071_COAST_OCT16

coast DEVON SPECIAL
Walking down a backstreet in the
estuary town of Kingsbridge in
South Devon, you might pass an
unassuming terraced cottage built of mellow
local stone. What you won’t see from the
pavement, however, is how this 200-year-old
former malthouse has been completely
re-imagined inside by its owners Misha Smith
and Lucy Voice, to create a cutting-edge
family home, complete with split levels,
polished concrete floors, cantilevered steel
stairs and glimpses of the town’s rooftops and
seagulls through the skylights and floor-toceiling
windows.
‘I like the fact that behind the facade there’s
something unexpected,’ says Misha, an
architect who grew up in nearby Totnes, while
chef Lucy is originally from Dartmouth. ‘Having
grown up by the sea, I find living here very
calming,’ she adds. ‘And our kids love it, too –
we’re giving them the same kind of childhood
that we had.’
When they first came across the property
in 2013, the couple were working and renting
in London. But after the arrival of their first
child, Oscar, now five years old, Lucy in
particular was keen to return to the South
Devon coast to be nearer to family. ‘We wanted
the children to have those close connections,’
she says. At the time, the unlisted building had
lain empty for five years, and was damp and
dark with no outside space. Having first been
built as part of the town’s Phoenix Brewery,
it had served various commercial purposes
over its long history – as a store for bottles and
building materials, for example – and latterly
had housed various small business units.
Despite its unloved state, the pair saw
the potential to do something interesting
architecturally: ‘Opportunities like this don’t
come up often in the area,’ says Misha, who
began sketching ideas of how to bring more
light and air into the site. As Kingsbridge,
which is close to beaches yet slightly off the
beaten tourist track, was still comparatively
affordable for the South Hams, it seemed too
good a chance to miss. And so by October
that year, the property was theirs.
left, TOP The Malthouse is built from local stone left The Bordfolk egg cups are
by Lucie Kaas OPPOSITE, FROM TOP LEFT Oscar, five, draws on the blackboard wall
in the kitchen/diner; Misha fashioned the dining table and bench from some of the
original floorboards; Misha and Lucy made the concrete worktops themselves
64 coast coastmagazine.co.uk coastmagazine.co.uk 65 coast