Wealden Times | WT184 | June 2017 | Kitchen & Bathroom supplement inside

Previous pages & this page: The downstairs flat’s dining area is
almost a mirror image of the flat above (pictured above), except
with antique pieces
In some families, things seem to go in twos. When
Susie McLean told her older sister that the flat directly
underneath her weekender on the West St Leonards sea
front had come up for sale, Caroline Egan jumped at the chance
to buy it with her, so they now own the two of them together.
While they are explaining this to me, as we sit in the
light-filled sitting room of the lower apartment, Susie’s
twin sister Jen, with whom she runs a film location catering
company, is upstairs making the last tweaks to the upper
flat to make it camera perfect. So you have twin flats,
twin sisters and a lovely warm family feeling to it all.
There’s also a bit of a magical air to the characterful
Edwardian building the flats are in, which has a stunning
semi-circular ‘captain’s window’ in the top flat, looking across
a small park and out to sea. The stairway from the lower
flat up to Susie’s original bolt hole, adds to that feeling.
There’s something rather Famous Five about walking
out of one front door, scuttling up the stairs – past
the wonderful ‘steam trawler’ sign Susie bought in an
antique shop in Norman Road – and in through the
front door of another flat. It would be very easy to
imagine doing it in pyjamas… with a lot of giggling.
And there also seemed to have been a sprinkling of fairy
dust about the way Susie found the original flat ten years ago.
“When my daughter was four,” says South London-based
87 wealdentimes.co.uk