Designed by architect Alex Michaelis, this spectacular Cornwall beach house is on the market for the first time since completion. Originally designed as the architect’s own family retreat, Little Cottage is located above Praa Sands, a justifiably famed Cornish beach on the UK’s south coast.
The sea-facing facing, Little Cottage
Tour the Cornwall beach house now for sale
The house presents an unsullied view of the English Channel and the Atlantic beyond; it’s right there at the end of the garden, with the sandy beach itself just steps away. Arranged over two levels, with a separate self-contained bedroom shack tucked away behind the house, Little Cottage is not the ersatz rural dwelling implied by its name. Instead, 2,422 sq ft of accommodation is contained within a sculptural white box that owes more to Le Corbusian modernism and noughties minimalism than conventional seaside architecture.
The view from the 50ft-long sitting room
The coastal façade is an exercise in asymmetric reductivist design. The ground floor is given over to a 50ft-long living room and kitchen, with central sliding glass doors that open it out onto the lawn. On the west side, the principal bedroom suite is tucked away behind a private sitting room, while the east wing houses the entrance, hallway, with the cylindrical stair tower leading off to the right, illuminated by a circular skylight.
Inside the stair tower
Upstairs, there are three more en-suite bedrooms, all of which have views across the water. Curved walls create a sculptural upper level, with access to a balcony one end of the bedroom corridor. Detailing is minimal throughout, with white walls, floors and ceiling paired with frameless glazing to bring in as much light as possible. The material palette includes French-plastered walls and limestone, with Corian worktops in the kitchen, mosaic clad bathrooms and wide cedar floorboards throughout.
The kitchen
The ground floor also hosts a cloakroom and utility room, along with a wet room with direct outside access and special provision for drying and storing wetsuits. The stair leads up to a light-filled landing and corridor, while two of the three upstairs bedrooms occupied the curved ends of the first floor; all have free-standing baths while the bedrooms have Juliet balconies.
The upstairs landing
In addition to the separate Shack, which could also double up as a studio space, the property has a pair of sheds/surf stores and a number of parking spaces, as well as the rights to a mooring at nearby Porthleven Harbour. Michaelis, who founded Michaelis Boyd with Tim Boyd in 1996, has created a rare piece of uncompromising contemporary seaside architecture, a house that is as aesthetically rigorous as it is warm, inviting and functional.
Little Cottage is for sale through Lillicrap Chilcott for £2.5m, Tel: +44 1872 273473, LillicrapChillcot.com