Take one of those typical Victorian houses that has been divided into flats.
Which storey would you prefer to live on? The raised ground floor, perhaps,
with its high ceilings and ornate period details? Or maybe the top, under
the eaves, where you can enjoy great views across the city?
You probably wouldn’t opt for the lower ground floor - or basement, to be more
accurate. Low-level living has found it difficult to shake off its
below-stairs image – and understandably so. This, after all, was the service
part of the house, where you would find the kitchen, scullery and laundry; a
damp, dark and dingy place that was best avoided. Why go down in the world
when you could go up?
Yet lower-ground living offers several advantages: basement flats or
maison-ettes tend to come with a garden or terrace, making them an
attractive option for families with children. More often than not, they also
have their own entrance. And if you want more space, you may be able to
extend out at the back.
Most important of all, basement flats are relatively cheap. Liam Bailey, head
of residential research at the estate agent Knight Frank, says that, all
other things being equal, they tend to sell for 20% less than their
ground-floor equivalents: “At their best, basement flats offer outside space
and extra storage, and can represent something of a bargain compared to
other flats in the same block.”
The real challenge is finding ways to get light into them – but, these days,
given a little imagination, there are solutions for that, too. Just ask Andy
Martin, an Australian-born architect. He understood the potential of his
lower-ground garden flat, part of a large Victorian terraced house in
Notting Hill, west London, as soon as he viewed it 4½ years ago.
“When I walked in, I just knew that I wanted to buy it,” says Martin, who
lives there with his girlfriend, Madeleine Heide Paus, an art consultant,
and their two children, Eero, 4, and Panama, 20 months. “I had been looking
for a place for a year and a half, and it’s in a good street where a lot of
actors and creative people have been buying. That first summer we had it, I
could see that the light was dying to get inside, but couldn’t.”
Martin, who paid £270,000 for the flat, came up with a design to turn it into
a family-friendly space bathed in natural light. The back of the building
was radically altered, creating an open-plan living room, kitchen and dining
room with banks of glass connecting the space to the outside and a huge
pivoting glass door leading onto the terrace. A semitransparent sun room/
second bedroom was added to the rear, alongside the terrace.
At the front, the large master bedroom – with a bathtub in the window bay –
was updated, but kept separate from the rest of the flat, while a new shower
room was added by excavating the coal cellar. White walls and white resin
floors throughout bounce light through the flat, and there is plenty of
storage to reduce clutter. Most of the units are wall-mounted, so the floors
and ceilings flow around them, increasing the sense of space.
“The glass at the back of the flat and the connections to the terrace make a
huge difference, especially in the summer, when we get light pushing right
inside,” Martin says. “But we did have to put in two steel box frames at the
back to resupport the building. When you own the whole house and need to do
work in the basement, well, that’s one thing. We had to consider the others
who live here.”
The work took six months – with the structural changes being the most complex
part of the job – at a cost of about £70,000, although Martin, of course,
did not have to pay architects’ fees. He and Paus are now selling the flat
for £600,000 through Foxtons (020 7616 7000, www.foxtons.co.uk),
after deciding that they need more living space for their growing family.
Charles Barclay Architects, which has a good track record of residential
conversions, extensions and new builds, has transformed a basement flat for
South African clients, also in Notting Hill. Barclay converted a dark,
warren-like three-bedroom garden flat – part of a four-storey Victorian
building – into a light and spacious two-bedroom flat with improved access
to the large rear garden. There was some discussion about the pros and cons
of losing the third bedroom, but the new layout proved a great success, with
a number of internal walls removed for a more fluid, open layout.
“The planners would not allow an extension, so we opened up the rear of the
flat and created a large open-plan living and dining area – with the kitchen
alongside – leading out to the terrace and garden through four new french
windows,” Barclay says. “We used pale limestone floors to reflect light.
Because of the residents on the floors above, we needed party-wall
agreements, and surveys were done on all the other flats before structural
work began, so we could monitor any damage being caused by the work.”
With internal supporting walls being removed and replaced by ground and
ceiling beams, as well as supporting columns, nonnegligence insurance was
taken out to cover any unexpected results of the structural changes. In the
end, there were no problems and everything ran smoothly, but this is a
precaution worth considering when looking at structural changes or
excavations in basement spaces.
The techniques that transform basement flats into light, airy spaces are also
being applied by homeowners trying to extend downwards. Take Michael
Nathenson’s mews house in Belsize Park, northwest London. When he bought it
in 2004, the property was small and spread over two floors (the ground and
first). There was, however, planning permission to add another floor on top
and create a large 840 sq ft basement, in which he and his wife, Angela, now
have a guest bedroom, a television lounge and an office, as well as two
bathrooms.
As part of his reinvention of the house, Nathenson, a professor of educational
technology at the Open University turned serial house doctor, has created a
large lightwell staircase down to the basement, top-lit by a large skylight.
This is augmented by large internal windows from the open-plan kitchen and
dining area on the ground floor, as well as light from a sequence of
external ground-floor windows. The rooms on the lower ground floor also have
glass doors and internal windows, to give the maximum possible flow of
light.
“I put windows everywhere I could to get sunlight into the house, and at the
nice times of year, you get really good light coming down into all three
rooms in the basement,” says Nathenson, who is developing two new houses in
Salcombe, Devon.
“I spend all day on the lower-ground level in my office, usually from eight in
the morning until seven at night, and I don’t feel I am in a basement at
all. When I turn around in my chair, I can look right up through the
skylight to the roof terrace on the first floor, where we have some jasmine
climbers.”
Nathenson invested in a waterproof membrane tanking system for about £5,500 to
ensure the basement didn’t succumb to damp. Plasterboard walls were glued
onto the membrane, rather than screwed into place, to avoid puncturing it,
and two sump pumps were installed to take away foul water and excess ground
water. An air extraction system was also added.
The Nathensons spent about £125,000 on the excavation works, plus £300,000 on
the rest of the building works and £185,000 on all the finishes, which
include a top-of-the-range Bulthaup kitchen. The project took 20 months to
complete, and the extended house covers an area of 2,745 sq ft.
Nathenson turned down an offer of £3m in spring, but is hoping to sell next
year once he has finished work on his new house nearby – another mews
building, where he is excavating once again, creating a sunken courtyard
garden, planted with birch trees, into which all the key living spaces will
look. “It makes huge sense to dig down and create more space,” he says. “But
you need to invest in the practicalities, such as tanking and drainage.” +
Andy Martin Associates; 020 7229 2425, www.andymartinassociates.com
. Michael Nathenson; www.ue3.co.uk
Other basement flats
London £899,000 A refurbished two-bed flat, 10 minutes’walk from
Kensington High Street,with a study, private entrance and patiogarden. There
are 67 years remaining on the lease. Hamptons; 020 7937 9371, www.hamptons.co.uk
Bath £595,000 On Great Pulteney Street, a three-bed flat in
a converted Georgian end terrace with its own entrance and courtyard garden. Pritchard
& Partners; 01225 466225, www.pritchard-partners.co.uk
