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Last night's 'castle' was just, well, a bit shite? It seemed all about legacy, money, ooh look at us- and zero to do with home and family. He seemed to be wealthy, only matched by his ability to keep spending more and more.
I despised that he was tapping up mums pension/retirement savings. And surely they are on the knife edge of losing it all...? It seemed he was playing with everyone else's money - and had an ability to shrug off losing £500k in the 'test' house.
The barn they were in was lovely. I just don't get why you would risk so much.
Edit: he also would have made a great Fast Show character....
Last night's house looked more like a nuclear power station or ww2 bunker, just blinking horrible & that's before you get into the excess of it all. Still utterly bonkers & truly worthy of the grand designs moniker.
He seemed to be wealthy, only matched by his ability to keep spending more and more.
I missed the beginning so don't know where the initial money came from.
He seemed to have aged about 10 years between 2022 and 2025 mind.
For someone who professed to be some kind of engineer, he seemed awfully surprised at how big and expensive it all was
And as for the "grand entrance way", reminded me of a piss-stench suburban subway crushing with broken glass underfoot
Aye, 1970's Brutalist stylee with a dose of Vera Duckworth's stone cladding... A lot of the modern to excess stuff just looks like a new civic centre or local council offices to me tho I'm probly a philistine...
Fair play to Matt, looked a bit like a rabbit in headlights when promoted but has stepped up.
For someone who professed to be some kind of engineer, he seemed awfully surprised at how big and expensive it all was
He came across as a chancer who had made some money on other property developments and now wanted to show he was in the big time. I suspect he never intends to live in it for any longer that hmrc requires him to for tax purposes and then hope he can find someone daft enough to to buy it for a price that doesn’t ruin him
I'm looking forward to catching up tonight - sounds like there will be lots of eye rolling & pointing & laughing.
Or according to the people on social media - we're all jealous of those that have money 😀
Now thats a proper GD episode!
It's on the market for 8m iirc, I get that they wanted to buy the land to prevent a housing development/secure services to the barn property but the old gaff would've been lovely with a big refurb. Might have made afew quid too taking the smaller build into account. Seems like the lighthouse mk2 to me but I'll reserve judgement till the revisit, it'll never look like a castle though.
we're all jealous of those that have money
It's true. We're all jealous of people who are making no money from their dubious startups but up to their eyeballs in debt. If the result of all his team's 'imagineering' is a smart home switch/display which I'm pretty sure I can buy right now off amazon, and a replaceable socket core which is somehow worse than a socket with a USB-A port already on it?
It was an absolute shocker, replaced one folly with another one, blowing his entire wealth and his mum's pension funds, with only the fact that it is unsellable allowing him to possibly ever live in the place.
For that money you could get a proper, fully fitted out modern mansion, and one which isn't shoved up against a whole village.
It's still on the market, with entirely rendered photos by the look of it because I'm sure it's still almost as much of a shell as when Kevin left.
Can't get over what a waste of money, time, energy and the world's resources this one is. They had what looked like a really lovely home, and are swapping everything they have for something that looks like it should be home to an obscure government department. That entrance hallway thing is ripe for a couple of security card readers and CCTV. Unreal.
The barn they were in was lovely. I just don't get why you would risk so much.
This is close to me. Pass it everyday. The barns is up for raffle if you fancy a punt.
and a replaceable socket core which is somehow worse than a socket with a USB-A port already on it?
At first I thought it was a good idea and then realised that it just replaced one plug part with another plug part...
I usually can't be arsed, but i took a look at the companies he's currently a director at, and it all looks a bit gravity-defying. Not quite sure how he's still afloat........
I usually can't be arsed, but i took a look at the companies he's currently a director at, and it all looks a bit gravity-defying. Not quite sure how he's still afloat........
The whole time he seemed to be spending other people's money on gambling his wealthy future...
I also wonder if he's Trump and many squander a large fortune into a small fortune, but still have a fortune as the end.
I liked his can do attitude, he provides employment for people, works hard and is having a go. In my opinion we need more people to take a punt and have a go. I don’t know how he copes with that amount of financial worry, balls of steel.
Thought the castle was a bit fuggly though.
Grand Designs is great for schadenfreude
It's still on the market, with entirely rendered photos by the look of it because I'm sure it's still almost as much of a shell as when Kevin left
Well, yes, the last filming was in September, so nothing substantial will have been done to it. I’d estimate at £1m to finish the ‘house’ and landscape.
I was completely prepared to dislike him, but warmed to the chap when he said something like, he didn't want to tell people what he was planning to do, as they'd probably think he was a bit of a d1ck.
He was described as an entrepreneur, not an engineer.
Castle/ house was massively too big, but they almost always are.
So much concrete.
Nice views from the top mind.
Agreed he grew on me a little as it went along
What baffles me though was his own admission that it was a lot bigger than he thought it would be. Where did the disconnect between architect come or is he just blindly optimistic/ambivalent until things become real
I loved their old house, but could see they were ‘forced’ to buy the castle.
I don’t like the castle particularly, love its views, but couldn’t see that there were any lifts built in to the design?
