By NATALIE CORNER for MailOnline
Adventurous pair Harry and Bryony Anscombe moved from London to north Cornwall with their three young children, Alice, Elonie and Rocky, in April 2017, keen to raise their family away from the expensive city.
After purchasing an eight-acre plot incorporating a former dairy farm for £490,000, they told Kevin McCloud in Channel 4’s Grand Designs their plan was to ‘move in by Christmas’ – giving them an ambitious eight-month window within which to complete their ‘sexy surf house’ from scratch.
Their inspiration was a steel and glass surf house inspired by James Speyer’s Ben Rose House, the Illinois modernist classic famously featured in the hit 1986 movie, with Harry admitting it has ‘become a bit of an obsession to honour it’.
Grand Designs host Kevin McCloud (left) with Harry and Bryony Anscombe on the TV show in 2018. The Anscombes moved from London to north Cornwall with their three young children, Alice, Elonie and Rocky, in April 2017, keen to raise their family away from the expensive city
After purchasing an eight-acre plot incorporating a former dairy farm for £490,000, they told Kevin McCloud in Channel 4’s Grand Designs their plan was to ‘move in by Christmas’ – giving them an ambitious eight-month window within which to complete their ‘sexy surf house’ from scratch
But they soon found themselves looking at an extra eight months on top of their projected deadline, having taken several cost-cutting risks and forked out £510,000 on bringing their dream five-bedroom house to life.
The Anscombes finally moved into their property, surrounded by sprawling views of the Cornish countryside, in August 2018.
Harry, a former TV journalist, who has run a small production company in London, and was keen to open a second office in Cornwall and enjoy a similar lifestyle to the one they’d enjoyed during a stint living in California.
Financed by savings and a ninety per cent mortgage on the land, they were left with a £400,000 budget with which to build the house, and planned to keep income coming by renting out the cottage that came with the plot.
Kevin was sceptical of Harry’s desire to recreate the Ferris Bueller house – especially when he learned neither he nor Bryony have ever been to see the house.
The father-of-three took on the role of project manager and employed two local builders and friends of the family.
Financed by savings and a ninety per cent mortgage on the land, they were left with a £400,000 budget with which to build the house, and planned to keep income coming by renting out the cottage that came with the plot. Kevin was sceptical of Harry’s desire to recreate the Ferris Bueller house – especially when he learned neither he nor Bryony have ever been to see the house
But at every crucial stage Harry tested their nerves by taking enormous gambles that had the potential to derail the entire build – but sheer luck sees them through.
After hoping they would be ready to move in by Christmas 2017, it came as a huge shock to the couple that they were still languishing in the tiny cottage at the time.
Desperate to keep things moving at a quicker pace – Harry took his first gamble, by laying the concrete flooring before the structure was weatherproof.
It worried the builders who had a race to get it finished, followed by a tense three-week wait before it set, but the April weather luckily held out.
Harry also encountered an issue with his original plans to use expensive steel to create the structure but somehow managed to shave off £20,000 by using a cheaper alternative.
With the roof still not finished by May 2018, he took another risk by asking his contractor to plaster the bedroom walls when the roof was still unfinished.
‘It’s the totally wrong way around to do it but Harry wants to do it and he is the paying master,’ remarked builder Mark Fuller.
It was another gamble and once again it paid off, however the couple had to rush things along so they could move in as summer arrived.
They had the cottage already booked out for June, and with nowhere but their unfinished home to go they had to camp out inside the bedrooms until everything was completed.
The couple also decided to scrap a large portion of the double-glazed windows set to finish off the cantilever, instead using timber cladding as a money-saving tool.
Instead of plastering and painting the interior, Harry also made a last-minute decision to use MDF cladding instead, again saving thousands.
By August 2018 Kevin returned to see the house, and although he had concerns it should be smaller, he was won over by the completed design.
Harry explained that they surpassed their original £400,000 budget and were somewhere around the £510,000 mark, and with the original cost of the plot at £490,000 their total bill was £1million.
For Kevin though the cost of roughly £1,600psqm represented ‘quite good value’ and although the Spayer inspiration is more of a ‘distant homage’ he was thoroughly impressed.