A Converted Barn With a Contemporary Twist

Jamie Falla and Lynn Graham have converted and extended a derelict 15th century granite barn into an award-winning family home.

Moving back to Guernsey from London was a bit of a culture shock,” admits Jamie Falla, who grew up on the island. “We were entering a new phase in our lives, with young children, and felt that converting the barn would make a great family home. When Lynn and I were younger we had an open plan ‘young couple’ place in London, complete with a glitter ball, then moved to live somewhere with a few more rooms, but La Concha is our first grown-up house. I knew it was different from a traditional barn conversion, but I didn’t realise just how much it would shock people on the island.”

Jamie, 39, is the principal of Mooarc — an architectural practice with offices in London and Guernsey which is fast developing a reputation for exciting modern designs. After moving to London in 1986 and working for five years with Paxton Locher Architects, he set up his own practice and married Lynn, who was also born on Guernsey. The couple now have three children: Ruben, five, Noah, three, and one-year-old Marnie, and live in their converted barn, where the boys use the kitchen island unit as a race track — hurtling around it on their bikes, oblivious to the architectural merits of the recycled glass and resin floor beneath their wheels.

“It’s definitely not a frilly house,” laughs Jamie. “When people come here they appreciate that the rooms have been designed to be functional, and that many of the decisions we made were shaped by not having much money to spend. When we first saw the barn, which had no planning permission, we thought that spending £165,000 on an empty shell with no services was quite risky. At that time we budgeted £150,000 for the conversion work, but these things always tend to spiral out of control.”

Through careful restoration and a sympathetic yet distinctly contemporary extension, Jamie was able to provide a flexible family home with office accommodation that allows a fluidity of movement between old and new; inside and out — with all of the ground floor rooms having direct access into the garden. 

Creating such a showpiece home within the confines of a 15th century barn would be an achieve­ment anywhere, but to do so in such a rigorously conservative planning environment was all the more remarkable. “We thought planning would take months but it was passed in six weeks, which was a little scary as we then had to actually go ahead and do it,” says Jamie.

Central to the design is the large kitchen and double-height dining area, with an ‘adult-only’ sitting room retreat perched above on a mezzanine level. This space has a high, wood-lined ceiling open to the glazed ridge of the roof, through which the stainless steel flue of the contemporary fireplace can be seen jutting out of the building. To the east side of the barn a new single storey extension with skylights in the flat roof contains a playroom, which can be separated from the kitchen by sliding doors and also doubles as a guest room thanks to a concealed wall bed. A self-contained study in this part of the house has a separate side entrance, but family members enter the building through a generous front door that opens into a two storey link between the barn and a new glazed bed­room wing. This holds two bedrooms for the children on the ground floor, with an MDF spiral staircase with walnut handrails leading up to the master bedroom and en suite bathroom above.

“It’s always funny watching people’s reactions to the glass floor in the link,” says Jamie. “Kids love running across it, but some adults are very wary of stepping into what is effectively a glass box with quite a low ceiling — even though the floor is 32mm of solid glass. It really feels as if you are standing outside, looking up and around without any barriers, and it’s particularly nice when it rains or snows — although moving between the bedroom and living room through the glass can feel a bit exposed sometimes!”

Glass plays an important role in every space, dropping sun and moonlight in from above through roof glazing and opening rooms up with shop window-sized sliding panels of low-E glass in aluminium frames, fitted externally to the granite walls. Opaque glass has been used in gable ends to retain privacy, and a whole-house ventilation system eliminates the need for unsightly trickle vents in the windows.

Determined to test-run some new ideas, Jamie was pleased to have the outline of the existing granite building around which to form his design. “People think we named our house La Concha because it was just a shell when we bought it, and this is partly true — though it was also the name of the hotel in Las Vegas where Lynn and I stayed when we got married!” he says. Having little money also helped to focus his ideas. “It makes you work harder and think longer about your choices. I decided to line the barn ceiling in cheap timber to avoid employing plasterers, but the wood has given the room real warmth and prevented the space from becoming an echoing white box.”

Even this element of the project has a twist, however, with the silver ACTIS insulation left purpose­fully on show between gaps in the timber lining. Granite walls have also been left exposed behind the fireplace, and the space is lit by six uncompromisingly bright commercial lights. Tucked below, beneath the concrete mezzanine floor, the customised Poggenpohl kitchen is illuminated by similarly eye-catching light fittings attached to the kind of decked metal ceiling often seen in office buildings.

“I wanted to approach the design to my own house as if it was a commission for a client, without getting too emotionally involved,” Jamie explains. “We sat around at work and discussed ideas as a team, and I was keen not to try and cram too many rooms into the existing barn. Lynn and I had hoped to reduce our mortgage and have a better quality of life, but we ended up borrowing more and more money to finish things to the standard that we wanted.”

Jamie decided against tendering for a single building contractor, instead organising the 89 suppliers and subcontractors from a cabin in the garden, which acted as both site hut and temporary office for his practice. “A contractor could never have priced accurately for such an experimental job, and it wouldn’t have been fair to ask,” he says. “I got three quotes for everything, and most of the time I chose the cheapest.”

The family moved into rented holiday accommoda­tion and Noah was born as the building work started. Initially, Jamie had hoped that the project would be completed in six months, but it took nine — partly due to the limited choice of materials available on the island. Allowing ten weeks from ordering to delivery was standard, including two weeks spent sitting in Customs once it had arrived.

“We re-used the barn’s roof slates and kept as many of the old openings as we could,” says Jamie. “Where granite had to be taken out to make new window openings, the stone has been recycled on the gable walls of the new extension. In order to get enough height for the mezzanine level in the main barn we dug out the whole structure and had to do some blasting, because otherwise there would have been a big rock in the middle of the kitchen, but this gave us sufficient headroom beneath the new metal tie beams.

“The biggest challenge in converting any barn is making sure that old and new materials work com­fortably together, but it’s often surprising just how well modern technology and industrial finishes sit with old agricultural buildings. We live in the 21st century – there’s no reason to be ashamed of that fact – and our homes should reflect this rather than always looking to the past for inspiration.”