostly down to delays in planning. “When we met Phil we were encouraged by his passion and conviction, which is what we felt we needed to make the most of this rare opportunity to design our own home from scratch in London,” she says. “We wanted a comfortable family home that afforded us privacy and practicality for family life but also make a statement from a design perspective and be a hospitable ‘party house’, if you will, for us and our children, for years to come.
“The shape and openness of the house was the original and singular concept of Phil Coffey, we didn’t deviate from that, trusting him to design a striking building with its relationship with light at the crux. The interior architecture conceptualised by Phil and his colleagues was further developed by my interior design. We made a good team!”
So what would Lily and her family advise anyone else looking to undergo such a challenging project? “Spiralling costs and considerable demand for builders and special trades mean embarking on a big renovation or new build project is more than ever a significant commitment of money, time and pressure,” she says. “My biggest advice would be to plan and specify as much as possible in advance, don’t try and run before you can walk! We all want to get the guys onsite ASAP but if you are not prepared by way of budgeting, programme, decisions on layout, specifications, provisions, style etc. then ultimately, you are going to be the one holding things up and paying through the nose for it. You’ll need to make hundreds of decisions under pressure and the better prepared you are, the less stressful and more cost-effective your project will run.”
But her family are clear it was worth all the effort. “The floor to ceiling, wall to wall glazing on the first floor is traced by a bespoke sofa in a forest green velvet. Sitting here feels like you’re sitting in the garden, thanks to the projection of the design, and is my favourite spot for a morning coffee.”