A barn with a twist
Couple bring a dash of Gaudi’s sinuous style – to the wilds of West Wales
IF THE famous Catalan architect Antoni Gaudi were still alive, he might design a house like Heddfan, set in glorious countryside near Cardigan Bay in Wales. But the unique barn conversation is actually the work of Nick and Sally Makepeace – a husband-and-wife team of bespoke cabinet-makers.
The Makepeaces bought the old barn 17 years ago for £75,000 and spent five painstaking years transforming it into the remarkable property it is today, full of artistic flourishes and sinuously elegant lines.
‘It had been on the market for two years. Nobody wanted to touch it because there was so much work to do,’ says Nick.
‘We’ve done a lot of the work ourselves but we spent about £300,000. It’s impossible to say how much the renovations would have cost had we not had the expertise of bespoke cabinet-making.’
Sally says that the couple’s task was made easier because they know a lot of people who are artists, and they were able to help them out.
‘When we were designing the house I said what I wanted was a mixture of an upturned boat and a church. We weren’t thinking about increasing the value – we were thinking about the aesthetics. We live and breathe aesthetics in the design world and we wanted to do something different.’
Nick says that if the couple were influenced by Gaudi – famous for his distinctive modernist creations in Barcelona – it was subconscious. ‘It was just sort of playing around with shapes,’ he explains, summing up the ultimate look as ‘a bit like Easter Island meets Gaudi’.
One of the main features of the house, now on the market for £795,000 with Fine & Country, is the atrium, with its mezzanine level.
This was something they wanted to achieve from the moment they laid eyes on the property. ‘The first thing we thought when we saw it was “take the middle out and let the light in”,’ says Nick.
Another striking element is a stained-glass window that Sally hand-painted, which creates a kaleidoscopic effect inside the property when the sun sets.
When the Makepeaces bought it, Heddfan (which means ‘peaceful place’) consisted of a granary and a hay loft. The property now has five bedrooms and the main house sits in four acres, which incorporate two ponds, an orchard, paddock and beautifully landscaped gardens in which the Mediterranean is brought to Wales in the shape of palms, lavender, rosemary and an olive tree. It’s no wonder the National Gardening Scheme has used t the house to raise money o over the years, and the M Makepeaces are delighted for it to do so.
There is also a greenhouse at the site, and the Makepeaces – who moved into the house three years after work on it started – say the garden has its own microclimate due to its position. Indoors, the property’s interior plants have a drainage and watering system.
The house is located in the beautiful hamlet of Llwyndafydd, which has just eight homes and used to be a farm estate. The building craze seems to be catching because since the Makepeaces moved in, the neighbours have gradually upgraded their properties.
‘We’re very lucky we have a great community here,’ he says, with Sally adding: ‘If you go away, the neighbours will feed your cat and generally we all look out for each other.’
HEDDFAN also boasts an adjacent self-catering cottage which the couple have profited from. ‘We normally do the holiday let for six months of the year,’ says Nick. It is available by separate negotiation for £169,950, but contained within Heddfan’s price is a workshop that has planning permission to be turned into a three-bedroom cottage.
The property is a ten-minute walk from Cardigan Bay, which is a marine conservation area and boasts Britain’s largest dolphin pod.
Nick and Sally each have two children from previous relationships and the Makepeaces have often used their spacious home for family gatherings. ‘We’ve had both of our girls’ wedding receptions here so it can be used as a wedding venue – we had well over 200 people,’ Nick says. ‘And we’ve had some very happy times with our cherished grandchildren, who love to throw balloons from the balconies, and they love lying on the jetty of the pond so they can see the fish and frogs.’
The couple are leaving to be nearer two of their children but they are planning another buildi ing venture.
‘We’ve found a piece of land near where the children live,’ Sally says. ‘We are excited to get our teeth into a new project.’
fineandcountry.com