The exterior of writer and editor Alex Bagner’s new-build timber and glass family house, tucked behind a discreet gate at the end of a London Fields cul-de-sac, offers plenty of clues about the owner’s Swedish heritage: clean, simple lines, charcoal grey painted window frames, open plan, laid-back living. What you don’t expect, as you head to the back of the house, is the sight of a one-bedroom cabin at the corner of a triangular-shaped garden.
“We were living in Primrose Hill, but then decided we needed a change, so bought this place in Hackney three years ago,” explains Bagner who, alongside her husband Chris, owns and runs the recently opened Rose Hotel in Deal, Kent. What was an unoccupied, somewhat bland, property that had sat on the market for more than a year became, with Alex and her husband’s keen eye and taste, a characterful family home. However, missing from the house where they now live with their three young children was an extra room for family or friends to stay.
“I’ve always loved the idea of a guesthouse and maybe it’s a Swedish thing – my mother is Swedish – but it’s common if you have land, to put outhouses on it,” says Bagner. “Also, we’re full in our four-bedroom house – and the garden was big enough, so we figured either we’d put in a climbing frame or build something.”
What Bagner hoped might be the straightforward installation and reasonable expense of a pre-fab garden room turned into a more complicated project. The space, which more or less fills the apex of the triangle at the foot of the garden, is awkward, and everything had to be designed from scratch as a result. The couple called in the Riba award-winning architect Marcus Lee of Leep Architects, who had already helped them renovate the main house. “We met him because we came close to buying his house near here a few years ago,” she explains. “The deal fell through, but it began a friendship. When we bought this place, we asked if he would help us renovate it in the style of his house, which he did. Then his office designed the cabin, too.”
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