The Crown Estate

Transforming a private client’s home to add a substantial basement containing a 25-metre swimming pool, bowling alley and more.

When LA Partner Kathryn Archer visited a prospective client on The Crown Estate in Oxshott, she expected to be discussing a straightforward project. The clients wanted to reorganise the space in their beautiful six-bedroom home to accommodate a new fridge. But then they mentioned the swimming pool.

Fast-forward a few months, and the LA London team was overseeing a vast excavation of the rear garden in order to construct a 25m basement pool and bowling alley to replace the client’s existing pool. Kathryn and the LA London team, which included architects Pavel Savelev and Elena Barti, designed the new pool to run parallel to the rear of the house so that it would fit within the footprint of the garden, which could otherwise only accommodate a 23.5m pool.

LA London worked with interior designers, Accouter, and main contractors, Morgan Rae, on this ambitious and complex project, which took place on a privately managed estate on a former royal hunting ground in rural Surrey.

On the principal floors of the existing property, we renovated the kitchen and bathrooms to a standard befitting the premium location. The team also extended three bedrooms to enclose the terraces over the attractive bay windows on the ground floor, meticulously sourcing bricks to match the originals. This involved calculating the precise percentage of each shade of red required so that the new exterior blends perfectly with the original.

The house benefits from an abundance of natural light, and we were keen to preserve this on the new lower-ground floor. As well as creating a sunken garden at one end of the pool, we installed an elegant spiral staircase, which doubles as a lightwell to flood the space with daylight from above.

Also on this floor, we converted the area that had housed the client’s previous smaller pool into a cinema and games room.

With the new swimming pool complete and ready for use, the garden above was restored to its former glory, ready for football matches, al fresco dining and garden parties over the summer.

Credits

Architect - LA London
Project Manager - LA London
Contract Administrator - LA London
Interior Designer - Accouter
Quantity Surveyor - Appleyard & Trew
MEP Engineer - Edward Pearce
Main Contractor - Morgan Rae