Garry and Camilla Elms had first glimpsed the dilapidated pump house when they and their three children Isabel (now aged 14) and Hugh and Xavi (now aged 13) became members at Goudhurst Tennis Club. They had been looking for a new family home for some time, since losing out on another house on sealed bids. “I’d been scouring Rightmove for ages,” says Garry, “The old pump house hadn’t shown up on any searches as it was listed as Price On Application. When we realised that it was for sale we came and had a look and saw that not only did it come with an old 1930s cottage but also a swathe of the most beautiful Capability Brown style parkland – we knew we had to go for it.”

Sitting with Garry and Camilla in their stunning architect designed contemporary home they point at the original pump house, now artfully hidden in a small copse of trees at the bottom of the hill. “That’s where we all lived,” says Garry, “us and the three kids whilst we waited for the necessary planning to build our dream family home. It was a great house.” Whilst the family are today happily cocooned within their beautifully designed two floor upside down house (more of which later) it has been quite the journey for them, moving first into the original 1930s terraced cottage whilst renovations began on the pump house and then into the pump house where they waited for the second phase of the main build to take shape. Throw into the mix a two-year pandemic and it is understandable quite how happy the Elms family must have been when they finally moved into their new home.

“When we first moved into the original cottage, we all got a bit of a shock as nothing had been done to it in decades. Dark blue carpets, pink and yellow walls in the wrong place, but it was also quite lovely and very cosy with the most amazing views across the old parkland,” says Camilla. Within a year the necessary work had been done on the pump house, stripping it back to its Victorian roots, dragging it back to life from quite a sorry state. “The pump house had no roof and it was full of water. We kept the renovation as sympathetic as possible,” says Garry, who wanted to preserve the authentic industrial feel with open brick work and conduits. However, for Camilla, not only did the industrial nature of the space suit her growing family, it also became the backdrop to her new business as a nutritional therapist.

“I used to run a shop in Tunbridge Wells having worked in finance in the city. After I had my children, I started studying for a degree in Nutritional Therapy at the University of West London. As my business established itself, I started my first workshops at the pump house, collaborating with a local yoga teacher. It was a bit of a pain moving all the furniture out every time, but the concept of cooking and talking about food with my clients face-to-face really worked as I was able to run through recipes and ingredients with them, cooking for them and all eating together.”

There are pops of rich colour and texture in the confident use of upholstery and curtains, which many owners often find hard to handle in a contemporary house. “I love houseplants,” says Camilla, “they are so important to our wellbeing and I worked with Kali at The Glasshouse in Cranbrook who has been amazing at sourcing just the right thing.”

The sense of family is everywhere. Whatever the architectural merit of the house – which is undeniable – ultimately at the heart of this project is a home that has been beautifully engineered to meet the ever-changing needs of a large family. “We designed this place just before Covid struck and it was constructed as we were in lockdown,” says Garry. “I didn’t intend to be on site but as I was working from home, it turned out I was here all the time. We did end up with nearly 200 changes to the original plans and they probably all thought it was a bit much, but I think that, in a large part due to the pandemic, it was essential for our forever home to be just that, somewhere that would act as a nest for our family, offering us protection during what seemed to be a very troubling time. It had to be just right, it had to be perfect.”

Walking through the house is an essay in how modern family living could and should be. The large marble and walnut island of the family kitchen (the black walnut lovingly cured by a local carpenter in Biddenden) sits alongside a beautiful ash dining table. Hanging blown glass pendant lights by UK company Rothschild & Bickers float overhead offering both colour and texture. The exquisite carpentry by Simon Shaw (who Camilla found on Instagram) divides up the space into perfectly functioning areas. The partitions are painted in rich colours of Farrow & Ball Downpipe and Zoffany Aubusson accessorised with textural Buster & Punch handles.

Around the opposite side of the partition is the sitting area which is filled with rich coloured upholstered sofas and midcentury modern chairs in charcoals and mustards. “Kate Malone Interiors in Tunbridge Wells helped us hugely with all the curtains, which add another level of texture and warmth,” says Camilla. “The curtain fabrics are from Italian brand Casamance and they really work perfectly, being luxurious but also modern and unfussy.” Around the house individual pieces of considered furniture and lighting sit perfectly, sourced in the large part by Willem from Dutch supplier De Jong Interieur, who Camilla met at Ardingly.

On the landing a series of huge and very striking portraits by South African-based artist Solomon Omogboye, who the family had discovered on a holiday, takes you to Camilla’s cosy office/den which sits atop an elegant powder-coated steel staircase that pierces the impressive double height atrium below. Camilla and Garry’s bedroom suite sits just to the bottom of the stairs, whilst a long corridor lined with discreet-yet-endless storage, is home to the kids’ bedrooms (all ensuite) and the guest bedroom suite. “We really based the bedrooms on our perfect hotel – big enough for a good size bed and built-in cupboards and generous ensuite bathrooms with walk-in showers. “Each of the kids picked their own bathroom tiles so they got to take ownership of their room, not that it helps them to tidy up!” quips Garry. The guest bedroom also has a very cunning indoor/outdoor wall that joins the interior of the house to its exterior. This sense of conversation between the interior and exterior of the house has also been achieved through the extensive glazing throughout both the lower and upper levels of the house, each window revealing yet more views to the outside.