CLIENT: Peter & Christine Benjamin, The Garden House, Exeter
Christine Benjamin and her husband Peter currently live in an Edwardian manor house called Medland Manor. Both in their 60s, the manor is getting to be too large for them, so they decided to build themselves something smaller.
Despite the manor’s traditional style, Peter and Christine felt strongly that their new building should embrace modern design whilst remaining sensitive to its site. So they came up with a house that is part traditional timber frame cottage, part modern glass pavilion.
The new house has been built within the grounds of their current manor house in a beautiful one-acre walled garden. Unusually, it’s split into two halves – one on each side of the garden wall. The half outside the garden wall is a Victorian coach house that has become the entrance to the new house whilst the other half, inside the walled garden, is a modern glass pavilion. The privacy of the walled garden has allowed Peter and Christine to plan a house made almost entirely of glass. It’s a nod to both Modernist glass pavilion houses designed by Mies van Der Rohe and Philip Johnson, and Victorian greenhouses found in walled gardens.
“…despite all the changes Peter and Christine have made, I do think this is a beautiful house…”
Kevin McCloud Channel 4 Grand Designs (Featured suppliers: Amos Lighting)
Courtesy Channel 4 Grand Designs
