Fantasy properties, everyone’s got one. Whether it’s a luxury beach house, a super high-spec city penthouse or a Beverley Hills-style mansion, we’ve all fantasized about the sort of house we’d have if money and mortgages really were no object.
For this month’s fantasy issue, take a look at this dream house, designed by Godel Architects for a panoramic setting at the top of Mont a la Brune overlooking St Ouen’s Bay and close to Les Ormes golf and health club. Richard Hollick from Thompson Estates says “This is a rare opportunity to purchase an approved building site, with plans designed by respected local firm Godel Architects to demolish the existing 1930s house and construct a state of the art modern property of some 5000 square feet. The site is situated at the top of a hill overlooking the whole of St Ouen’s Bay with views from Corbiere lighthouse to Guernsey.” With floor to ceiling glass a feature throughout the state of the art design, Zeelandia will certainly make the most of the all-day sunshine and fantastic sea view sunsets.
The property’s been designed with four spacious bedroom suites on the ground floor with floor to ceiling glazing designed to showcase the location’s stunning views. The two ‘master’ suites are either end of the property, with curved floor-to-ceiling glazing framing views to Guernsey and the north of St Ouen’s Bay or Corbiere and the south. They’ve also been designed to feature spacious dressing areas with large ensuite bath and shower rooms. The two central bedrooms are also ensuite and face out due west across the large landscaped garden and pool area toward the sea. All the bedroom suites have their own easy ‘step-out-of-bed’ access to the swimming pool – perfect for an early morning swim. To the rear of the property on the ground floor is the utility room, cloak room, a three-car garage and an integral one-bedroom apartment.
The central hallway, with its double-storey glazing will always be flooded with light, and this will form the interior access to the first floor. Sweeping stairs lead up to the first floor, where the architect has placed the reception rooms and kitchen to take full advantage of the views. Forming the west wing of the property, the space is divided into three sections – a large kitchen / dining room forming the north-facing end of the property, an informal living / dining space in the centre, and a more formal lounge to the south. All the rooms open out onto a cantilevered balcony overlooking the stunning sea views, which leads back down to the pool area via a spiral staircase.
A ‘bridge’ links the west wing with the east wing which features another cloakroom and a study, as well as access to the one bedroom flat, designed to be used either as a guest wing or staff accommodation.
Architect Bob Godel, from Godel Architects explains the thought process behind Zeelandia’s design: “The design was inspired by the site and by its location. There are fantastic views across St Ouen’s Bay to the West, particularly from the first floor, and as a result we decided on an uncompromising approach, which placed the living accommodation at the first floor and concentrated on ensuring that maximum advantage was taken to exploit the views by developing a design that had significant amounts of glazing. We wanted to keep the design as simple and elegant as possible, so the building is very rational in terms of the simplicity of construction – the West-facing element of the building is a simple frame structure with glazed infill panels. The roof design was developed to reflect the building’s location (and therefore draws on aeronautical references) and incorporates a large profiled overhang to provide solar shading to the windows beneath.”
The design incorporates a number of innovative features ensuring that Zeelandia will be energy efficient with a low carbon footprint. And as well as being environmentally friendly, the building has been designed to maximize its environment with floor to ceiling glazing showing off those spectacular views from every angle. Clever touches like the curved glass and the cantilevered balcony with its spiral staircase make this building seem super high-tech – it’s certainly going to be an amazing architectural addition to the island’s west coast. But even with all this space-age sleekness, the island’s heritage hasn’t been forgotten. The east wing is clad with Jersey granite, “announcing the modernity of the development, whilst at the same time grounding it in Jersey materiality” as the estate agents explain.
It’s certainly a rare chance to snap up your dream property as architect Bob Godel agrees: “Jersey has potential for development of this sort, but opportunities such as these are fairly rare for the reason that sites with such great views tend to be limited in supply.” And ok, for the moment, it’s only a computer-generated design, but hey, it still looks good to us. Dreams can come true….
