Surrey Homes | SH43 | May 2018 | Restoration & New Build supplement inside

Previous page: Dieter Rams’ shelving by Vitsoe Above left: The garden seen through the kitchen window at the back of the house.
The vintage haberdasher’s cabinet is from ebay Above right: Looking the other way, towards the sea. The refectory table is from
London Rd. and the stools are from Object
friends, who have kept a weekend apartment on the second
floor for themselves, there are two further flats, also part of
the new renovation, which are now rented out at the top
of the building. Yet it still feels like one big family home.
On the ground floor Ed and Moyra have kept a separate
light filled one-bedroom apartment that they currently
offer for Airbnb. For anyone visiting Hastings for the
weekend, you couldn’t hope to find a better place to stay.
“The idea is that eventually, when we finally
move full time to Hastings, we will put an internal
spiral staircase in and connect the ground and first
floors together and create a duplex,” says Ed.
For now the couple have the joy of having weekends
with prime views across the sea from their reception
room and open plan kitchen and dining room. Three
floor-to-ceiling windows, cleverly re-appropriated in
triple glazed thin profile aluminium, let you almost
swim right into the rolling waves of the sea.
To the back of the building, visible through the huge
original kitchen casement window, is a wall of green.
Despite being north facing, the steeply terraced garden
is bathed in light and sits against the cliff face, giving a
complete vision of slowly moving green of the bushes and
trees. Moyra and Ed are living the best of both worlds.
The architecture of the main living room has been
allowed to sing. Plain white painted walls let the most
intricate and exquisite cornicing stand centre stage and
a stunning ceiling rose is a triumph of the old that the
couple have also brought back to life. A modern metal
pendant light, from uber cool Dutch brand Moooi,
hangs at the centre of the reception room, with a
smaller one in the free-flowing kitchen dining room.
Much of the renovation was simply taking the building
back to its original dimensions, rooms opened up back
to their foot plans, columns, tiled fireplaces and
original mosaic flooring discovered and repaired.
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