Kevin McCloud on tragic advice he gave owner of Grand Designs' 'saddest' property

Kevin McCloud has revealed what he told the owner of Chesil Cliff House, which was dubbed Grand Designs' 'saddest house'

A home was dubbed Grand Designs' "saddest house" still lives long in the show's host Kevin McCloud's memory.

The magnificent mansion in the West Country had its moment in the limelight on the hit Channel 4 series and was modelled after a lighthouse. However, the 2019 episode was tinged with sadness after homeowner Edward Short had to grapple with a number of setbacks, including the loss of his marriage. He also amassed a staggering debt of £7million as he desperately tried to remodel his Chesil Cliff House located near Braunton in Devon.

Now, speaking exclusively to the Mirror, Kevin admitted he had told Edward "he had a perfect home already". He said: "My initial thoughts was they had a perfectly good house sitting on the site that they could have remodelled, and that would have sorted them out. I said that on the first day. I said 'you've got a perfectly good house here. Why are you going to knock it down?'"

Speaking of the initial episode showing the project, Kevin said: "What's really interesting is that everybody remembers the original film because it got a lot of publicity. And it was a film about overreaching, overextending, hubris, marriage breaking down, somebody trying to build something that's too ambitious. And I was absolutely on the same page at the time, and the last piece to camera I made about word hubris, about this idea of trying too hard, you know, and being too aggressive about it.

"And Ed, who the film was about, really, was wonderful, because he understood that and he wasn't trying to hide it. When we went back to the revisit a couple of years later, he was a sort of changed man. He had sort of gone through this process of reconciliation with the project and and with Hazel, his ex wife, and so the second programme became not about hubris, but about reconciliation and about reconciling yourself with who you are and self knowledge. And it was a beautiful ending, albeit with the same tinge of regret and sadness, but a much more complex film."

The lighthouse-inspired property took 12 years to build, and debt-ridden Edward didn't even get the chance to live in it. The music producer, who had hoped to complete the cursed new-build in a far quicker 18-month time frame - also saw his marriage fall apart as the extreme pressures of the ambitious project took a serious toll.

Kevin revealed he still keeps in touch with Ed following the project and admitted that is often the case with longer term projects. He added: "We become friendly and I'll happily to spend time with them. And they come back to the exhibition, for example, they come back to Grand Designs Live. Yeah, I keep in touch with, with, with everybody, through the sort of conventional channels, but one or two people, I sort of see socially. Ed and Rowena, another head, who live on the Hill in Herefordshire, in that great, big, giant Hobbit house. They've become firm friends. And that's partly because we filmed them over 15 years. Ed in Chesil House, I think, it must be about the same. It must be 15, if not 16 years as well. So inevitably you become friendly over that amount of time."

Kevin was speaking prior to the Grand Designs Live show in Birmingham, which took place between 2-6 October. During the exhibition, Kevin buried a time capsule which included some of his favourite mementos from the show's past 25 years. While he confesses he still has a bucket list to tick off in terms of filming, the time capsule is made from a builder's former tool box. In it, are several sentimental items from his time on the show, including a mug made by a daughter of a couple who had appeared on the show, and a prototype the property that gave him a buzz on the show.

He said: "It's a combination of nostalgia over that last 25 years. And also, you know, innovative products. It's a little bit kind of, we call it jamboree."

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