Here it is for sale. I reckon they will struggle to sell it, I hope they do manage to keep it, but no idea what they will do with all that space
I can’t work out if some of the pics are computer generated or whether they have moved on with the build since GD was there
Quite enjoyed the episode. I didn't get the impression that his mother was too concerned about her pension pot. His life felt like a bit of a ponzi scheme...borrowing from one place to pay another and so it goes on...but a castle ? The first built in the UK in 100yrs? It really doesn't fit my idea of a castle...its a concrete block with cladding and a few cranellations on the top. I've seen crematoriums, water works and such like that look very similar. He wants to leave a 'legacy'. Mmm
Caught up last night - liked him way more than I thought I would.
The castle itself, I can't quite work out if I hate it or love it. I think if I was building something like that I would've done it much slower.
The barn they bought was much nicer. I'm not sure if he was brave or just stupid - 12% interest on a loan of what was it £2,000,000?
& like most entrepreneurs it looks like he had rich parents to fall back on.
The fact that the banks all refused to finance the project tells you all you need to know so he was down to private lenders and his mum. It was clear to me that this was always about developing to sell. When he talks about refinancing suggests it’s owned by a company and was looking to refinance the company. Why would he do that? Tax breaks and it means the buyer doesnt have to pay stamp duty because they buy the company and not a house. He is clearly in a financial mess given that he is selling it and raffling their home.
I liked the views from the inside, mainly because you can't see the building from there - there are better looking industrial units.
I think given the amount spent he missed a trick not setting up a block manufacturing company after first went bust, create a better block, build part of the castle to prototype and then sell blocks to other projects - seems like something he would have been good at.
Not to my taste, but i doubt my semi modernist is to every one elses.
I think you should start with a small design to practise. I built this house, and it might be time for another. While theres a lot i like, theres some big stuff i don't, and really i think you need to build 3 to get it right.
Good luck to anyone trying!
I was also expecting to hate it and him but I actually quite liked it. Not sure you could really call it a castle but it was certainly big and castle inspired. It's the sort of thing that you'd build as a billionaire and no-one would blink a eye at. He was just doing it on a much smaller (and ever expanding) budget.
Best of luck to them though I doubt they need it he seemed the type that would always land on his feet.
I agree, they were much more likeable than i expected.
House was stupid though.
Far far too large. Who needs 5 kitchens? i can get my head around some people. If i had a billion dollar, i wouldnt have a house with 5 kitchens. whats the point? 6 car garage? get over yourself.
Also, kidding himself that its a castle.
Castle Drogo (the last modern castle, that i'm STAGGERED Phil didnt actually bother to visit), has Granite walls 2m thick.
A bit of hempcrete and rebar doth not make it a castle. Apparently there are planning exemptions if you are buildling a castle, but i think if you are wanting to classify a building as a castle, it has to be able to take a round from a cannon/tank.
Drogo looks incredible still. This place will look ragged in 50 -100 years. Plastic moat liner will need replacing too.
A bit of hempcrete and rebar doth not make it a castle. Apparently there are planning exemptions if you are buildling a castle, but i think if you are wanting to classify a building as a castle, it has to be able to take a round from a cannon/tank.
I would like to see building control rock up with an 18th century cannon, a 6 pound round and a bag of black powder in order to sign off the build.
I could do with at least a 4 car garage now.2 for cars,1 for the motor home and one for bikes/workshop. I could get up to 2 kitchens if I had an outside one based around the BBQ if thats how it gets counted but not 5
If you're missing your Kev fix, he's doing the RIBA house of the year again on Wednesdays.
Follow along as the judges pick not-your-favourite from the nominations each week.
My fav from this week's (26.11) was the 3 wing retirement house. Absolutely stunning.
"retirement house"
Not sure that's many people's idea of a retirement house. £2-3m build? That internal ceiling cladding was certainly done with money being no object.
Just goes to prove that good architecture costs lots of money. None of the builds were cheap. I guess it's an R I B A (not reeba) self congratulation thing, so has to have extensive architect input, rather than a GD which can be a lash up self build done on a fag packet.
If you're missing your Kev fix, he's doing the RIBA house of the year again on Wednesdays.
Follow along as the judges pick not-your-favourite from the nominations each week.
My fav from this week's (26.11) was the 3 wing retirement house. Absolutely stunning.
Good PSA; I'd been wondering what happened to that given the last series was a while (couple of years?) ago
I’m slightly confused. The programme says it’s about new builds and new home of the year. But so far 2 of the 3 shortlisted are extensions rather than new homes. At this rate it will need renaming as extension of the year.
"retirement house"
Just goes to prove that good architecture costs lots of money.
It does. You want cheap then it's what the mass house builders do: 2 story square box, timber frame, brick clad, tiled pitched roof, unexciting windows, external plastic gutters.
Pretty much any other method of building will be more expensive. And anything that is not an 'off the shelf' part - anything unique or custom - adds loads of cost, uncertainty and potential issues. Unless someone has done it before you're building a prototype.
