THE HOME WE MADE BETTER

An apartment with stunning views

Inspired by its stunning coastal setting, the owners of this beautiful North Yorkshire apartment have created an award-winning home and kept a community doctor’s surgery alive

THE REFURB

Moya enlisted the help of Ric Blenkharn from Bramhall Blenkharn (brable.com). ‘He acted on everything we told him, so that the building reflected us and our love of the sea,’ she says. The semicircular building has a surgery on the lower level with the couple’s duplex apartment above. The steel-framed property, clad in concrete blocks and faced with stone, took 18 months to construct and won the LABC Building Excellence Award for the best new house in Yorkshire.

AHEAD OF THE CURVE

For architect Ric, inspiration came from the setting and view of the North Sea. ‘It was conceived almost as a sea fort, with deeply recessed windows that give the impression of the window openings being carved out of a chunk of stone,’ he says. Moya, an amateur potter, who often collects pieces of glass washed up on the beach as inspiration for her work, especially loves the building in the summer when she slides open the huge windows and listens to the sounds of people on the sand below.

COME TO THE LIGHT

A full-height window at the end of the hall allows you to see the sea. ‘To look out and see the six or seven shades of blue/green is really calming, even when the water is wild. It takes your breath away,’ says Moya. This level contains bedrooms and a study, and displays art by the couple’s daughter. A linear roof light illuminates the paintings on one wall.