Kirstie & Phil's Property Guide: Index Property Guide: North Yorkshire

Date Published:

26/06/2008

Kirstie and Phil give us their weekly update on the property world, with a look at living in unusual buildings and an essential guide to buying in North Yorkshire.

Fancy making a lighthouse into a light home?

On this week's Location, Location, Location, Suzanna and Phil wanted to live somewhere a bit out of the ordinary - and Phil and Kirstie helped to find them a windmill.

But Suzanna and Phil aren't the only ones that would shun life in a two up two down. Most of us would run screaming from the thought of converting a tower or lighthouse into a home, but others? Well they're strangely drawn.

Patrick O’Hagan's owned the lighthouse at Burnham on Sea in Somerset for over ten years. 'We didn't plan to buy a lighthouse. I'm a journalist and I was told that there was a story at an auction house in London - a local celebrity was intending to buy a lighthouse.

'But I ended up buying it because it was withdrawn below the reserve price - which was very low, so we got a real bargain.'

There's no doubt the results of the conversion are enchanting. 'There’s a lantern room at the top; it has a copper polished domed roof and a glass floor looking down into the kitchen below,' says Patrick.

'Below that there's a living area and then we've got bedrooms in the middle with a big bathroom in the centre. Moving down, there's a reception area, where we have a dining table - we're not able to put a cooker or a kitchen in there because if a fire started then it would go up through the tower like a chimney."

There's no doubting that quirky buildings are very seductive and can come at what seems like bargain prices. But as conversions, they demand an obsessive commitment, deep pockets ... and the reality of living in them can be pretty challenging too.

'Stairs are the downside,' says Patrick. 'There are 120 stairs to consider and therefore you have to be much more organised if you’re going to live vertically. If you leave your mobile phone or your keys somewhere, it's really easy to become disorientated; you don’t know which level they're on. Or if you get to the bottom to go out of the door and you realise you've left something at the top, it's more of a problem if you've got to go up 120 stairs to go and get them.'

Elspeth Beard also lives vertically. An architect by trade, the conversion of her water tower in Surrey was a massive undertaking. Even by doing much of the work herself it costs nearly as much to convert as she paid for it in the first place. A labour of love that swallowed nearly eight years.

'When I bought the building originally, it was a huge void, from the ground floor right up to the fourth floor,' says Elspeth. 'It was full of pigeons, the walls were leaking, the roof was leaking, half the windows were missing ... it was in a pretty poor state. When I first moved in I had no hot water, no central heating, and when I wasn’t working in London I was working on the tower here. It was pretty much like that for about a year.

'I never designed rooms within rooms, so all of the bathrooms are open to the bedrooms - and every floor is just one big large octagonal room.'

'This is a passion and there's been hate at times,' Patrick continues. 'I've literally put blood, sweat and tears into this. I still think it's a fantastic building and I love it still, but there are things about it that I can't forgive it for! But that's good in any relationship. I'm passionate about it."

So if you fancy views to die for, can cope with years of fiddly conversions, and have thighs of steel, living in a big pointy house might be perfect for you. Otherwise - perhaps you should stick to a bungalow.