Buttsbury Court was built in the 1960s as three separate dwellings. They shared a site and a courtyard, and very little else. The commission was to make one house out of them, which is a more challenging brief than building from nothing because every decision has to reconcile three sets of levels, three roof lines and three proposals about where a front door should be located.
An estate that finally belongs to itself
The finished estate runs to roughly 5,700 square feet of interiors within 28,100 square feet of landscaped grounds. Nothing about the plan announces where one of the original houses ended and the next began.
The polo field informs the plan
The house sits on the front line of the historic Holders Polo Field, with more than 75 acres of protected countryside beyond it. There are no adjacent neighbours and nothing overlooks it, which on Barbados is close to unrepeatable unless you take a plot on the edge of a golf course. The Caribbean Sea is two minutes away.
The living and dining rooms were opened out towards the field and given shaded terraces to spill onto, and the service side of the plan was placed away from it. The view is the one element on this site that demands maximum exposure, and the layout provides it.
Light without the heat
The courtyard that the three houses used to share is now the atrium dining hall, roofed in a solar efficient daylight system. That distinction matters in the tropics: an ordinary glass roof would have delivered the light along with immense heat. This option offers a tall room full of daylight that stays comfortable through the middle of the day.
A tall room with porcelain underfoot and glass on two sides could also sound uncomfortable, so acoustic fabric panels by GP & J Baker of London were built into the lounge and dining walls and Strada Starburst chandeliers located to offer a dynamic focal point.
The floor is Minoli Italian porcelain, specified in 600 by 600 indoors and matched in 600 by 1200 outside, so the surface carries straight out onto the terrace instead of stopping at a threshold. Elsewhere the floors are engineered European oak in a white matt lacquer.
Made in England, installed in Barbados
The kitchen, the dressing rooms and the cabinetry throughout were made in the Bonham & Bonham workshop in England, then crated, shipped and installed four thousand miles away. Work made that far from where it is fitted has to be right first time, as there is no going back to the bench for a scribe that does not land.
The kitchen has bespoke Corian surfaces and an Arturo Alvarez pendant cluster over the island, which was designed as the central feature of this are. Food preparation can be carried out on one side, stylish comfortable seating is on the other.
The three principal suites carry walk-in dressing rooms, Elitis Paris wallcoverings and bathrooms by Riluxa Italia with Hansgrohe fittings. The notable local feature is dramatic: a Caribbean quartzite feature wall in the master bathroom, island stone set against English joinery, which is indicative of the total project in a single room.
The cottage, the garden and beyond
A detached cottage holds a fourth suite with its own terrace, a kitchenette and two bathrooms. It works as guest accommodation and equally as an alternative principal suite for anyone sleeping away from the main house. Planning approval is in place for a fifth suite and a second pool, so the estate has yet more potential.
Outside, the gardens run to furnished terraces, a fully equipped pool bar and a pool whose lighting is programmable and responds to music. Behind the main water feature stands a majestic banyan tree, which elevates the garden in the most beautiful manner, and was designed to be included as a showpiece feature in the landscape.
The practical layer is deliberately quiet: automated gates with video entry, cameras that can be watched from anywhere, ducted air conditioning across the open plan with 60 inch coastal fans elsewhere and automated irrigation. A Caribbean house is relaxing only if somebody has already considered how it function at its best.
With the polo season across the fence and Holetown a short drive for dinner and the beaches, it reads equally as a private family retreat and as a rental through the island social calendar. Buttsbury Court. Precision built. Island lived.
