A few years ago, somebody wrote into the Today programme on BBC Radio 4 to complain. ‘Your presenters,’ they grumbled, ‘continually refer to the time as being “almost exactly 7 o’clock”, despite the fact that the adjectives “almost” and “exactly” are, by definition, mutually exclusive.’
The presenters agreed that it was a fair point, but also agreed that it was a pleasant enough mistake to make — especially so early in the morning — and that they wouldn’t be changing their habit any time soon.
None of this has anything to do with country houses, or course; but it does have something to do with the way that we fall into easy, simple and cosy uses of the English language. And that in turn brings us to the word ‘unique’, which in the world of property gets bandied around all over the place. If something is unique, that’s it — it’s one of a kind. Linguistically and logically, it can’t be ‘highly unique’, ‘strikingly unique’ or any other kind of modified unique.
All that said, and with thanks to Today’s presenters for giving us licence to break those rules of logic and language, this morning's property really is, well, incredibly unique. It’s super-unique. Dare we even say that it’s uniquely unique? And since we’re running away with ourselves now, tearing up rules and dictionary pages with giddy abandon, let’s just double down and affirm that The Silos — for sale via Savills at £4.25m — is the uniquest house we’ve seen in years. [Oh boy; my spellchecker really didn’t like that one.]
We haven't even touched on the fact that you’d barely use the word ‘house’ to describe a building like The Silos, but regardless of its label this really is a quite astonishing home. It’s the brainchild of the award-winning architectural practice Bramhall Blenkharn Leonard, who transformed a series of redundant grain silos in three acres of Yorkshire into the glass and metal creations you see before you on this page.
It’s modern, spacious, whimsical, and yet entirely liveable, with an open-plan, free-flowing layout to take you between the four bedrooms, four bathrooms and three living spaces. There are curves and glass everywhere; even the home gym has a curved treadmill, for goodness sake.
Tthe staircase, meanwhile, curves with such sinuous grace that we were initially convinced it must be a slide. (Obviously, that would have been even better; hopefully Bramahll Blenkarn Leonard are taking notes for their next big project.)
The staircase at The Silos. Wheeee!
We can’t tell precisely how all the rooms fit together, mainly because the ‘floorplan’ page on the Savills website simply says ‘awaiting image’; no doubt some fresh-faced young estate agent is beavering away trying to figure out how you draw and connect a series of circles using software designed for producing rectangles.
The rest of the detail the agents provide is fully-fleshed out though, from the name of the local joiner who fitted the bespoke kitchen, to details of the floating stove (by ‘GyroFocus’, apparently) which is a dazzling centrepiece for the main living area.
That fire, incidentally, is almost certainly just going to be for show. The house has a pair of ground-source heat pumps and a 44,000 kWh photovoltaic solar panel system, which apparently generates over £1,000 a month worth of electricity, allowing you to cover your own usage and sell the surplus back to the National Grid.
These combine to give the house an EPC rating of 124, which does two things. First, it establishes that the EPC isn't, as I previously assumed, a score out of 100; and secondly, it becomes by far the highest EPC rating I've seen in eight and a half years of writing about property, Uniquely high, in fact — just as you'd expect.
The Silos in Malton, North Yorkshire, is for sale at £4.25 million via Savills — see more details and pictures.
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