When broadcaster, journalist and author Alice Beer and her partner, Paul, set out to create their dream home in a north Wiltshire village, they were unwavering about three things: sustainability, location, and a welcoming atmosphere. The result is a beautiful, unconventional family home that strikes the perfect balance between comfort and eco-consciousness. We sat down with Alice to discuss the journey, her design choices, and why sustainability is at the heart of everything she does…
Alice and Paul’s house is a unique and inviting space. It’s made up of two barns, seamlessly connected by a large central kitchen that serves as the heart of the home. It’s a family-friendly space and is also home to the couple’s 21-year-old twins, Phoebe and Dora, whenever they’re back from university and their dog, Stanley.
The house is understated yet beautiful, designed with a truly relaxed feel. Alice describes it as “a non-pretentious, very comfortable, country house”.
Alice – best known as the consumer editor on ITV’s This Morning – was already familiar with the area, having rented the house next door for four years before this one came on the market. The location has proven to be perfect. She’s a parish council member and even manages the footpath report.
She had already fallen in love with the village and its residents so making a permanent move was the next step. At first, however, not everyone agreed – when Alice and Paul bought the house, friends were initially sceptical.
“I know people were thinking, ‘What on earth are they doing buying two leaky barns?’” she laughs, “but we knew we could make it work.”
The kitchen is the heart of the home. Located in the centre of the network of rooms, it brings the whole space together. The buildings were renovated recently by Stonewood Builders using local craftspeople for all the trades and supplies. Alice admits she was “probably a bit of a pain” during the process. But the result is a solid, practical and beautifully crafted kitchen that perfectly suits the family’s needs.
There was an older AGA cooker in the kitchen and Alice decided she wanted to replace it with a newer model that would work seamlessly with renewable energy. The house came with solar panels already fitted and she was keen to take advantage of them.
“The solar panels have been fantastic,” she says, “and we’re just on the verge of buying a battery. Because it’s what I do for a living I’m researching every single angle. At the moment the solar panels pay us back a huge proportion of the electricity we use every year. I want to fix them so the battery feeds directly to our supply so we reach an equilibrium. With Paul and I living here on our own most of the time that should work. Not just for the finances, but also for the environment.”
One kitchen non-negotiable for Alice was a range cooker. Initially, she considered another brand but now says, “I was dancing with the devil!” In the end it had to be a new AGA.
The model Alice inherited with the house had been converted to run on electricity but it didn’t give her the flexibility or power she wanted or the future environmental benefits she was looking for. She considered having it converted again, but says: “If I had done that, I’d be doing it for the next 10 years. What I really wanted to do was get an AGA in for a kitchen that I would live in for the next 20-plus years.
“I feel as if I have future-proofed our kitchen by getting this new AGA.”
Well known for presenting BBC1’s flagship consumer programme Watchdog in the 1990s, it's in Alice’s nature to research everything and, although her heart wanted an AGA, she asked everyone she knew who owned a range cooker why they chose the one they did.
“I am very much the sort of person that has to have a very good reason to swing away from a brand I love and there simply wasn’t a good reason not to get an AGA. The aesthetics were important to me and when I looked at pictures of the AGA it made my heart sing. When I looked other range cookers it didn’t. It was a mix of aesthetics and the functionality that made it work for me.”
Alice chose an AGA eR7 150. It has three cast-iron, heat-storage ovens for roasting, baking and simmering, as well as two additional independently controllable ovens for slow cooking and warming. The roasting and baking ovens offer brilliant precision with additional pre-set temperatures for accurate cooking.
The model also features a state-of-the-art induction hob. It is so flexible it allows individual heat-storage ovens to be left on while others may be switched off to save energy. On top, it has classic AGA hotplates designed to be switched off when not in use, again saving energy. And the eR7 programmer can be used to conserve energy overnight or when the house is empty to offer further reduced running costs.
“I knew the boxes I wanted to tick and this AGA had them all,” Alice says. “Paul and I both travel for work, so it might be that we’re suddenly back here and we want to put a roast in the oven. I wanted it to be reactive. I know I can programme it, but I wanted to know I could come home and have a hotplate on within about 10 minutes and could be cooking something. I chose the version with an induction hob as a ‘just in case’.
“There is a huge difference between the AGA we had before and this new one. The AGA eR7 just feels more modern. It has the elegance of Audrey Hepburn and the kitchen prowess of Mary Berry. Of course, Mary Berry is beautiful too, but you know what I mean!”
Alice tried to shop local when sourcing for the house. The kitchen company, Jonathan Randall Kitchens, is based in Dursley, Gloucestershire. The flooring is from Artisans of Devizes, just 25 minutes from the house. It was a huge decision and Alice spent a long time deliberating on the tiles and the grout. In the end she chose a tumbled limestone. The pressure came from knowing this would be a forever home and Alice wanting to feel “real joy every time she padded across the kitchen floor”.
The worktop is Corian, which the couple had in a previous kitchen. It was a practical choice, which was important to Alice. “With a good cloth and some Bar Keeper’s Friend you can get any stain out,” she says. “I want people to be able to relax in the kitchen and I don’t want to be running around them with coasters.”
Alice and Paul had help from Rachel Cropper Studio when it came to choosing the colours and overall feel of the project.
“Rachel was amazing,” she says. “I told her I wanted a white that looks like a cashmere jumper, expensive but not flashy, cosy but not dark. She was brilliant and came up with names like Hammock and Dimity. In the end we went with Little Greene’s Hammock for the cabinetry and Linen Wash for the walls. The island is painted in Clove by Neptune.”
All in all, the result is better than Alice even hoped for. It’s a kitchen that will most definitely stand the test of time, in aesthetics, layout and design. And Alice has built in the longevity she was looking for.
“When we finished the kitchen, I said to the girls, ‘your children will be cooking on this AGA’. That felt amazing.”
