It took five years, a budget that doubled, and months living like “ragtag gypsies” before a London couple could finally move into their dream home built on the site of a former junkyard. Tracy and Steve Fox were happily settled in the fashionable southeast London neighborhood of East Dulwich. But they had long fantasized about building a modern home. In 2009, during a chance conversation with a friend, Mrs. Fox learned that there was a disused junkyard full of scrap metal languishing behind the area’s main shopping street, Lordship Lane. In 2010, they paid £400,000, or about $600,000, for the 3,000-square-foot junkyard even though they didn’t have building permits in place.
“It was a ridiculous amount of money and a real gamble,” said Mrs. Fox, 55. To save money, the couple bought three vintage campers and moved onto the site with their children Betty, now 25, and twins Alfy and Ruby, 19. They hired the architect Jonathan Tuckey to draw up plans for a family house with two workshops. Mr. Fox, 50, is a prop painter for films, including the upcoming “The Huntsman: Winter’s War,” starring Chris Hemsworth and Charlize Theron. Mrs. Fox enjoys art and upholstery.
In the family’s living room, industrial concrete floors are paired with comfy sofas.
DYLAN THOMAS FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNALAs fans of modern architecture who wanted to pay homage to their site’s industrial past, the Foxes asked Mr. Tuckey to create a counterintuitive style that Mr. Fox describes as “comfortable brutalism.” Mr. Tuckey’s solution was a long, low two-story house measuring around 2,800 square feet. The central part of the house contains a double-height living room and kitchen. Two wings contain three family bedrooms, three bathrooms, a music room and the workshops. At the center of the site, overlooked by all the main rooms is an open courtyard.
COSTS
• Land: $590,000
• Professional fees: $162,000
• Site clearance / groundwork: $152,000
• Steel framing, block, insulation: $93,000
• Metal cladding, translucent panels: $54,000
• Windows, doors, concrete floors: $72,000
• Utility hookups, plaster, decorative finishes: $227,000
• Stainless-steel kitchen island: $8,800
• Vintage bathroom fixtures: $2,200
• Labor: $69,000
• Misc.: $43,000
• TOTAL: $1.47 million
Initially their local council was unconvinced—Mr. Fox recalls one planning officer complaining that their designs “looked like a shed.” But eventually, after they made some subtle changes to its roofline, building permits were granted. In 2013 the family moved into a rented home, and the 18-month build began. The house is partly constructed using concrete blocks clad in a corrugated cement fiberboard. The walls overlooking the courtyard are steel framed and studded with huge windows. Polished-concrete floors downstairs continue the industrial theme, and a stainless-steel work top and charcoal-black cupboards outfit the kitchen. A welder built the narrow dining table using hairpin legs purchased online. The “sleeping wing” contains the couple’s master bedroom, where a childhood painting by Betty is pinned above the bed. Upstairs are the twins’ bedrooms, plus a family bathroom, fitted with an original Art Deco pink bathtub. The “working wing” has space for two large, light workshops. The family finally moved into their long-awaited home in October 2014, along with their two whippets, Queenie, now four, and Jet, five. They admit their initial $450,000 construction budget was unrealistic—the home ended up costing $900,000. As the cost of the project ballooned, they ran into financing delays, which held up the project for four stressful, frustrating months. The sleepless nights they endured have been mitigated by their happiness with the completed house, which they believe is now worth between $2.65 million and $2.95 million. “It has been,” said Mrs. Fox, “a bit of a bumpy ride.” This article originally appeared on The Wall Street Journal.