Modern buildings were considered shocking when Space House was built but now they’re fashionable -

Modern buildings were considered shocking when Space House was built, but now they’re fashionable – certainly no longer perceived as cold and uncomfortable. The owner before them had done little work over the previous 25 years and what had been attempted was out of step with many of Foggo and Thomas’s original intentions.Undaunted, they teamed up with Lee/Fitzgerald, the architects, and tackled the project head on. The resulting restoration earned them an RIBA conservation award in 2004, with The Architects Journal noting that this “pioneering 1960s house” had been “gently reorganised and, dare one say it, improved”. Not bad going for novice developers.”It was a period piece when we bought it,” says Andrew, “now it’s a timeless home. These American models for the future were intended to be affordable and their high ambitions attracted many of the leading architects of the day, including Mies van der Rohe.
However, when Andrew and Ann found Space House, it needed work; a lot of work. There was dark wood on the ceiling, the carpets were musty and there was a large, oval swimming pool in the back garden.

Space House appears to be only a stone’s throw from some sun-drenched LA beach, but it’s actually in East Grinstead, Sussex. Designed in 1963 by Peter Foggo and David Thomas, it was the prototype for a potential development of houses based on the Californian Case Study houses of the fifties. After nearly 10 years, the live/work space got a bit stressful. With both of us living and working here, we needed to have another place to escape to and began looking in Suffolk, which is where I’m from. Peter was anti the idea, but we began doing it up and going down for weekends. The weekends got longer, particularly for Peter, because his work’s more flexible than mine, until he had a complete change of heart about the country and never really came back!I spend about three nights a week at The Flower House, often over the weekend when I’m busy with weddings. Over time, my living situation has reversed, and now I am a London weekender..

here’s no denying the sensory rush of seeing a stark, modern building set against a rural backdrop, but what’s it like living in one? The perception that country living means a thatched cottage overlooking the village green still predominates, so do these utopian, open-plan cubes deliver the alternative lifestyle they seem to promise? Andrew Spurgeon and Ann Kelly think they do and they’ve spent the last few years living in their Modernist ideal. But when you put huge plants in containers, it’s hard to get them out again! We used Iroko wood flooring on the terrace, the same as on the ground floor, the idea being that the terrace is an extension of the inside. Butthe wood outside is starting to crack up badly.We bought our house near Newmarket in Suffolk three years ago. The silver birches are amazingly tall considering how much earth they are in. Moths love heat and in one of the bedrooms they’ve ruined the carpet.The roof terrace needs replanting.

The original scheme was by Dan Pearson, and included rosemary, bamboo and silver birches in containers. We’ve electric fan heaters downstairs and under-floor heating upstairs Under-floor heating is great unless you have moths. A guy with the same surname as me, Nicholas Pryke, contacted me because he was having a private view. I went along and he made me several things including some vases, and the semicircular dressing table, which cost about £3,500. It’s positioned under the circular roof light, in what used to be the third bedroom, which is now full of clothes.Good storage is very important when you live in an open-plan house and both upstairs and down we have huge floor-to-ceiling cupboards with doors of etched glass In the early days, the place was very uncluttered The problem is, as life goes on, you get more stuff.