Garden living: how one couple recreated a California beachside home by renovating a cottage in urban London

Returning to London in 2014 after a three-year adventure living in California, communications consultant Ian Maddison and his artist wife, Armi, wanted to recreate their West Coast “inside-outside” lifestyle here.

In LA they fell in love with the urban-industrial aesthetic of Venice Beach, where the low-key frontage of houses, with cement walls, corten steel and austere fencing, gives way to a rich urban oasis at the back.

They planned to design and build a versatile home in London that would double as Armi’s studio. “We were keen to evoke the feeling of rural tranquillity, yet have the benefits of living in an urban environment,” Armi says.

On their return from LA they found a dark, dilapidated Victorian cottage for sale in East Molesey, near Hampton Court.

Won over by the unusually wide plot and the southerly aspect of the garden, they got planning permission to turn it into a light-filled space centred around a courtyard.

A garage was demolished to create a double-fronted symmetrical 1852 façade in keeping with the rest of the street. But they knew much of the property had to go.

“The original house had been extended in the Seventies with a badly designed structure — so bad in fact that all we could do was knock most of it down and start again,” says Ian.

At one point the front face of the original cottage, along with the party wall adjoining the neighbour’s house, was pretty much all that was left standing.

“It’s very sobering to buy a house and knock most of it down,” adds Ian. “We’ve very understanding neighbours.” Once walls were demolished, bricks were carefully cleaned for reuse.

The house had been empty for years, so the garden was a jungle with five leylandii trees surrounding a 30-year-old Japanese acer, which now forms the centrepiece of a secluded courtyard garden encircled by the new-build house and studio.

Outbuildings were demolished so that house and garden flow from one area to another, with glass-lined walls opening on to the terraces.

“The footprint of the original property led to the courtyard layout,” Ian says. “It allowed us to build a walkway down the side and at the end of the garden, connected by a covered veranda. We wanted to reach the studio without getting wet, so the veranda was a good solution.”

The Maddisons enlisted the help of a friend, award-winning architect Kim Dreyer, to interpret their design for a house that would blend conventional rooms with open-plan living. A central staircase with a large skylight at the top slices through the centre of the home.

Dreyer says: “When we design a house we turn the staircase into the organising element. It becomes not only a practical means to move from floor to floor but a three-dimensional sculpture.”

The open-plan kitchen/living/dining space is the emotional heart of the house, with a clean-lined Next125 kitchen, island worktop from Lapitec and Tolix stools.

There are grey Ikea sofas and a white leather Flap sofa from Edra. A sliding wooden door, lined with raw steel on the hall side, allows the couple to close off the living area.

All artwork in the house is by Armi, their son Jack and daughter Rosy. Vintage finds from Sunbury Antiques Market include giant cheeseboards repurposed as window shutters.

Either side of the hall, there’s Ian’s book-lined office and a cosy TV room. In one of the two first-floor guest bedrooms, Armi has put an acid-yellow wash on the wall.

The first-floor master bedroom, with its bathroom and dressing room, is spacious and calm. The bath and the vanity unit were made to order from Apaiser.

Ian and Armi spend most of the day in the garden where the south-facing U-shaped buildings create a sheltered microclimate. In the purpose-built studio, Armi runs paper and textile print workshops (no5workshops.com).

In this low-maintenance garden, with drought-tolerant planting based on Beth Chatto’s Gravel Garden in Colchester, many grasses give movement even on a still day. “It looks quite beachy,” Armi smiles.

Carefully placed mirrors reflect some parts and black-decked areas give space for undercover dining. Water butts have been turned into planters.

It was, says Armi, the perfect venue for their daughter’s wedding reception last summer, with rows of seating in the garden and a dance floor. “At night the garden was lit up and it was magical.”

The garden will be open on June 9 under the National Garden Scheme (ngs.org.uk).