On a leafy plot, this house enables one outdoorsy family to embrace the natural setting all around them
WORDS ALICE WESTGATE PHOTOGRAPHY ANDY HASLAM
GARDEN
After renovating a 1960s bungalow in the North Lincolnshire countryside, Danny Fenwick and his three children found themselves spending more and more time in its two-acre garden, making tree swings, lounging in hammocks and fishing in the pond. It wasn’t long before he decided to sell the bungalow and a small section of garden, earmarking the rest of his land – 1.5 acres including the pond – as a building plot for a house that would capture the essence of their back-to-nature lifestyle.
‘The garden is a little oasis, and it was always in the back of my mind to try to develop it,’ says Danny. ‘But I thought it would be difficult to get planning consent because it is in open countryside, outside the local development zone.’
In February 2020, Danny, 45, who is deputy principal of a further education college, asked architect Kate Kelly to draw up plans. ‘Danny wanted something modest and low-key that was sensitive to the trees, the water and the view,’ she says. Her design includes an open-plan ground-floor living space leading to a deck that cantilevers over the pond, which the bungalow’s previous owner created by channelling water from a nearby stream. Danny’s bedroom on the floor above is linked by a bridge to three bedroom pods on stilts, which look like contemporary treehouses, for his children – Kacy, 20, Grace, 11, and Lucas, 10 – who live with him part-time.
‘We had a very positive case officer who suggested we took the Paragraph 79 route,’ says Kate. This planning policy, more recently called Paragraph 80, supports unique new-builds in rural areas that are of exceptional design quality. ‘The process was relatively straightforward, and the planning committee approved the design unanimously,’ she adds.
In December 2021, Danny made a £200,000 profit on the sale of his bungalow and took out a self-build mortgage to cover the rest of the funding for the project.
He bought a static caravan to stay in during the build, but ended up moving in with his mum five miles away from the site as her home had more space for the children. Even so, it was cramped and stressful. ‘It was tough living out of a suitcase with my life on hold,’ Danny says. The construction team broke ground in January 2022, with project manager Mike Hill i
