We discovered Little Cottage in 2010, a few months before our youngest son, Raffe, was born. We had driven 5 hours from London to Praa Sands to meet an agent from the wonderfully named Lillicrap & Chillcott; it was before the days of Sat Nav apps and we were struggling to find the house. We finally turned into Hendra Lane, off the A394 and began the slow winding curl down the road towards the sea. A huge expanse of ocean and the curved sweep of Praa Sands beach suddenly came into view. It was breathtaking and shook off any weariness from the long journey. Despite getting lost, we arrived early and began to explore the empty site; a dilapidated cottage and overgrown unkempt garden, foliage and shrubs so thick we could only just glimpse the sea from the garden. Alex ran around like a small child, excited by everything about the property. It was everything we had imagined and more, when we first started talking about a home by the sea.
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Alex put in his grown up eyes when the agent arrived, and we had a full tour. We should have put in an offer there and then, but with our sensible grown up eyes we thought we should at least look at other places. Maybe there were lots of wild seafront properties like this….? By the time we realised it was one a kind, others had too and the sale went to sealed bids. We will never know if we paid too much, enough to say we got the house.
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Once we owned the property, we camped in the garden, near the cliff edge, on the only bit of vaguely flat clear ground; listening to the rolling ocean and kept awake by the occasional big wave crashing onto the sand below us. We experienced where the sun rose and set and discovered the picturesque village and harbour town of Porthleven, 2 hours walk along the coastal path.
Our plan was to create a home focused on the sea which worked with nature. Initially we wanted to keep the bones of the original cottage, but it was found to be full of asbestos and so began the planning of a new build beach home. |
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