I am aware that my fiery, socialist (or progressive, as my American friends would say) rhetoric sometimes makes me sound as if I have limited sympathy for the tax-dodging ultra rich elite. Indeed, when I echo the communist-sounding demands for these people to “contribute to society”, it sounds as if I fail to realize how tough it can be working out how to dispose of a ridiculously burdensome six or seven figure income. Well, on Friday I read the below article and, with tears streaming sown my face, was so moved that I felt obliged to share it with you:
Hampstead side-return and basement extension creates perfect family home
As a family outgrew their cramped Georgian home they prepared to move – then their architect had a bright idea. By Deborah Collcutt
The Goalen family thought they faced a stark choice: stay in the overcrowded house that they loved, or up sticks and move somewhere bigger. The first option appeared unrealistic — Monique Goalen and her husband Iain have four children — so reluctantly they started looking at property near their children’s Hampstead schools.“It was with a heavy heart,” says Monique, a lawyer, “because we really didn’t want to move. But we’d had a planning application to extend the house turned down flat by Camden council and felt we had run out of options.”
The family wanted to create an open-plan dining area with garden access that would be perfect for entertaining friends
The Goalens’ four-storey terrace house was Grade II-listed, which made it difficult for their architect to come up with a design that gave the family the additional space they needed while also keeping the council happy.
When Monique and Iain bought the house 17 years ago for £400,000, it was because they loved its Georgian panelling, cosy little rooms and wealth of original features.
“There were two of us then. Now there are six,” says Monique. “But we love the house and the area, and we couldn’t imagine living anywhere else.”
Unlike many of the surrounding houses — all close to the station and the heath — the Goalens’ 350-year-old house had not been split into flats.
“The previous owner had it for years and changed almost nothing. That was both a blessing and a curse,” says Monique.
In the new family room, the children can watch films, listen to music and have friends over without disturbing their parents
When they bought the house there was a lower-ground floor with three small rooms, including an old kitchen extension. On the ground floor were two formal reception rooms and then four bedrooms and two bathrooms arranged over the two upper storeys.
The Goalens wanted a family room where Angus, 17, Tara, 15, Cameron, 12, and Maia, nine, could watch films, listen to music and have friends over without disturbing their parents. Their parents wanted an open-plan kitchen/dining room that would open on to the modest-sized garden and where they could entertain their friends.
Architect Shahriar Nasser used glass panels that blend with the brickwork to create a spectacular visual effect
In a last-ditch attempt to change the house into their forever home, they turned to Shahriar Nasser, founder of award-winning Belsize Architects (belsizearchitects.com; 020 7482 4420).“When I came on board they were desperate,” says Shahriar. “The previous design was a huge basement extension taking up most of the back garden and running right up to the neighbours’ wall. I wasn’t surprised the planners rejected it.
“Our plan was to open up a side-return area, take an extension to the lower ground floor deeper and build a room on top of it.”
In order to further appease the planners, Shahriar matched the brickwork of the extension, adjacent patio and steps up to the garden with those of the original house.
In addition, knowing that he would use a lot of glass, particularly in the new basement room, Shahriar took inspiration from the renowned architect David Chipperfield, who was the first to use mesh between panes of glass to create a color effect.
Shahriar used copper mesh in some glass panels — including those in the sliding doors that open from the dining area out onto the garden — so that they would blend in with the brickwork.
The results are stunning. The children have a cinema room in the basement, equipped with a large TV and the hub of a house-wide sound system, while above them their parents have a modern kitchen with open-plan dining area that is perfect for parties.
The new garden room where Monique will be able to work in peace“A friend told me that when your children become teenagers you want them beneath you, never above,” laughs Monique.
“This is the perfect solution. The basement extension has its own entrance and can be shut off from the rest of the house, so they can make all the noise they want.”
Shahriar created a large bedroom for Angus on the lower ground floor. Beside it is the hallway with stairs leading down into the basement extension. The layout of the rest of the house is the same.
“Monique and Iain didn’t want to change everything,” Shahriar says. “We renovated and modernised but essentially the original part of the house retains its original character, while the back has this modern extension.”
Shahriar also designed a garden room, which Monique is using as a studio to design her own range of lingerie. The house has been valued at £4 million, but thoughts of moving couldn’t be further from Monique’s mind. “I don’t ever want to move,” she says. “I can easily see Iain and I being here when it’s only two of us again.”
If you were not weeping with sorrow for the hardship of this family, having to endure life in a posh 4 bedroom, 2 reception home in an affluent London suburb without the benefit of a cinema for the exclusive use of the children, nor a lingerie designing studio, then you must have a heart of stone. You can see how cramped these millionaires must have felt, torn with indecision as to whether to endure such primitive conditions or move out to a backwater like Buckinghamshire.
And yes, they have succeeded in making appallingly unsuitable alterations to an historic building. (It’s strange, isn’t it? Joe Bloggs can’t add an extension to his 3 bedroom semi built in the 1970s, but an 18th century multi-million house can easily be altered with incongruous glass pane walls and the Council doesn’t bat an eyelid)
But on the plus side, the next Labour government will hit them with a Mansion Tax costing them £20,000 a year. There is some justice in this world after all. But in the meantime, aren’t there some equally hard done by families who could ask the Goalens to share their kids’ cinema?
