Something Old, Something New: Brilliant Conversions to New Homes

New homes these days come in a huge variety of shapes and sizes. As with every sector in property, architectural styles are constantly developing in housing. Some people love to be in the zeitgeist with the latest design and construction trends, while many home types offered by housebuilders today are very much influenced by tradition but with a modern twist. 

However, nothing is quite the same as the real thing, and there are some special projects taking a genuine period building and exchanging their old purpose for a high-quality and characterful place to live. This combines restoring the original glory of architecture and features and complementing them with contemporary interiors and specification that homebuyers now expect. 

Carriage Court in Hertford, from Go Homes, comprises 13 two- to four-bedroom houses situated on the site of the coachworks and showrooms of local brewery, Henry McMullen. One of the homes is a conversion of a Georgian building into a two-/three-bedroom house. On the ground floor are two bedrooms, one with an en suite, along with a bathroom. Upstairs has an open-plan layout of kitchen/dining living room and an area that could act as home office or a third bedroom. There’s also a spacious private outdoor deck. This property is priced £525,000. The rest of the development has brand new villas and mews houses which have been built in Georgian style to capture the heritage of the site. 

Carriage Court

Quercus is a development in Loughton and at the front of the site is The Earls, a conversion of the Royal Oak pub. Quercus is the Latin word for the oak. The building has stood there since the end of the 19th century and was designed by Arthur Dixon, who was a friend of the Arts and Crafts movement’s founder, William Morris. It’s a treasured building in the area, locally listed for preservation, and has been lovingly brought back to life and turned into a collection of four apartments, one with a single bedroom, the others with two. The one-bedroom home is priced £437,500, the remaining two-bedroom £525,000.

Quercus

A highlight of The Staging Post, a development from Notting Hill Genesis in the Lampton area of Hounslow, is ‘The Lawn’, a Grade II listed building which belonged to the Bulstrode family, for many years lords of the manor of this once agricultural area. The house is part of an estate set in around 40 acres of parkland, yet still only five minutes from Hounslow Central station, and it has been carefully restored to its original mid-19th century glory, and converted into some two-bedroom apartments. These are available through Shared Ownership and prices start at £80,625 for a 35% share, based on a full market value of £322,500. 

The Staging Post

Caley House in Wimbledon used to belong to Brian Sewell, the famous art critic, who died in 2015. Thanks to developer West Eleven, this expansive Edwardian house now looks as good as new thanks to the exterior restoration work. Inside are five unique apartments with one, two or three bedrooms, and a one-off, three-bedroom coach house. Each comes with its own private outdoor space in the form of a patio or sizeable balcony. Prices are upon application. This development also has three brand new three-bedroom mews houses. 

Caley House

Boroughmuir is a CALA Homes development that is turning the imposing former Boroughmuir High School into 87 high-specification new homes in the sought-after Bruntsfield district just south of Edinburgh Castle. The building was completed in 1913 and is now Grade B listed. There will be an impressive variety of ones with from one to four bedrooms. The architecture features many sash and case windows being restored and providing very generous light to these new homes. The layout of the interior conversion means that some of the properties will have 4.5m ceilings, enough to encompass a mezzanine living space. There are still a couple of units ready to move into this summer. Prices from £845,000. 

Boroughmuir

There was considerable contrast between the Edwardian architecture of the early part of the 20th century and the style that became known as Art Deco, which started in around 1920. The White Building at the Chapel Gate development from Barratt Homes in Basingstoke, Hampshire was built in 1939 as offices for a pharmaceutical company. It closed in 2007 but is now being restored to its former exterior glory, including many of its original features, while 96 new apartments to full modern standards take shape inside. Prices currently start at £207,005.

The White Building

Launching for sale later this year, with prices starting in the region of £850,000, the Edwardian, Grade II listed Westminster Fire Station will be bringing boutique apartments in addition to a new Atul Kuchhar restaurant housed in the old engine bays. This landmark red brick and Portland stone building is within ten minutes of places such as St James’s Park, Westminster Abbey and the Home Office. The project is being undertaken by a partnership of Alchemi Group and Far East Orchard Limited and there will be a new building alongside, called Station House, with a further 11 apartments. 

Westminster Fire Station