Property of the month: a very modern seaside home in Sussex

The Sussex coastal town of Shoreham has a secret: it’s a magnet for families who fancy building themselves modern beach houses. Primelocation consider one of the latest

What: A five bedroom modernist beach house overlooking the English Channel in Shoreham, between Brighton and Worthing in Sussex.

We say: If you want a holiday home with a difference in a traditional South Coast bucket and spade hotspot and have a couple of million to spare then make a beeline for this modernist masterpiece.

In front of Shoreham’s busy high street and shops lies a lagoon and, beyond that, a strip of land much favoured as a holiday home destination full of beach houses built from the 1970s onwards all overlooking or near to Shoreham’s shingle beach.

An increasing trend in the area is to buy up one of the 1970s or 1980s properties and transform it into a modernist edifice that would be more at home architecturally in North London. The favoured way is to knock down the old house and start but many also convert the existing structure – which is what Todd Cooper and Giuseppe Sironi did to theirs.

Their five-bedroom, four bathroom property started life as a large but unremarkable 70s beach house and, although the existing building may have been uninspiring it did benefit from unobscured views of the Channel, a large footprint and an unusual butterfly roof
Todd and Giuseppe brought the property in 2006 for £995,000 before spending a further £1m on a full re-build. Stripping the building back to its very basics they got rid of everything apart from two exterior walls and the roof.

Making a grand entrance

They opened out what had been a separate annexe in order to create a grand, open-plan entrance to the property.
Today, the ground floor is home to three bedrooms and two bathrooms, along with a guest suite boasting its own kitchenette and bathroom.

The main living space is on the first floor, up the large central staircase that takes pride of place in the entrance hall. This floor is taken over by a vast living area and kitchen that makes the most of the beautiful views courtesy of full width and height doors and windows.

They also gives access out onto the large balcony that spans the front of the building. Furnished with luxurious natural materials, including Ipe wood flooring, the space is given a contemporary feel thanks to the all white walls and neutral furniture.

In one half of the room soft chairs are angled towards the windows and that view.

The other half is given over to a dining space and hi-spec kitchen, which features luxury appliances and imported Italian black and white marble surfaces. A wall of bespoke wooden storage units line one wall, while a stainless steel and wood island sits in the middle.

Seaside living

Tucked behind the main living space is the master bedroom, which incorporates a full height window looking back through the house towards the beach.  This large room also has use of its own dressing room and ensuite wet room.

Meanwhile, outside the property also has an outdoor swimming pool (for when the beach is too crowded or the sea too rough) surrounded by a marble terrace.

The property is on the market with Hamptons for £2.25 million, down from an original asking price of £2.4 million