KEYS TO KNOW
An ambitious project has revamped a spectacular West End property, discovers Kirsty Mcluckie
No 1 Rothesay Mews in the West End of Edinburgh has undergone a radical makeover in the last few years.
Philip Robertson bought the first-floor three-bedroomed flat in 2007, but it wasn’t until five years later that the downstairs apartment came on to the market. He snapped it up and set about combining the two into a spacious house.
He says: “I bought the flat with my ex-wife but we moved out shortly afterwards and it was let for a few years.
“When the flat below came up for sale, it was a somewhat dingy two-bedroomed place, but I could see there was potential for making something much better of the whole.”
Philip sketched out an initial design and took it to Erdal Architects who took it through the planning process.
He says: “The goal was always to create a pool of light flooding down through the house, but as such we had to do some radical thinking. At one point in the project the roof came off and you could see all the way down to the basement through the house.”
A huge amount of glass and steel was put in with 12 skylights, the largest of which is 25sq metres.
Philip says: “It took that amount to make sure light gets right the way through the building and we wanted the living space to be largely open plan. As such, we needed to put in a commercial standard fire retardant system, with sprinklers.”
Because the building is on a two-way hill, they were able to clear out six feet at basement level and create more space.
The basement room is wired for conversion to a home cinema, but it’s currently used as a woodworking room for Philip’s hobby. He makes furniture in his spare time and examples can be seen throughout the house.
The ground floor of the house has three bedrooms, a bathroom and utility room. One of the bedrooms is used as a gym and has sliding doors opening up one wall to the hallway.
Upstairs, at first-floor level is the master bedroom with ensuite, a sitting room and the spacious open-plan living and dining kitchen.
The room has a double-height ceiling and a bank of skylight windows plus a cupola.
The kitchen is bespoke and was designed by Sculleries of Stockbridge with integrated Gaggenau appliances including an oven, steam oven, warming draw, gas hob, grill, fridge/freezer, a boiler tap, a Miele dishwasher and a stunning leathered granite worktop and splashback.
Philip says: “Everything in the house is brand new. We really did strip it back to its bare bones.”
Having said that, during the work they found the remains of period features behind the walls, which were retained where possible and the builders used some of the stone from the original hearths.
Philip worked on the interiors with his fiancée, Claudia Brak, and the top floor office is her domain.
He says: “Claudia works remotely for a Us-based company, so needed her own office upstairs.”
The room with its sharp ceiling line benefits from a huge window to one side and there is also a boiler room on this floor.
Philip’s original design for the house has been remarkably successful, with light penetratingeveryfloor,despitethe exterior remaining traditional.
He says: “Of the buildings in the street about 50 per cent have been converted to commercial use but I think this is only one of two whole houses. It is a unique proposition.”
He says the years he owned the property before embarking on the project gave him time to decide how to make the best of the traditional home.
In that time he spent 11 months as a watch leader on a boat taking part in a round the world clipper race, which gave him plenty more thinking space to dream up solutions for the best use of the house.
Philip and Claudia moved in on completion of the project in the summer of 2015 and have had two years to really enjoy all their hard work.
Claudia has now been offered a job move to the Bay Area of San Francisco, so they are embarking on another adventure.
Philip says: “Having put so much into this house we shall be sorry to leave. I doubt we’ll live in anything quite like it again.” No 1, Rothesay Mews is a four-bedroom end terrace. Accommodation over three floors plus a basement workshop. A Fibaro system controls lighting, heating and windows and there is a Sonos music system.