Retreat with rural charm
PURPOSE-BUILT holiday home sites could be the answer to second home owners pushing property prices beyond local people’s reach and turning pretty villages or seaside resorts into out-of-season ghost towns. It’s certainly a more sustainable solution to the issue but even these developments need careful planning and environmental guidelines to avoid spoiling beauty spots.
Holiday home developers Habitat First Group hopes to be helping to solve the conundrum with its developments Silverlake, which it is building in Dorset, and Lower Mill Estate, which is in Gloucestershire’s CotswoldWater Park.The Lower Mill Estate “residential nature reserve” was built in the early 2000s with eco-homes and a focus on caring for the site’s wildlife.
This, and back-to-nature activities such as canoeing, fishing, cycling and walking, were used as a blueprint for Silverlake, where work began in 2013 to build holiday homes around lakes created by sand and gravel extraction.
The site was also home to the SecondWorldWar’s Warmwell Airfield, from 1937 to 1946, with the runway under what will be phase five of the development, Shepherd’s View.
Phase one, Beaumont Village, was completed a few years ago with the subsequentWakeling and Overton Islands sold off-plan and nearly completed.All the plots on phase four, Baxter’s Rise, have been sold and only half remain on Shepherd’s View, although a sixth and final phase is still to go on sale.
“We reserve and sell a plot first and each plot comes with pre-ordained planning permission,” explains HFG sales manager Chris Knight.
This means the plot on sale can only have the house design for which it has planning permission. “It’s so that when you put properties next to each other they sit nicely together and there are views,” says Chris, although he adds: “There are elements we can look at to customise it for clients.”
The designs range from three and four-bedroom brick or limestone houses to timber-clad, barn-style and avant-garde cubic designs – all with lots of windows or roof lights.
Each house style is architect-designed and future-proofed with air source heat pumps, underfloor heating and fibre optic wifi cable, with a choice of kitchen, bathrooms and flooring options.
“During the build period of 16 to 20 months, the client will have meetings with the builders and bespoking manageress about the choices they want so the house ends up unique,” says Chris.
Owners can swim, canoe or paddle board in some of the lakes; walk or cycle along its numerous woodland paths and use the fishing lake.
There are several woodland play areas and a zip wire, a tennis court, all-weather sports pitch and heated outdoor pool at the spa, which serves drinks and food from the roof terrace bar.There’s also an outdoor pizza oven for takeaways or eating in the adjacent yurt, which has board games and sofas around a woodburning stove.
Coming soon will be a second “much more substantial” alfresco spa with indoor and outdoor pools, a waterside restaurant, lakeside treatment cabanas and pods, as well as a thermal garden with sauna, hot tubs and firepits.
“It will very much put Silverlake on the map as a high-end spa resort,” says Chris – something that will appeal to owners who rent out their properties through Habitat Escapes, the company’s rental arm.
As for prices, new-build properties are available from £625,000 to £1.5million for the plot and build (silverlakedorset.com), with lower stamp duty because it’s charged on the plot not the house.
You’re also buying into a community of likeminded people in what Chris describes as “Grand Design-style properties”. He adds: “It’s very exciting.We have built up a lovely community and it’s nice to see that they genuinely get on.”