NESTLED AMONG THE BUCOLIC GREEN HILLS
of Somerset, England, on the expansive Hadspen Estate, the Dairy House looks more like a country cottage than a thoughtful luxury retreat. As you approach the turn-of-the-century red sandstone building, with its large windows and charming chimney, there’s nary a clue that this former dairy has been transformed into a sumptuous home with an award-winning homespa
addition. It’s only as you enter the manicured garden of the property that you spy the radically modern oak and glass extension tucked behind the circa-1902 structure. According to owner Niall Hobhouse, keeping the simple original exterior of his stunning country getaway was an intentional foil. “It’s supposed to be a secretive place, so that when you’re nearby, you
don’t really notice it,” says Hobhouse, an art dealer and governor of the Cities Programme at the London School of Economics. “It’s not only a retreat from London, it’s a retreat from the whole estate.”

Hobhouse inherited the 200-acre Hadspen Estate— a property that included an 18th-century mansion, now Hobhouse’s office, as well as 15 to 20 dilapidated cottages, one of which is the Dairy House—in ill repair. When he originally asked his close friend, architect Charlotte Skene
Catling, to transform the simple cheesemaker’s cottage into an idyllic refuge from city life, he was intending to rent it out, like the other cottages on the estate. But when building began, he realized he wanted to claim the Dairy House for himself as a place to indulge in solitude
or discreetly entertain family and friends. The Dairy House is now Hobhouse’s home away from home, where the office and estate business can’t reach him—“a place I can be on the estate when nobody knows I’m here.”

The challenge from the beginning, however, was how to transform this small, run-down sandstone cottage into what Hobhouse describes as “a luxurious take on the countryside.” He was against simply tarting up the original building—he didn’t want it to look “any grander than it was.” Instead, Hobhouse was determined that the house should look and feel like the countryside. The design was shaped by a continuing dialogue with architect Catling. “I’ve
known her for a long time, and in a sense, the design came out of a long and informal discussion. It suddenly made sense for her to go ahead and design it,” says Hobhouse.

When you step into the bathroom extension, the oak and laminated glass interior makes it feel like a kind of opulent outdoor shower.

Catling’s inspired design would retain and refurbish the original building, hiding what Hobhouse describes as “the most elaborate bathroom extension in history” behind it. The original bathroom was a corrugated iron addition, so it wasn’t suitable for restoration. Catling and Hobhouse agreed that the new spa was the key to transforming the Dairy House from a quaint country house into an exclusive getaway. “This was to be a building that privileges solitude,” says Catling. “The sense of ‘retreat’ was to be reinforced through ‘camouflage.’ The house was to appear unchanged from the outside, and to reveal itself on entering—against expectations.”

“The extension houses two bathrooms,” adds Catling. “Everything behind the retaining wall can be flooded with water.” When you step into the bathroom extension, the oak and laminated glass interior makes it feel like a kind of opulent outdoor shower. To create the extension, which includes a downstairs study, two upstairs bathrooms and a 215-sq-ft outdoor hot tub, Catling designed an innovative structure of alternating oak and glass beams. In support of this structural experiment, glass manufacturer Pilkington provided the glass for free, while the oak was actually dark pieces of cordwood cut from mature trees and dried on the estate. The wood, stacks of which formed the inspiration for Catling’s design, was being stored immediately opposite the Dairy House. The alternating oak-and-glass facade creates remarkable lighting effects within the Dairy House.

Shifting shafts of light bathe the two bathrooms in an aquamarine glow—a submarine effect redoubled in the early morning when the sun’s rays bounce off the outdoor pool, reflecting ripples of light onto the bathroom ceilings and into the hallway. “The light that comes through the laminated glass is much more watery and green than I expected it to be,” says Hobhouse. “I thought it was going to be chilly, but fortuitously, it’s actually moody.” Bathed in underwater light, the bathrooms elevate the Dairy House to an ideal place for respite and retreat. The aquamarine light has a soothing and calming effect—a spectrum of blue instantly comforts and subdues. Meanwhile, the meditative ebb and flow of the reflected light on the walls, a constant visual cue, functions almost as a kind of light therapy, easing stress away in therapeutic waves.

“The Dairy House has essentially become a spa,” Hobhouse says. The two upstairs bathrooms, located across the hall from each other, are both fitted with bathtubs and an ingenious shower that opens directly onto the outdoor hot tub. “The idea is that you can literally open the door of the shower and seamlessly step right into the pool, or more likely the other way around.” To ensure that the Dairy House’s two showers would never run cold, Hobhouse needed an innovative solution for his water-heating system. In the end, a secret room was built into a hill and concealed behind a long stone wall. “It’s a rather wonderful space in there,” adds Hobhouse with obvious admiration, “because it’s lit by this skylight. It looks a bit like the engine room of the Titanic.”

Shifting shafts of light bathe the two bathrooms in an aquamarine glow-a submarine effect redoubled in the early morning when the sun’s rays bounce off the outdoor pool.

An outdoor heated hot tub is admittedly not the most environmentally friendly feature, but it has some redeeming qualities. It’s connected to a biomass power source, which heats the water by burning wood and waste material from the estate and serves as a heat exchange to cool air in the house in the summertime. To ensure that construction of the Dairy House made
the smallest carbon footprint possible, Catling hired regional workers, including a local cabinetmaker, glass laminator and stonemason who all lived within 20 miles of the estate, which reduced fuel consumption. The slate and oak used in the renovations were from the estate.

Well water is pumped out of the ground for daily use. Hobhouse retreats to the Dairy House from London on most weekends, “arriving at five o’clock on a Friday evening, making dinner and then sitting in the therapeutic hot waters for half an hour while looking at the moon.” But he acknowledges that on occasion, the house serves a less serene purpose. “My children arrive with their friends when I’m not there, and it becomes inhabited in a completely different way,” says Hobhouse. “Six teenagers arrive at two in the morning and plunge into the pool.”

Partying teenagers aside, for its owner, the Dairy House remains a tranquil, spa-like getaway in the country. “What I’m most proud of is how discreet it all is,” says Hobhouse fondly. “We really made the private spaces the most luxurious ones.”