‘This place would have fallen down if we hadn’t saved it’

Stefan Camenzind and his brother-in-law Rob Broomby rescued a derelict chapel in the Pennines and turned it into a cosy holiday home for themselves and their families

Along with his brotherin-law Rob, Stefan Camenzind stripped out this former Methodist chapel then created an open-plan living area, double-height kitchen, bathroom and bedroom on the ground floor. On a mezzanine level, there are three bedrooms.

late nineties

‘I was holidaying here when I saw the chapel by chance,’ says Stefan. ‘It was for sale and I thought, “Wow, it’s got so much potential”. I asked Rob to consider buying it with me. When I brought him to see it, we got stuck in a snowdrift and had to walk the last bit. There were no windows, holes in the roof and snow inside! We decided to bite the bullet and buy it anyway. We had no particular plans, but just a desire to stop such a beautiful building falling apart. We couldn’t afford to do anything with it right away, anyhow. We just made it watertight by boarding up the windows and patching the roof. If we’d left the place another couple of years, there would have been nothing to save. Over the next 12 years, we just maintained it.’

2010

‘We opened up a dialogue with the local council to find out what we were allowed to do with it. The

“We didn’t want the interior to look slick, shiny and perfect, so the finishes we chose are simple, natural and hard wearing”

planners told us that permission would only be given to turn it into holiday accommodation rather than a full-time permanent residence. The chapel is in the North Pennines Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, so the planners looked carefully at the impact our plans would have on the surrounding landscape. Planning permission was finally granted in 2012.’

2013-2015 ‘There were no services, so we had to go to great lengths and cost to bring in electricity and sewage without impacting on the landscape. We dug a hidden trench about 300m long. We were literally starting from scratch and it takes a lot more money to do this. In terms of the building itself, the planners’ main concern was that its character and identity should be retained, which was also our aim.

‘The exterior stonework was repointed and the roof rebuilt using as many of the original slates as possible. The most important thing was to get the building insulated, though. Fitting insulation between the interior plasterboard and outer stone walls meant losing a bit of space inside, but if you want a cosy building then insulating properly and making it as airtight as possible is the priority.

‘It was difficult to find the right joiner to build the bespoke windows – they needed to be double-glazed, but modern frames are three times