When we did ours the biggest points of conflict with the architect were the bits of design that were labelled "T.B.C. by M.C.", which turned out to mean "to be confirmed by main contractor". A meeting followed where we pointed out that were the main contractor and we needed to be able to build it - we were looking for the house to be designed, not just sketched. There were still a load of things that we had to solve that wouldn't have needed to be thought about on a standard estate house.
we were looking for the house to be designed, not just sketched.
I have some sympathy with architects over the amount of work that goes into designing a house but ime there's a hell of a lot of stuff that's "someone else's problem" that they just wash their hands of. They do mostly like to do the pretty bits and take all the credit.
From bitter experience I've learned that some architects love the drawing part, and some architects are good at the managing contractors part - and I've not found many who are good at both. So invariably you have this fantastic design on the page which then gets translated through the contractor's view of what's reasonable/ easy/ intended. So turning an architect's vision into an actual building is quite rare!
Not Grand Designs but ticks all the boxes:
"Building our dream home cost us £2.2m … and our marriage" via The Sunday Times August 25 (was given the paper to use for scrap at a client house)
- hugely inappropriate expense for the location
- took years to build
- marriage collapsed before finished
- sold for less than half what it cost them to build
Sale brochure here -
Although loads of stuff in the Times piece seems to be nonsense. The sold price per Zoopla (ie land registry) was 1.34m (so a loss of 860k not 1.2m, if it actually cost them 2.2m - they're trade so that could be RRPs for everything). The "mini coffee shop (with multiple “barista zones”)" seems to be the coffee machine on the counter behind them in that photo based on something else I found! There are only two Saunas visible on the plans so I dont know where the Time's 3rd one is meant to be.
Looking at the plans what does seem bizarre after the excess of everything else is that only the main bedroom has ensuite - the other two bedrooms which are both pretty sizeable (and mezzanine sleeping areas?) share a single shower room.
As ever, I can see the logic in using it to promote their company, but you'd kind of want to keep quiet about the fact that it took forever and costs were out of control meaning it made a huge loss on sale.
It’s 4.5 years since we moved into our self-build and I suppose lulled into the thought that the succession of jobs needing done on a new house would somehow cease..
This week I’m still putting right some of the things that weren’t right, like the recessed spotlights in the angled ceiling where they’d cut through the vapour barrier and into the foam insulation to install recessed spotlights. You could feel a breeze coming through the lights and we were getting weird condensation on the windows. I’ve had to patch the vapour barrier and install slimline flush spots.
The architects in their wisdom put the front door on the ‘weather’ side - with the winter storms, water gets blown under the door which has been absorbed and blown the skirting. Talking with the door company about replacement seals.
I feel your pain. We've been in our house (full gut job, renovation, adding insulation for the first time, large extension) for more than 2 years, and only recently has the new extension been made watertight; we're currently in the process of ripping out and replacing all the shower glass that was put in during the renovation as it doesn't work (even with large seals on door and static edges, there's still a gap between the glass and water pours out), and getting a Georgian-era, 1970s-replaced portion of the roof replaced for the cost a new car.
Apparently at some point it will all be complete, but not sure when that'll be!
It’s 4.5 years since we moved into our self-build and I suppose lulled into the thought that the succession of jobs needing done on a new house would somehow cease..
This week I’m still putting right some of the things that weren’t right, like the recessed spotlights in the angled ceiling where they’d cut through the vapour barrier and into the foam insulation to install recessed spotlights. You could feel a breeze coming through the lights and we were getting weird condensation on the windows. I’ve had to patch the vapour barrier and install slimline flush spots.
The architects in their wisdom put the front door on the ‘weather’ side - with the winter storms, water gets blown under the door which has been absorbed and blown the skirting. Talking with the door company about replacement seals.
Where's the blame for that? Specification was clearly wrong - who selected flush lights where there wasn't space behind to allow for them? But also crap workmanship because if the electrician cared about the build they should have identified the issue at first fix, or even when they came to cut the first hole in the plasterboard, and made clear that either surface mount or slimline spots were needed.
We've had very little in 10 years in ours but we did almost all the work ourselves so did both the spec and install. I had a Chinese DMX 240v dimmer thing that blew bulbs. Outside lights have been problematic - water getting into fittings and failing. What we thought was a roof leak was actually a very minor lead from the kitchen tap tail that evaporated without causing any real issue unless we went away for some weeks in winter with the heating off. We did have a condensation issue with our ventilation system but improved the insulation on the pipes and solved that. Haven't, yet, had any major jobs. The first is probably going to be some external render in a lightwell where we didn't get the detail above good enough and water gets behind it.
Yes, the lights were fitted before we moved in, during COVID and just assumed they were installed correctly - they’re quite high up in a portal roof and need a ladder to reach them. It was only when I put my hand over one and felt a draught that I took a closer look.
Interesting note to this is that (in Ireland at least) architects and main contractors have statutory liability for 7 years on new renovations/ houses. If that's the same in the UK, I'd be pursuing fairly hard to get them to come back and bring the house up to the standard they had claimed they were doing it to (ie not having wind whistling through it)
Remember the huge new build castle?
Well this is an interesting vid about the tech he designed / put in the house. Quite incredible really. Also interesting to see that for such a big home/castle they are cost neutral. However it’s a lot cheaper f equipment to achieve the goal.