The high and dry home on its own Cornish island

Known as The Island, the house is a landmark of the Cornish coast, immortalised in paintings, photographs and endless postcards of Towan Beach. The suspension bridge came first: built around 1900, it connected the former chicken and potato patch to the mainland, with the property following in 1910. Since then, the house has had a succession of owners, including the family of Sir Oliver Lodge, inventor of the spark plug and a friend of Sherlock Holmes author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who shared his interest in spiritualism. It is said that the two held seances on the island.

The current owners, who prefer not to be named, have been in possession of the property since 2012. In 2019, they renovated the footbridge, one of the few remaining Harper bridges in the UK (King Charles owns another one, on his Birkhall estate). The restoration won a prestigious engineering award previously won by the Cutty Sark and the Hoover Building.

Next, they turned to the house itself. “What we really wanted was to have a bedroom that faced out to sea, because, surprisingly, the main bedroom faced inland,” says the owner. “We assume that was done because of storms – they didn’t want to confront the weather.” But they also knew they didn’t want to alter the silhouette of the house as seen from the land: “It is a much loved local place and it’s an iconic one. We didn’t want to change the look of it from the outside too much.” After speaking to several architects who suggested radical transformations, they decided on Will Gamble Architects, an award-winning practice that specialises in historic buildings and sites with challenging geographical constraints, and whose design style blends the old with the contemporary.

Gamble stayed on the island over a weekend, studying the space and its environment, and came back with a plan: flipping the layout of the house so that it faced out to sea, using marine-grade material to withstand the weather, and extending into the valley of the roof, effectively doubling the footprint of the living accommodation without altering the outside appearance from the coastline.

“We felt an enormous amount of responsibility to safeguard the building, which is such an important local landmark,” says Gamble. “We had to make sure that every decision was a considered one. It was really important that we maintained that character.”

Taking their cue from the existing building, they incorporated arches into the design, turning the former front door into a beautiful arched window providing a picture frame view of the ocean. They based the colour palette on the surrounding natural context: moody blues, warm timbers, the rich tonalities of the sand and the rocks. “The main issue with the building,” says Gamble, “was that it very much hunkered on top of the rock with no real connection with its environment. When you were in the building itself, you could have been anywhere. So my vision was to try to improve that relationship, to make the most of its setting.”

As opposed to looking in towards the land, the three bedrooms now face out to sea, with clear views of the harbour, the Trevose Head lighthouse and the historical Huer’s Hut, where a man on the lookout would cry out when he spotted pilchards, which the whole town would then work together to bring in. “The view is absolutely stunning,” says the owner. “The tide is coming in or going out every six hours: it goes around the island and then combines in interesting shapes. We see seals, we occasionally see dolphins. We see surfers, gig racers, people swimming: there’s a group of ladies who go in every morning, all through the year.”

The house is in the middle of the beach and minutes from the buzzing local town, but once you are inside, the owner says, “It feels as if you’re in your own world – the town is just there across the water and yet you have complete solitude.” There is no doorbell and the only way in is across the bridge. “We’ve had writers come in and just hide away there: you lock the door, switch your phone off and you’re completely shut away. That’s the feeling of being in a special, magical place.”

The bridge, which is checked every year for safety, is both an attraction and a source of anxiety for some. “The first time you come over on a swaying footbridge so far above crashing waves, it’s quite a dramatic thing,” says the owner. “Nobody forgets that first time.” (Ann Widdecombe, a friend of former owner Lady Long, is notoriously afraid of heights and said she would never visit.) It also posed a fair few logistical challenges for Gamble, who had to design the house in such a way that no large structural elements would need to be transported over the bridge. The heaviest thing to go over was a stone kitchen top, weighing about a third of a ton, which took 10 men to carry.

After the renovation, which was completed earlier this year, the house has opened up to guests again. “We say it’s a place to build memories,” says the owner. “We’ve had people who have got engaged here, a couple who got married on the beach below. We’ve had people at the end of their life who said it was their life’s dream to come and stay on The Island. People can have quite an emotional connection to it.”

Guests are given a selection of flags to fly: the Cornish flag, flags from different countries, a storm flag, a pirate flag for children’s birthdays. “It’s a fun thing to do,” says the owner. “You go out in the morning, raise the flag, then you bring it down at night. It signals the close of the day and moving inside to the bar.”

Whatever the weather, the surrounding garden and views provide breathtaking panoramas. “Big storms are amazing to watch: you can see the spray actually come up to eye level. It feels like being on a boat, but you’re 100% safe on this rock.”

There aren’t many properties that have such a close connection to the moon and the tides. “It’s like no other building I’ll probably ever work on in my career,” says Gamble. “The location and its relationship with the sea is incredibly unique. It’s quite bizarre that someone’s built a bungalow of that style, but I think that adds to its charm. The building itself is quite modest in appearance, but it’s sitting on this incredible granite rock in the middle of the ocean. It’s very special.”

For more information, go to theislandcornwall.uk

Photographs by Chris Wharton