Dripping with style
Old water plant is transformed into swish modern home that’s just...
BREEZE around inside this amazing house with more than 5,000 square feet of space – not to mention a cinema room, spa and floorto-ceiling plate-glass windows – and you may be forgiven for thinking you’re in Los Angeles. But one glance outside, over a stunning valley, with sheep safely grazing within the confines of low dry-stone walls, and you’ll realise you’re a lot closer to home… on Yorkshire’s Ilkley Moor, to be exact.
Justin Whitston had had his eye on this old water filtration plant for some time before he bought it in 2010. ‘The water board had sold it to private buyers who had taken it through planning for conversion but hadn’t done anything to it,’ he says. ‘My wife, Laura, and I were looking for our first home. We’ve always been mad about views and the building was in the perfect spot, with a 360-degree sweep over Ilkley Moor, Burley and the Wharfedale valley.
‘I’d started a technology company nearby and the transport links were ideal: Leeds station is 15 minutes by train from the local station a couple of miles away, and the airport just 15 minutes by car.’
The town of Ilkley itself is likened to a miniature Harrogate and lies on the edge of the Dales National Park and Nidderdale’s Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.
When Justin bought it, the property, dating from the early 1900s, was just a small square building of Yorkshire stone with a single, double-height room of 1,000 sq ft. Permission had been granted for conversion to a house of 2,900 sq ft. ‘While we were keen to maintain the integrity of the building, we wanted more living space and something contemporary,’ Justin says.
‘We were afraid the planners would baulk at our very modern designs in the midst of Green Belt land but, in fact, they were all for it. We had really fruitful discussions with them, began a new planning process and had the area increased to 5,000 sq ft.’
Work had already begun underpinning the filter station when a violent storm in September 2011 blew down the original building. Back went the Whitstons to the planning department and 12 weeks later work began again. ‘We reused all the old stone, made an exact replica of the old station – from the front – and, together with our architect, achieved everything we envisioned.’
Crucially for Justin and Laura, that meant taking advantage of the views. ‘The design is based on the idea that wherever you are in the house, there would always be an amazing outlook,’ Justin says.