Home of the year
The sought-after Home of the Year Award was scooped by Sunley for an "urban-style" town house built in rural Kent, combining "local vernacular" design features and ideas from lofts and riverside homes found in cities.
The Ricard is a three-bedroom house, one of several property types developed by Sunley at Lacuna in King's Hill, a new settlement near West Malling. Once a Ministry of Defence airfield, it is now a 650-acre landscaped estate set around a new golf course.
Externally, there is a touch of New England about the architecture, with its clapperboard facades, and some houses have sun decks. The gardens are relatively small but are well stocked and imaginatively landscaped.
Buyers are fed up with shoe-box executive houses, says Andrew Wibling, Sunley's managing director.
"For this, we researched American house design as well as the best developments in central London."
The Ricard covers 1,230sq ft on three floors with an atrium-type entrance that thows light into all levels of the house. Another American feature is the "upside down" living style, with the bedrooms on the ground floor and the living areas and study on the upper floors to ensure that maximum use is made of light during the day.
Trains into London take about 45 minutes. Houses start at £265,000, apartments from about £195,000. Call Sunley on 01732 840256.
