Jonathan and Zahra Chambers have added a striking contemporary extension to this listed barn conversion in Hampshire

WORDS REBECCA FOSTER

PHOTOS JAMES FRENCH

Ever since they got married, Jonathan and Zahra Chambers had always lived in new build homes. However, the couple had become frustrated by the lack of outdoor space and close proximity to neighbours that’s a common feature of many developer-built dwellings. So they decided to begin their hunt for an abode that was totally diff erent. “We were looking for a property that was the complete opposite to the house we were living in at the time,” says Jonathan. “We wanted more privacy, as well as space for parking and entertaining guests.”

Th e couple were after a family-orientated abode where they and their 10-year-old daughter could live for many years to come. “People talk about their forever home, and we knew it would just be one last leap until we managed to discover ours,” says Zahra.

Lucky find

The couple focused their search on several picturesque villages in Hampshire, not too far from where they were living, and waded through sales particulars. However, it was while Jonathan was driving to work one day that he spotted a for sale sign outside a listed barn conversion in a small Georgian town near Winchester.

“We’d only been looking around seriously for about a year at that point, and this particular area hadn’t been on our shortlist. I hadn’t thought there would be anything suitable for us that was within our price range,” he says. “It was one of those really fortuitous moments that I happened to be passing by and spot something that was just right for us. Plus, we were in a good position because our home was on the market and we already had a buyer, so were able to act quickly.”

When Zahra saw the barn, it was love at first sight. “It’s a beautiful and unusual building,” she says. Set within a large, leafy plot, the property seemed ripe for an extension of some sort. However, even before the couple purchased the site, the estate agents warned them that they would be unlikely to get planning consent to construct an addition. “Th ey said they hoped we weren’t buying it purely with the view of doing a project. Actually, we weren’t – it was just for the plot size and privacy, and to have something that was very diff erent to what we had always lived in previously.”