Glass houses: light fantastic

By Caroline McGhie Published: 11:24AM GMT 04 March 2010

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Previous of Images Next Inside seeking out: potion walls in Fulvens Hanger The dining area in Fulvens Hanger with floor-to-celing potion walls to give pleasing garde views Highfield House in Cheshire is "sexy and smart" Glamour pad: Seafield House in Mill Hill, north London, has been remade from an old chief fort in to a oppulance home

You could contend that Jessop and Kay Price live in a potion bubble. "We have potion walls all the approach around. It is similar to vital in the garden," Kay says. Their sitting room has undeviating glass, construction to ceiling, and looks out over evergreens, a lawn, pool and a small square of English woodland. Such are the views from their dining-room that it might as well be in a tree-house.

It takes stability to emanate a residence similar to this. Jessop and Kay outlayed scarcely 4 years anticipating the enchanting mark nearby Peaslake in Surrey on that to set up Fulvens Hanger. "We longed for no noise, no light spill," Kay says. "Up came this decayed Twenties residence that had been used at one time by the suffragettes. The grassed area was so overgrown, it would have done majority people run away. But Jessop could see over it."

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On this lifelike Surrey mound, planted with statuesque deciduous and evergreen trees, they longed for to set up a residence that would wed inside with outside. Jessop, a consulting engineer, and Kay, a landscaper, motionless to make use of the Huf Haus system. "All the modules are done in Germany," she says. "You go to an designer with a list of bedrooms and requirements, afterwards he looks at the site, creates certain you have the course right, and orders it up."

As the land falls afar on 3 sides, the residence provides grandstand views. "You come in from the front on the belligerent construction and travel by to find yourself in the living-rooms on the initial construction with views at bend height," Kay says. "The patio outward the dining-room gets afternoon and dusk light and is poetic for dusk meals. The sunrise patio is used by the downstairs bedrooms."

Keen gardeners, they have combined outside bedrooms and planted some-more than 200 new trees. The gardens have been open to open perspective underneath the National Gardens Scheme in May, when the rhododendrons, azaleas and hellebores are out. Giant pebbles, grave box and wild grasses close to the residence fool around well opposite the modernist exterior. Now, after five years, they are offered to move to something smaller, and Knight Frank (01483 565171) is asking �1.95 million for the five-bedroom residence and two-and-a-half acres of gardens. "Wherever we go, it will have to be potion and gardening," Kay says.

So since not follow their example? Why not pitch afar the section walls and open your eyes to the outside? Viewers of Grand Designs might recollect the struggles of Jim and Simone Fairfull as they built their residence called Stilwater at Killearn, nearby Glasgow. It sat in a fairy-tale on all sides on a in isolation loch, dangling the water, with wraparound deck flooring and potion walls opening onto the views. "The potion was the all-important aspect and I fought tooth and spike with the formulation authorities to have it," Jim says.

"We dont have curtains. We live by healthy light. If you live in a place similar to this, it is all about what is around you. It is great for the soul." Jim and Simones room is dangling over the loch and has dual walls of floor-to-ceiling glass.

"What amazes me majority is the night, since you can distortion in bed and see at the moon and the stars. Wow. What a bonus. The series of times Ive seen sharpened stars. We watch lightning storms relocating around the house."

Each living-room has french doors onto the deck, with a floating potion staircase joining the floors. "One sunrise a wild otter came swimming towards me out of the fog, carrying a fish in the mouth, climbed onto the bank and outlayed half-an-hour on the behind eating breakfast."

But the Fairfulls, too, are on the move. Four-year-old Honey, who arrived as they were building, and their dual alternative girls, Holly, 17, and Lucia, 14, need to be closer to town. Savills (0141 222 5875) is selling, with 6 acres, at �1.9 million. But Jim is formulation an additional project. "Glass again, if I can find a site," he says.

Who wouldnt? Developers have cottoned on to the attract of potion and are utilizing it accordingly, generally right afar that it comes in most forms, double- or triple-glazed, strengthened, heat-resistant or even heated. In Cheshires high-value footballer leather leather belt around Prestbury, Danny Gale, of Property Holdings, is only finishing a modernist potion version of a broker mansion. Highfield House has all a Wag would wish - the own sauna with a pool, steam room and sauna, and it bristles with new technology. Jackson-Stops & Staff (01625 540340) is offered at �3.95 million.

"Glass is voluptuous and smart," Danny says. "The walls overlay afar right opposite the behind of the residence so that indoors blends with outdoors. Great place for big parties. Kids on summer days can run in and out of the pool, the kitchen, the grill and around the terrace."

In north Londons beneficial suburb of Mill Hill, potion is the new haute couture. New Yorker Daniel King has paid for a former chief fort and extrinsic potion wherever he can to emanate a residence "awash with light" and "at one with nature". There is an indoor pool in glass, wraparound terrace, indoor-outdoor dining, and a cost tab of �5 million by Savills (020 8447 4400). Seafield House has a booze cellar, media room and library, all rectilinear in the center of the immature belt. "Interest is entrance from footballers and media types," says Simon Edwards, of Savills. Glamour attracts glamour.

AMAZING GLAZING

1 Bifold concertina doors, e-coated and double-glazed, with serious continue seals: foldingslidingdoors.com

2 External shifting potion walls and potion extensions: solarlux.co.uk

3 Architectural and initial potion together with roofs, floors, stairs: cantifix.co.uk

TOP GLASS

1 The greatest plea is assembly formulation regulations for thermal performance. Alan Wright, construction expert for Bidwells, says potion is customarily singular to twenty-five per cent of the construction area of an extension. You can disagree for some-more by mending the thermal opening on alternative elements.

2 Advances in potion record meant it can be used structurally in beams, columns or floors.

3 To revoke feverishness loss, potion can come coated to simulate feverishness inwards or outwards, or in hermetic units of low-emissivity value, double- or triple-glazed with far-reaching cavities, or infilled with dead gas such as argon.

4 It can cost 4 times as most as a standard retard or brick-insulated form wall, says apportion surveyor Kevin Bonfield. About 20sq m of low-e constructional potion will cost rounded off �25,000 and VAT, depending on frames and openings.