The client’s design brief was to replace a dilapidated existing house with a new home to accommodate his family of six and visiting guests. Their brief demanded a lot of bedrooms (five) and bathrooms, but the main emphasis was to make living spaces engage with the dramatic views across the estuary as well as out to sea. The house was to be low maintenance and energy efficient. Aesthetically, the client pointed towards a New England’ style house as they felt comfortable with the exposed timber nature of this form – it is to their great credit that they followed our interpretation towards a modern timber-framed Welsh vernacular. Located within the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park, the planning application challenged the authority’s concept for a replacement house on the site and although they conceded that it was a ‘good design that represented a modern Welsh vernacular’, it met with a refusal. The planners admitted that the contemporary nature of the design ‘was just too much for them’. Following an appeal Hearing, the scheme was finally approved in 2009. the house has been built to a fantastic quality by local contractors Carreg Construction. The house won the Gold Medal for Architecture in Wales in 2013.