In search of a cosy retreat, an artist and her husband took on a dilapidated building being used as a boathouse and, with the help of local artisans, transformed it into a magical spot that references its idyllic estuary location
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Miranda Gardiner and her husband Diggory, who have three children
A one-bedroom summerhouse on the Kingsbridge Estuary in Devon
it is a truism that three things sell a property: location, location, location. And if you’re lucky enough to find a spot that hunkers down in a planting of evergreen oaks and sits above a sandy estuary with lovely views whatever the weather, then, frankly, you’ve ticked that box. These were certainly Miranda Gardiner’s thoughts when she discovered the ruins of an old summerhouse on the Kingsbridge Estuary in the South Hams area of Devon.
Miranda, her husband Diggory and their three children had just completed a trip abroad and had moved back home to Bigbury-on-Sea. Unsettled and still musing on the concept of the simple beach cabin known as a bach (pronounced ‘batch’), owned by many of the New Zealanders they met while visiting the country, Miranda began idly browsing online. She was delighted to discover the summerhouse for sale. With creative thinking and the right amount of money to rebuild, this, she reasoned, could become her very own bach.
‘When we first visited,’ remembers Miranda, ‘it was being used to store a beautiful Salcombe yawl – atraditional sailing boat particular to the area.’ She and Diggory decided to sell up, move to a Devon longhouse in the Avon valley and use the remaining funds to convert the run-down summerhouse. The setting and the presence of the yawl decided the design: they briefed their architects to give the new building the look of a boathouse. The yawl went to a new home nearby and work began.
