Sovalli Story

When in 2002 Chris Jones the founder of Sovalli bought a Victorian country house in 4 acres of gardens surrounded by fields, his intention was to renovate the house and restore it to its former glory.

However 40 years of neglect by the previous owners combined with the buildings timber framed construction and bodged earlier repair jobs meant that this was almost impossible without a total rebuild, which begged the question was rebuilding the existing house the best option.

As the building sat on a superb site in mature gardens overlooking the surrounding country side, after much thought he decided to build a new house that did justice to the location.

Having always admired Georgian architecture, especially that of the Georgian country house Chris decided to build in the Georgian style.

Planning rules allowed for a house of approximately 7,000 sq ft and the research began, it was soon clear that all the so called Georgian style homes built today would have been unrecognisable to a Georgian architect, they follow none of the classical rules of proportion set out by the Italian architect Andrea Palladio and brought to this country by his early followers such as Inigo Jones and Robert Adam who built initially for the aristocracy that had been on the grand tour and seen the villas and public buildings of Italy. The style soon became the height of fashion and spread to influence almost every building of the period.

One of the classics of British Georgian architecture is the VITRUVIUS BRITANICUS published in 3 volumes between 1715 and 1725 in which the Scottish architect Colen Campbell travelled the country drawing up detailed plans of what were then the finest new buildings, great houses such as Castle Howard and Chatsworth and smaller country houses some only referred to by the name of the owner such as 'Sir Walter young's house in Devon'

Tucked away in this book amongst the grand estates was Shawfield Park a mansion designed by Campbell himself for his brother a Glasgow tobacco baron, probably the most modest house in the book it looked perfect. Unfortunately the original house burnt down in 1820 so it was not possible to view the original but an engraving of the house was tracked down and was a useful addition to Campbell's scale drawings.  Despite much further extensive research no other house was found that looked suitable and the many reference books studied provided a wealth of information to fill in the detail on Campbell's elevational drawings.

Architects Randfield Associates were commissioned to draw plans for the house in detail. Whilst from the outside, the house was to be as close to the original as possible, the construction methods were to be modern with the building meeting the highest levels of energy efficiency.

It was soon apparent that the cost of adhering to every period detail of the stonework alone was going to be enormous and that there was also difficulty in finding a UK company that was able to take on the work.

That is when with the viability of the project threatened by the cost of the stonework, the decision was made not to compromise but instead to rewrite the rule book and find a whole new network of suppliers that could be brought together to make this project succeed, both in terms of the quality of the building itself and also its construction costs.

You can read the full story of the project in our blog, and keep up to date with the regular updates.

With Sovalli.com, you have this network and the knowledge gained throughout the management of this  project at your disposal. We have already turned one dream into reality: Contact Sovalli to bring your dream one step closer.