Maidencombe
Devon

SOLD

Architect: Stan Bolt

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This award-winning four-bedroom house designed by the celebrated architect Stan Bolt sits on a magnificent plot of just under 1.5 acres that has sweeping rural views towards Dartmoor on one side and coastal views towards Portland Bill on the other.

The eminent architecture critic Hugh Pearman has described the house as being “as good as any to be found in Britain”. Pearman points out in his article on Bolt published in the Sunday Times that, although Bolt was given “a gift of a site”, he has enhanced it with “architecture of a high order”.

The house is located close to the villages of Maidencombe and Stokeinteignhead, on a quiet rural lane. Although there are residences on either side of it, the property offers a great deal of privacy.

A short driveway leads off the lane to a parking area and a double car port and studio building designed by Bolt. This area is screened by planting from the large, level garden at the front of the house, ensuring that cars cannot be seen from the house. The front garden is largely lawn, with a pathway around it and well-stocked beds that are full of colour in the spring and summer.

The rear garden extends beyond a large decked area at the back of the house into the country valley below. It takes in areas of vegetable plots, herb garden, potting sheds, greenhouses, a treehouse, orchard (including plum and apple trees), chicken run and a pasture that could be used as a pony paddock. The outlook from the rear garden is particularly pleasing, giving fine, far-reaching panoramic views of the rolling Devon countryside.

The house itself is set some way back from the lane and is entered via an impressive pivoting door that leads into a slate-floored hallway. This takes you to a magnificent double-height dining area that is largely glazed on one side, maximising the amazing outlook. A small study area sits to one side of the dining room and the kitchen is located just off it. The kitchen can be screened off with a sliding door or kept open plan with the living area. A utility room and WC are located off the kitchen, both of which are easily accessible from a side door that leads out to the gardens.

The ground floor also incorporates three bedrooms (one of which is currently in use as a home office) and a bathroom. An impressive staircase, with skylight overhead, leads up to the first floor and in to the main living room.

This is perhaps the most attractive of all the spaces in the house, with views of the sea to the front and across the countryside at the rear. There are numerous windows on all sides of the room creating a light and spacious room that also has the benefit of an open fire. One of the most notable architectural features designed by Bolt is the bridge that leads from the living room, over the dining room below it, and to the first floor balcony. This wide balcony is a wonderful place to sit and enjoy the views. The master bedroom suite occupies almost one half of the top floor. It has a recently refurbished shower room as well as a freestanding bath in the bedroom.

The house is largely heated with under-floor heating and powered via solar panels on the roof.

Nearby Stokeinteignhead can be reached by foot on attractive paths and is well-known as one of Devon’s most attractive and lively villages. It has a well-regarded village school, a church, a community-run shop and the Old Church House Inn, a renowned pub. For a wider range of local shops St Marychurch is close by and the larger town of Torquay is 3.5 miles away. Newton Abbot, which has direct rail services to London Paddington, is approximately 6 miles away and the popular town of Totnes is approximately 12 miles.

The area is well known for its natural beauty and outstanding beaches. Attractive villages such as nearby Shaldon offer excellent opportunities for dining, local walks, seaside activities including sailing and fishing as well as horse-riding and other pursuits.

 

Please note that all areas, measurements and distances given in these particulars are approximate and rounded. The text, photographs and floor plans are for general guidance only. The Modern House has not tested any services, appliances or specific fittings — prospective purchasers are advised to inspect the property themselves. All fixtures, fittings and furniture not specifically itemised within these particulars are deemed removable by the vendor.


History

Extract from Hugh Pearman article:

“Well away from the often febrile architectural scene of London – indeed, well away from any big city of any kind – [Stan Bolt] is quietly assembling a portfolio of imaginatively designed modern houses that are as good as any to be found in Britain. His four-person office in the fishing port of Brixham is working flat-out on around 20 commissions at the moment. Many are, as always in this kind of work, extensions and conversions. But an increasing number are complete one-off houses. And these are very good indeed.

It has been a bit of a struggle to get to this point. After working for several years for one of the best domestic architects of his generation, Oxfordshire-based Peter Aldington, Bolt was faced with a choice. “I could have gone on into one of the big London practices – Foster or Rogers or whoever,” he says. “But I didn’t want to be an anonymous part of a big machine.” He made the Quixotic decision not only to strike out on his own, but to avoid the capital altogether and return to his Devon roots. It was the early 1990s and there was not a lot of work to be had. So he did what architects do: a bit of teaching, the low-budget conversion of an old building into his own home, and – gradually – the work began to come in.

Bolt started to be noticed with local and national architecture awards but his big break came in 2000 with the completion of the accomplished O’Sullivan house, built right on the sea wall of Salcombe – it’s a magical place poised over the waves, bathed in reflected light. The house got a lot of publicity and Bolt has been busy pretty much ever since…

The completed house I have come to see… set high on a ridge near Torquay, has stupendous views to the sea one way, and to Dartmoor the other. In between the two, it commands a lush valley and has a long, long garden swooping down the hill into it….

[The] house has presence. We arrive in late afternoon and the low sun is shining right through the first floor of the house, silhouetting it dramatically against the skyline. A garage is set to one side by the gateway, which is some way from the house itself, separated by a long front garden. So you don’t get that thing of cars cluttering up the front of the house. On the contrary, to get to the front door you have to cross a large moat-like pond. The composition stands proud: white-painted ground floor, projecting timber-clad first floor, divided vertically by a rounded staircase tower.

The layout is very logical. Bedrooms are private – the main upstairs one having strategically-placed windows which look straight out into the sculptural boughs of trees front and back – and only the upper and lower living spaces overlook each other, which is what you need to keep a conversation going. Heating comes from beneath the ash -wood floors. There’s a back door which has a herb garden outside and which leads directly into a utility room, thence to the kitchen. So it’s a very practical house. But the way Bolt has intersected the living spaces inside, and shuffled the cubic volumes of the house outside to break down its bulk and make it dynamic, is architecture of a high order.

He certainly had a gift of a site, as his clients are well aware. It is an enormous plot of land, a broad ribbon that runs over the top of the ridge and a good way down the other side, with the house at the crest. So not only do they have great views, not only are they handy for the Devon beaches a few miles away, but they have their own domain – complete with a couple of pampered sheep in a paddock and a garden that descends in broad steps into the valley. “

 

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