Wildernesse Mews

Retirement housing by Morris & Company makes a contemporary response to a historic estate. Report by Gillian Darley

Words
Gillian Darley
Photos
Jack Hobhouse

For many of us, whether fortunate in health and circumstances or not, longevity may well be staring us in the face. Even as I was writing this piece I noticed a double-page advertising spread, in ‘The Guardian’ of all places, wholly devoted to ageing, including several options for where and how to live next. Medicine and changing demographics are playing a huge part, while social surveys plot the desperate rise of loneliness, the result of dispersed families, poor health and immobility.

The writing has been on the wall for a long time but when developer Pegasus Life, funded by the American equity firm Oaktree Capital Management, burst into life in 2012, its stated objective – ‘redefining the retirement housing market’ – seemed to be something quite novel. This is not co-living in the utopian sense, nor even the socially responsible version of events provided by almshouses or local authority housing for the elderly, but avowedly luxury housing with an element of communal living, as in spa, restaurant, shared parkland and more.

The key to it all, never stated but always understood, is the fortunate situation of my own generation – those who can slough off responsibilities and capitalise on the meteoric rise in property value over the past 30 years or so. Well-appointed houses, in the South East, the Home Counties and the South West (I take the locations from Pegasus Life’s portfolio) can be transformed from valuable asset into disposable capital. Having done so, to find a congenial, lightly supported way of living may be ideal for many – their housing future predictable, their companions like-minded, their horizons comfortably contained.

Pegasus Life came to the market at what seemed the right time, buoyed up on a flurry of publicity and its ambitions signalled with an added ingredient: its preference was for the highest possible quality, in design as in setting, whether in conversion or new build.

For the latter, its in-house team began by seeking out interesting architectural practices, rather than those specifically known for housing. But the attractive, affluent locations in which the developer operates come with a downside – the rigour of planning controls and an active, articulate and often obstructive local population. (Ironically, they are in many ways the very demographic at whom Pegasus Life directs its efforts.)

A commission for new housing alongside Wildernesse House at Seal, outside Sevenoaks, was awarded to Morris & Company (formerly Duggan Morris Architects), which can point to a strong track record in housing. The practice was appointed to design a masterplan for the historic estate, which comprises five proposed apartment buildings, a new cafe and a newly complete terrace houses.

Throughout the prolonged process of designing and delivering the houses, the architects have stayed close to the original vision for the project, that of replacing the stable block that stood alongside the substantial mansion (itself converted by Purcell from a school for blind people), and slotting in a stepped ‘mews’ of eight cottages on a narrow site, close to the boundary of the estate. Seemingly a modest addition, doing no more than shadowing the previous structure, it met with innumerable hurdles and objections, many of them coming from the neighbouring residents, protective of the ‘rural idyll’, their Conservation Area and Green Belt status. It has taken more than five “brutal” years to get to completion.

For the mews, the choice of buff brick and stone facing details is a careful but not craven recognition of the dun stone of the big house, itself characterised by “extremely plain classical dress”, as the relevant ‘Pevsner’ has it. Largely dating from the 1880s, the mansion (now 23 apartments) offers a noncommittal backdrop to the new work but, in planning terms, on this sensitive site, it had the upper hand.

The adjacent restaurant plays deftly on the idea of a pavilion, the interior warmly cocooned in birchwood vaults and folding ‘linenfold’ shutters. It is nestled on the eastern side of the main house and takes advantage of views out over the wider park. Next will come the five clustered apartment blocks to the south of the main house, taking the place of a large and unprepossessing education block – now demolished – that hogged a large area of the landscape.

Morris & Company’s mews has succeeded in establishing the building vocabulary and this next phase will provide another 50 apartments on the site. It is hard to imagine how the modest group of new cottages ever became such a highly contentious matter locally but possibly the difficulties stemmed from the developer’s wider ambitions for this location? Now planning permission has been given and so perhaps the worst is over.

For the mews, the brick is tonally respectful to the mansion, with a modicum of ornament. The fenestration is bold and the massing ingenious, but tactfully done. A change in levels between front and back has been neatly handled by positioning a lift between the rear car park and upper-level entrances, and making sense of the break point between the two elements in the terrace. On the front elevations of the larger house type, pared back details such as inset gutters and flush dormers offer evidence, as architect Joe Morris points out, of the practice’s respect for context.

But there has been no pandering to the triviality of neo-vernacular. Front elevations are open yet self-contained, with paved forecourts, raised beds and fixed seating. To the rear, views out borrow the adjoining garden features and the lie of the land, sloping down with mature trees and water beyond. The first four of the houses are mirror-planned, the other four, considerably larger, offer variations dictated by a handsome double-height living space and more rooms. Unfortunately, the solid brick chimney stacks which help articulate the rear elevation are evidence of cost-cutting: there are, currently, no fireplaces.

Age-related design, as opposed to fully supported living, dictates flexibility and so each house has space for a domestic lift to be fitted at a future date. Accommodation for a carer or family member is available, arguably at the cost of storage space, should that be required. In addition, for their communal service charge residents gain access to a range of upmarket facilities (essentially country house hotel standard) within the mansion, including a spa, guest accommodation that is available for rent, and the delightful cafe-restaurant. Pegasus Life instigated a hugely ambitious programme and finds itself meeting the market at a difficult moment, but in Sevenoaks at least it chose wisely and the job has been well done.