This is in fact not an old house at all, but little more than a year old. It was built on the ‘footprint’ of an old bungalow which the owners bought and demolished, and it has earned a certificate of excellence from the Federation of Master Builders for the contractors, Complete Construction Services of the Eairy. ‘The great thing’ say its owners, ‘was that however unusual an idea we suggested, James Vickers of Complete Construction Services managed to come up with a way to get it done’.

You do not in fact, enter the house through the central porch; it is merely a trompe l’oeil, and the real entrance is by a door in the gable end furthest from the sea. Step inside, and your jaw drops, for here is no cottage interior but an amazing double-height room floored in distressed marble. A coal-effect stove stands at the centre of the right-hand wall, a huge chandelier hangs from the apex of the roof, and to the left a double open-tread staircase in ash with rails of satiny brushed steel – for all the world like something on a very expensive yacht – leads to the upper floor.

This lofty room, the full height of the house, is flooded with light from its vertical windows and still further by Velux windows let into the roof. There are extensive sea views from the upper windows and the walls are decorated with two brilliantly coloured, oversized canvases (one of flowers, the other, very appropriately, of yachts on a brilliant blue sea) painted by artist Valerie van Damm. She is based in both Amsterdam and at Deya, the mountain village in Majorca made famous by Robert Graves, and the owners saw and bought three paintings of hers during a holiday there.