a cedar-clad house above branksome chine

The house sits high on the wooded slope above Branksome Chine, set back from the road behind pines and screened on three sides by mature planting. Its cladding is western red cedar, left to weather, so the elevations have already begun to silver where the salt air reaches them. The architecture is restrained rather than showy: long horizontal lines, deep reveals, and a flat roof that reads as a single quiet plane against the trees. From the approach you see very little of what the house does with its position. That is deliberate.

Inside, the plan is organised around the descent of the land. The entrance level holds the kitchen and a south-west reception room behind full-height glazing, where the floor runs out onto a sheltered terrace. Below, two further reception spaces step down with the gradient, each one turning toward the water. The detailing is consistent throughout — oak floors, plaster walls, joinery built in to suit the rooms rather than dropped into them. Five bedrooms occupy the upper floor, the principal suite given the corner with the longest view down the chine toward the bay.

The roof terrace is the house's argument. Reached from the top landing, it opens above the canopy with an uninterrupted outlook over Poole Bay to the Purbeck hills and, on a clear evening, the light at Anvil Point. The walk down through the chine to the sand takes a few minutes; the beach huts and the water are close enough to be part of daily life and far enough to stay quiet. It is a house built to watch weather come in off the Channel, and to be lived in slowly.