Can we go back to basics?

Do you long for just one light switch? Eleanor Doughty explores the possibility that technology, and other ‘home improvements’, can get out of hand

IMAGINE a house that does almost everything for you. At the (deliberate or accidental) touch of a button, curtains close; lights dim or flick on and off with a swipe across an ipad. The laundry room has two washing machines—one for darks, one for lights—and the kettle boils itself downstairs, so when you clamber out of bed (you’re awake because the automated blackout blinds have risen) and pad down your creak-free steps, you find ready-boiled water, whether you want it or not.

There is now almost no limit to what technology can achieve in the home: make any request and, somewhere, somehow, there is a developer or interior designer able to provide it. However, agents believe that we are turning a corner as to the amount of stuff (control panels, screens, remotes, buttons) that we want littered about. Minimalism is the new trend. Not the whiteroom-and-harsh-angles kind of Minimalism, but the kind in which you simply press a switch and the light turns on—back to basics.

People don’t want to overcomplicate things anymore, attests Simon Ashwell, head of Savills’ Weybridge office (01932 838004). ‘Technology can attract buyers, but programming the house sounds fantastic until something goes wrong and you’ve got to pay £100-plus for the engineer to come out. Besides, only half the household can use it— and it’s normally the children.’

Dean Main, managing director of Rhodium luxury property management, agrees. ‘When heating and cooling are controlled via the same portal as lighting, blinds, door entry and sound systems, it becomes too complex.’

However much tech there is in a house, says Harry Hawkins, director at Flux London, residential-technology specialist, ‘there is no benefit to having an expensive system if a client doesn’t know how to use it’.

As for individual rooms now considered infra dig, the ‘token’ facility is right up there, says Simon Barnes of property-intelligence company H. Barnes & Co (020–7499 3434). ‘Gyms, pools and media rooms that are too small to use are on the must-not-haves list. We see this quite frequently—homeowners install, at great expense, underwhelming facilities that only serve to dissuade prospective buyers because of the cost required to remove everything. Spa facilities are only a bonus when they’re found in properties large enough to accommodate them.’

Mr Ashwell agrees. ‘Media rooms are lovely, but who actually wants to sit in their own house as if they’re in a cinema? It’s the same with gyms—we’ve all got memberships that we never use. Buy a house with a gym in it and you’ll end up never using that too.’

However, some ‘improvements’ are sticking: wine fridges remain desirable—‘the easy side of technology’, says Mr Ashwell. The laundry room is growing in popularity, too. Although the his-and-hers sink in the master suite has become almost de rigueur, now it’s all about separate bathrooms. Those sleeping in the master suites are the ones who have paid for the luxury of the rest of the house, Mr Ashwell points out. ‘The kids have got their playroom and the garden, but mum and dad have to get something, too.’

The crux of it all is that buyers are being sold a modern lifestyle, which, when done right, does have lasting value, even if it takes them a while to start living it.