'For Catherine and Richard Samy and their two
daughters, India and Sky, it's a life of town and country. In the
working week they squeeze into a small flat in central London. But
at weekends and holidays they head up the A12 to suffolk and their
converted barn not far from the coast, where they have all the space
they could ever need. Space to roam the gardens and fields , for
friends and family to come to stay. Space for India, aged five, and
Sky, four, to ride their bicycles around the dramatic glass atrium
at the heart of the barn when it's raining.
'Getting it right was a long time coming for the Samys. Drawn by the charms
of Southwold and Aldeburgh, they began by renting a weekend place
in Suffolk. Only later did they decide to buy somewhere of their
own. After considering building a house from scratch somewhere near
the coast, they soon realised that planning restrictions would make
it difficult or impossible if they wanted a greenfield location.
More than anything, they wanted to create a contemporary space within
the shell of something old. So seven years ago they started hunting
for barns, looking for something they could convert and shape to
their own needs and lifestyle.
'"We'd driven along this road so many times, noticing this huge barn
in the distance across the fields," Catherine explains. "It was
perfect but we assumed it belonged to the house next door to it.
One day Richard went into an estate agents and asked if they had any agricultural
buildings. Two minutes later he ran out waving this piece of paper
and saying, 'You won't believe this.'"
'The triple-height, 16th-century barn had seen better days. The Samys
found a bedraggled-looking building with a rusting corrugated iron
roof, timbers hanging off and trees growing out of it. "I imagine
people took one look and said they wouldn't touch it with a bargepole,"
Catherine says. "But when we went in through the old cart doors and
looked up, it was like this huge upturned ship. It was beautiful."
'Luckily, the listed frame was in good condition. The surveyors also found
that the barn was sitting on solid, Tudor brick footings, suggesting
that a manor house might once have stood on the site. As the barn
had been used mostly for storing crops, there were two giant sets
of doors on either side to let carts pass through as they dropped
off their loads. In Victorian times, one end had been sectioned off
with a timber partition wall and divided into two levels, animals
below and hayloft above.
'The building had outline planning permission for two homes, which would
have destroyed its character. Fortunately, the Samys began working
the architect Geoff Pyle of Pyle Boyd Architects, and his associate,
Ben Kilburn, on a new scheme that would preserve the barn's unity
and character as one large, light, family home.
'"Geoff was a good listener and every meeting was an inspiration because
he would give our thoughts a twist," Richard says. "We envisaged
somewhere that could be full of people but where you could still
find a space to be on your own. It was important that guests could
disappear, read their books and not worry about anyone."
'Given their big financial commitment, the couple made the work a game
of two halves. First they sensitively restored the frame, reclad
the barn in cedar boards and replaced the corrugated iron roof with
thatch. They kept the existing Victorian division at one end and
within it created a large kitchen-dining-room downstairs and a master
bedroom upstairs, with its own mezzanine dressing-room. Making use
of the high ceilings, they installed a semi-open bathroom tucked
below. On the ceiling they incorporated some internal thatch, between
the beams and beneath a layer of insulation, to remind Catherine
of the straw-roofed houses of her childhood in Kenya. On the other
side of the barn partition they created a guest bedroom on the ground
floor and a family sitting-room above, which took them to the central
openings for the old cart doors which were glazed from floor to eaves
on either side to create a dynamic combined atrium, hallway and stairwell.
'The other half of the barn was completed a full six years later, by which
time Pyle was on secondment abroad and the baton was passed to Kilburn,
now with Cullum and Nightingale. They added another guest room and
children's bedroom on the ground floor and a large, dramatic main
sitting-room above, partially open-ended to the glazed central hallway
to maximise light flow. "One of my concerns was whether we could
get enough light through the space without making the windows so
obvious that the barn looked like a normal house," Catherine says.
"But it has ended up as a space that is drenched with light, even
on quite dull days."
'There is a natural balance between private and public space, achieved
by adopting an unconventional but commonsense floor plan. With
a triple-height space in much of the barn, the Samys positioned
most of the bedrooms and bathrooms on the ground floor and put
the main living spaces above to take advantage of the elevated
views of the countryside. Perhaps most importantly, the character
and charm of the old barn remains, the the sense of proportion
and space and in the exposed timber beams.
'"If we were going to use the space to its full drama and enjoy the
benefit of looking out across the fields, the living-room had to
go upstairs," Richard says. "Friends came into the unfinished
empty half and said, "You are going to leave this open, aren't
you? But the roof was so high that the proportions seemed wrong.
And we knew from our bedroom at the other end that once you got to
the first floor the height was very pleasing and you could take
advantage of it without its being too daunting. And to lose out
on those views would have been unforgivable."
'"It's a real contrast to our life in London," Catherine says. "I
don't think we could live in the confined space of the flat all the time.
We'd go loopy. And it's lovely to have people for a weekend. The
only drawback is getting in the car and heading back to London
and metro land."'
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