A Contemporary Lake House

"The floorplan is essentially one room, designed to be subservient to incredible views over the lake. A lounge-cum-dining room takes up most of the space, and is also used for sleeping accommodation when guests stay over. A small kitchenette and bathroom adjoin the space. A wraparound deck extends the living space outdoors, continuing the wooden flooring theme.

While it would be unlikely for any architect of his stature to design the tiny five-metre-square building in which we are standing for just anyone, Jeremy Paxton’s obvious enthusiasm for the Lower Mill Estate (LME), his development of holiday homes in the Cotswolds, has meant that he convinced not only Piers Gough to collaborate with him, but also other luminaries such as Will Alsop, Eva Jiricna, Sutherland Hussey, Richard Meier and Partners, Roger Sherman, Sarah Featherstone, Alison Brooks and Greg Lynn, who have all designed schemes for the estate. His own lakeside escape was, however, the work of Andy Ramus of AR Design Studio.

So, how do you end up with one of the best holiday home plots in the world? While Jeremy would have you believe that the growth of LME has been a fairly smooth and organic process, you can't help but wonder if his perception of events would match the story others would tell. To cut a long story short, having sold a successful publishing company in the late 1980s, Jeremy chanced upon 550 acres of redundant land, much of which had been used to extract gravel, close to the village of Somerford Keynes in Gloucestershire. He bought it and worked up a scheme to flood the former gravel pits, thus creating huge lakes on the land which would then have clusters of holiday homes dotted around them (the projected 575 houses can only be used as second homes and can only be inhabited for 11 months of each year; in January, the site is closed down completely and maintenance is carried out). Somehow, the local authority, notorious for its stern attitude towards development within the locality, bought into the idea and gave consent ten years ago for work to begin.

Driving through the gated estate, all is neat and tidy - to an almost unreal degree. This is the countryside as townies would like it to be: cute, well-appointed cottages with none of the argy bargy and ramshackle-ness of real old houses; nice, clean, well maintained roads and no funny smells. At the far end of the current phase of homes, there are more gates and then into Jeremy's slice of the complex, a large garden running down to the lake and an old barn in the middle of it. Again, it feels slightly unreal: Jeremy is in the middle of building a bund which, when turfed, will resemble the lush hillocks of Teletubbyland. Dotted around the garden are enormous lavender-filled, waist-high planters shaped like overgrown flowerpots, and giant bulrushes screen ponds. Any moment a giant white ball could appear on what might double as a rustic setting for The Prisoner.

The barn has been beautifully restored but it lacks one thing: a view. Having granted permission for Jeremy to build several hundred holiday homes on the site, the planners were unusually stubborn about allowing him to adapt the barn so that it could better enjoy the views across the secluded water. The barn was one of the few original buildings within LME and the conservation officer was anxious that it should be kept as close to its original structure as possible. Unfortunately for Jeremy, that precluded putting in any large glass elevations on the side of the building that overlooked the edge.

But, ever the canny operator, Jeremy simply rethought his requirements and commissioned Andy Ramus, who had designed the barn fit-out, to build him the sort of space that the barn should have had. A place where he could entertain and relax while taking in those serene views of the water.

And so The Hide, a perfectly contained little building, was born.

Perched over the edge of the lake, it offers pretty zappy entertaining and generally jaw-dropping lounging space without being obviously ostentatious. The roof slopes back dynamically and a light sunk into the lake can illuminate the whole of the tiny structure.

It is essentially a studio - a lounge-cum-dining room with tiny bathroom and kitchenette tucked away next to the entrance - but, what a studio. Built of glass with a wraparound deck hanging over the water, it is distinctly modern and potent, but nevertheless manages to feel cosy and soft. Despite its diminutive proportions, Jeremy and Andy have made a large slate and steel fireplace central to the building. On one side are a pair of sofas (which pull out to form beds should guests be unable or unwilling to wander the 50 yards back to the barn). On the other, a long dining table has been formed out of a length of an ash, the edges still uneven and knobbly with bark. Along it someone has painted a meandering blue line to represent the path of the Thames that runs nearby and on which, at Caversham, Jeremy has his other home (a H&R Awards finalist in 2000).

The building really does embrace the outdoors - as one of this size has to in order not to feel hopelessly cramped. Every duck's twitch and flick of a fish tail is visible from the sofas. On the day that H&R visits, it is typical overcast British weather but we are still lured outside onto the secluded deck by the mesmerising water, and it's easy to imagine making a special journey to sit in The Hide during a thunderstorm or when the lake freezes. "I wanted somewhere that was very connected with the natural environment," says Jeremy. "We can just sit through the night watching the show."

But in many ways, getting a small building right is harder than getting a much larger building right and, proportionately, it is much more expensive. "Budgetary constraints were tight," admits Andy Ramus, "but we think we made the money we had go quite a long way." There's no place to hide when the scale is this small should one of the elements jar - no reliance on impressing with volume or sheer feel-the-breadth size. Plus, as Jeremy remarks, "It takes twice as long to build a beautiful house than a standard developer's place unless you are going to cut corners." The building itself was constructed on the shore and then craned onto piles that are sunk six metres below the lake bed - a process that Andy describes as "terrifying" since the tolerances were so minute. "Magically" and thankfully, measurements were correct and everything slotted together.

"I've used The Hide for everything and sometimes I even sleep in here," says Jeremy, smiling indulgently at the space before alighting on the one drawback. "Not too often though - all that wildlife can be really noisy in the morning!"

The whole concept of The Hide came about after the planners had forbidden Jeremy from altering the fabric of his barn conversion. Architect Andy Ramus explains: "We couldn't make the most of the view, so I said to Jeremy, ‘Why don't we build something that sits on the lake, where you would get really sensational views?' Hence the heavy reliance on the glazing - although the house also has a solid backbone in which the kitchen and bathroom are enclosed. Because it's such a beautiful, scenic area, we wanted the structure to sit very lightly on the landscape, and simply float over the water, which creates these fantastic dark horizontals. The sloped monopitch roof opens up the view to the landscape, so you have this exaggerated perspective. On a warm summer's day all the glass panels slide back and the floor area is enlarged."

The construction process was quite unusual, because it's a solid steel frame. Andy explains: "We built it completely on the bank, then a piling machine put in four six metre- deep concrete piles. Each pile had four ‘nuts' and the skeleton had four legs with holes that would line up, and we used a crane to lift the skeleton onto the piles. The legs and the piles had to be perfectly positioned. It was a pretty nerve-wracking day, hoping it would line up. Thankfully it was spot on."

For further information on the Lower Mill Estate visit lowermillestate.com.

Further reading:

• A Japanese-inspired boat house
• A boat house on the Thames
• Contemporary design styles

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