We turned Grand Designs’s biggest disaster into dream holiday home
“The bespoke design has been brought to life through impressive engineering, with the building being anchored to the bedrock, blending whitewashed elevations with steel and glass, culminating with a lighthouse feature at one end giving almost 360-degree views of the coastline.They only used eco-friendly and second hand materials, and had an initial budget of just £50,000.




It’s a world away from what it looked like on the show, with McCloud even describing it as “a floating scrapheap challenge”.Two years after first buying the boat, it was finally finished in 2022.“The detached guest lodge/holiday let accommodation extends to about 1,270 sq ft and is included in the sale price.“The current sale price (offers in excess of £5.25m) represents fair value noting the prevailing economic and heterogeneous nature of this opportunity.
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The eco-barge was abandoned before washing up on an Essex beach in 2011, where it was used by squatters.A spokeswoman for both Savills and the receivers Bellevue Mortlakes said: “The sale represents a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to purchase one of the UK’s most spectacularly situated coastal homes and for the buyer to put the finishing touches to the property’s interior to their own specification.The downstairs level has the main bedroom, while the barge also boasts a small library and plush dining area.Chris Miller and Sze Liu Lai had ambitious plans to renovate a rusted Thames barge into a two-storey houseboat with three bedrooms.
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However, they soon realised there was water under the boards.
On top of the money spent, the Burchs were doing everything on their own time while using their own workforce.Rob, 54, said despite the boat looking structurally okay from the outside, once work began it was clear it would end up “being a complete re-fit”.The Burchs own a steel frame firm and worked on the barge at their boat yard in Burnham-on-Crouch.But it’s been all worth it in the end, with the family splitting their time between the boat and their house in St Lawrence.But they clashed with builders over their unrealistic demands, with one worker telling them: “It looks s***.”Savills’s listing reads: “The property represents a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to take on and finish the specification and fit out of one of the UK’s most spectacularly situated coastal homes.The new listing though would suggest the purchase was never made with the sale now being handled by London-based estate agents Savills.Rob and Sarah Burch, from Essex, snapped up the Medway Eco-Barge, which featured on an episode of the Kevin McCloud-helmed Channel 4 show in 2007.
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Dad-of-four Rob said with the yard just three miles from the North Sea, the boat “has had a baptism of fire” due to stormy weather.”The property has panoramic sea views and is set in grounds of over three acres, including foreshore and a tidal beach, with accommodation extending to over 6,260 sq ft.


Inside the ‘saddest’ Grand Designs house
