We are delighted to see Chesil Cliff House - a stunning luxury residential development on the North Devon coast – attracting a lot of market interest recently. The elegant property, priced at £10 million, is the most expensive property on the North Devon/Dorset coast per square foot, reflecting its unrivalled location and the quality of the buildings.
The 6,500 sq ft Chesil Cliff House, along with its 2,000 sq ft annexe building, The Eye, featured as part of Channel 4’s Grand Designs series in 2019, which focused on the project’s budget and programme difficulties.
Ridge was subsequently appointed as Monitoring Surveyor on the project, with our role then evolving to include full Cost and Project Management. We took control of the budget, making the scheme financially viable and overseeing its progress to completion.
A key feature of the project was the innovative engineering involved, with the house sitting on piles which have been anchored into the cliff through mudstone and granite, protecting it against coastal erosion. The mudstone will eventually come away, giving the building the appearance of ‘floating’ above the granite cliff.
The development is now a beautiful and spacious residence on three acres of land, with spectacular, panoramic views over the sea from Saunton Sands and Croyde Beach to Baggy Point and Braunton Burrows. The design for Chesil Cliff House, by Professor Alan Phillips, references a lighthouse, with a circular rotunda standing four storeys high and offering wraparound sea views, fully integrated with the extensively glazed, two-storey body of the building.
Chesil Cliff House has five bedrooms, with the main bedroom offering dramatic sea views to wake up to as well as an en-suite bathroom and dressing area. There are beautiful kitchen and living spaces, four reception rooms and a cellar, with the building enclosing a large cliff-edge infinity pool – a spectacular space in which to enjoy a swim.
The property has its own private access road and a striking, cantilevered driveway to the garage, as well as direct access from the garden to the foreshore and CAA landing rights. Heating is provided by an air-sourced heat pump.
The Eye is a separate, three-bedroom, single-storey home with a green roof, cut out from the adjacent rock face. This building, which also has great sea views through a sculptural arch (and its own hot tub), can be used as a guest house or for staff accommodation.
Ridge recommended that the budget was focused on optimising Cat A finishing to create the highest quality outcome, with the interiors being left largely as a blank canvas, allowing prospective buyers to envisage how they might finish the spaces. We kept the project within budget and guided the team towards maximising resilience and value.
Congratulations to the owner, Edward Short, and to everyone else involved, for completing the Chesil Cliff House complex to such a high standard.
