Grand Designs Water Tower Hits The Market For £3m

Victorian on top, space age down below – Lymm Water Tower is the ultimate marriage of old and new. And Grand Designs fans may recognise the iconic home from the show, now on the market for £3m. Take a look inside.

Inside Lymm Water Tower

Unlike other ambitious builds on the Channel 4 show, Lymm Water Tower was spared the pain of Kevin McCloud’s ruthless scrutiny, instead the project was praised for its ‘high-risk strategy’ and the way in which it conceived ‘two very different architectural styles jammed up against each other’.

The minds behind this distinctive work of architecture? Russell and Janette Harris. They’ve both worked in home improvement TV, and in 1997 set up their own production company Little Planet Media. It was while tearing around Cheshire on his motorbike that Russell happened upon this derelict, decommissioned 130-year-old water tower, with a ‘for sale’ sign out front.

Having just renovated a nearby farmhouse, and with two young children in tow, the couple weren’t on the hunt for a new project, but they couldn’t resist the challenge. Splashing out £138,000 on Lymm Water Tower, they gave themselves a budget of just £150,000 to transform the crumbling home. In the end, it cost closer to £830,000, and family holidays were put on hold. The Harrisses lived in rented accommodation during the seven-year project while architect Julian Baker of Elis Williams made their vision a reality.

A glass and steel extension was wrapped around the base of the red sandstone tower, and the interiors transformed into a minimalist, new-age haven. Today, the Grade II listed, five-storey property extends to 6,127 sq ft, spanning five bedrooms, a cinema room, gym, sauna and a rooftop garden accessed via spiral staircase complete with an eight-person hot tub and 360-degree views across Cheshire, Derbyshire, Lancashire and North Wales. Outside, a Japanese koi pond will be passed to the next owners, fish included, while all furniture is available by separate negotiation, too.

Despite tripping up on all the usual pitfalls of a Grand Designs home (broken budgets, planning hurdles, construction challenges and differences of opinion), McCloud remained impressed. So impressed, in fact, that Lymm Water Tower reached the final round of the 2006 Grand Designs Awards, and was later chosen as one of McCloud’s top 100 favourite projects for his 2012 The Best of Grand Designs book. It also won Riba’s Northwest England Award in 2006, plus 10 other awards across the architecture and design world. As well as its Grand Designs feature, Russell and Janette’s own production company produced a 15-part series about the renovation project for the BBC, named ‘Seven Year Makeover’.

Since its on-screen stardom, Lymm Water Tower has attracted a fair number of fans. As Russell told The Times: ‘Mostly [it’s] people asking to take photographs, which is very sweet. The house sits next to a footpath so we get ramblers gathering at the bottom of the garden taking photographs.’ For a time, they even welcomed paying guests – popping it on Airbnb eight years ago, and offering bed and breakfast stays from £295 a night. There’s now two suites, a duplex on the first and second floor, as well as a penthouse suite up in the tower.

And that’s not the home’s only money-making venture. There’s a passive income of £75,000 to be made from concealed mobile phone masts in the tower (no fear, they’re regularly inspected for safety). Despite the stellar deal, around a decade ago Russell and Janette put the house on the market for £2.5m, found a buyer and moved to Europe. But soon, Janette found herself missing family, and missing their home. They drove back, got the keys back, and have been there ever since. But it seems they’re finally ready to let go.

On the market for £3,000,000. Contact [email protected] and find out more at gascoignehalman.co.uk