Inside The Peaceful Mediterranean Home Of Bert & May Founder Lee Thornley

Hi Luxury Home Show, I'm Lee, founder of interiors brand Burton May and welcome to my second home here in Spain. Cheers! We've supplied tiles to Prince Harry and Meghan. Welcome to Casa La Siesta here in Andalusia. I bought this property back in 2006 and there was absolutely nothing here. So no plants, no house at all, so everything was built and finished in 2008. What made you decide to build a property from the ground up as opposed to purchasing an existing villa out here? So we tried, we thought conventionally, we wanted to do the conventional thing to go out and buy an existing property but it's actually really really hard to find something out here that has the land that we wanted to have and just something that would be big enough for our family so we knew we had to build something. How did you go about creating a property that looked old but was actually very new? Well I think for me it's all about the materials and finding all of the different pieces of the jigsaw is actually the kind of, I think, the key to the success. So having a blank canvas in some ways is like really daunting but I think it's actually the best scenario possible because you get to go out as I did on these incredible kind of salvage hunting trips to find all the pieces of the jigsaw which then you can design the house around the jigsaw. So I'll show you some of the gardens later but let's go inside and have a look at some of those jigsaw pieces and see how it's all come together. So welcome to the salon, the main kind of living space of the house. On this side, on the left here, you've got our sitting area and then we've got the dining space plus the kitchen at the end. I'm not really that obsessed about or worried about colours or fabrics at this stage. I'm all about, my absolute kind of passion in interior design is about the materials because I think these are the things that we have forever. So these things really really matter. So that's been kind of a big part of this story of building this house as the material choices. So to give an example, these were old beams that I found in Cordoba. They were part of an old mill and when I found these, the salon, the house didn't exist so I literally had to design the space around the pieces that we'd found. So they've ended up creating a really interesting structure to the room, dividing the three spaces up. And then in terms of the other material choices, we've got this reclaimed terracotta floor which I found in an old bodega which is a vineyard in Jerez, our local town to here. And I think, again, it's a very very simple palette. My own taste, obviously it's not for everyone, but my own taste is quite simple. I like to have a very simple, basic palette of materials which then can be dressed up as you like it really. And then all the wall finishings that you're going to see around the house are all this plaster work. So this is just the lime plaster. This was done 15 years ago now and it's never once been repainted, retreated. So it was done in the lime plaster finish and then waxed. It's pretty amazing to think we've not had to even paint it once since putting it on. Actually the imperfections sort of add to it, don't they? Yeah, they're really cool and some darker pieces as well where the wax has brought out a slightly pinkier tone. But it just creates a really nice kind of textural finish. Let's have a little look at the sitting area. It is obviously January, so we've got the fire on. So even in Spain it gets pretty nippy. This was just, I suppose it's a good example of salvaging random pieces that I had no idea when I bought this stone what I'd do with it. But it's basically just three pieces of stone that I've kind of bodged together to make a really, I think now, pretty nice fireplace. And then in terms of the hearth, you've got two old steps that again I found and salvaged and then just some stonework behind it. But the kind of detail of having nice curved edges on the steps I think just really, really makes it. How do you go about finding these steps? That's a fun process. It's amazing, but I think what's more, in some ways it's just so exciting to go and buy things you love. Buy things that you like the look of and then figure out how you're going to use them. I could never have gone out and bought the steps and thought I'm going to make a hearth. But buying these lovely materials, I'm like buy something and then go I'm going to make a shelf. Like in one of the bedrooms that I'll show you later we've got a bath, a freestanding bath. And then I've used a piece of marble as a beautiful shelf to put the shampoo and conditioner on and all that stuff. Were you a hoarder then? Yeah, well I definitely was a hoarder at the beginning. I mean I had this piece of land with no house here and it was just full of absolutely random stuff like railings, doors, beams. And then it was just exciting to kind of figure out how you put them all together really. So now we're in the dining area of the house and before I show you a few things in here I want to show you the real owner of the house. This is Sombra and she is 18 and was found, we found her, someone abandoned her in a car wash. She decided to hide in the engine of the car for two days so stopped our building work a little bit but she's doing pretty good on Spanish living. This is all about kind of one open living space. You know you can see it's part of the living area and the kitchen's just over there so it's just this lovely big open space and the details I suppose are in things like this table. So it's old shutters but then just battened together and sanded so they were a dark green and then I've just sanded off most of the green so it kind of, you know, you still feel how old it is but it's still, yeah, just has lots of different patina and colour and stuff. Other details, things like this. It's hard to get when you're trying to create this kind of lovely old finish, timeless kind of look. What can I do with a skirting board? And I think it's things like this that people really struggle with. So I had the old terracotta floor, I had the burr plaster walls so rather than go the classic wooden skirting or a tile skirting, I decided to just do an experiment and cast our own skirting board. So literally just kind of got some timbers and poured the white cement in and it's got all these lovely little holes in it as well as some dust but fundamentally I just think it looks really cool. It's not like a traditional interior design approach that you have. It's more like experimental, would you say? I don't know what, I don't know really. I mean I think for me, I'm not, you know, I'm a guy from Blackburn in Lancashire. I'm not an interior designer. I very rarely say that. Often other people say it about me. They're like, well you're a designer. I'm like, I just have a good eye. So for me doing this is, yes it is a bit of trial and error but I just also didn't know how to get what I actually really wanted without trying new things. So it kind of worked, which is good. And then I think things like this are really interesting. So where you've wanted to obviously create some architectural structure to the room. So this is just old floor tiles with it like roughly rendered and actually creating this kind of texture I think just really enhances the kind of feeling of the room. People often come in into this kind of area and say, oh my god, it looks so old how is it new? And I'm like, well it's not really new because it is all old. It's just we've put it back together here instead of where it was originally. Old reclaimed tiles, they're patterned tiles and the columns I think, they work. I think so anyway. So we're now in like, I suppose the central bit of the house. This is our courtyard. I was a barrister in London and I knew really soon as I qualified that I didn't want to be a barrister. So I suppose it was, I knew I just needed to do something different. So I got a first class honours degree from King's College then started teaching law and I just knew that it wasn't for me. So I came out to learn Spanish in Sevilla and thought that I wanted to be out of the city. So I left my kind of flat in London intent on coming here for a few weeks to learn Spanish and then moved back to my flat. Never even went back and got the furniture. I just abandoned my London life and moved to Spain. So now we're going to have a little look at our lunch spot and Marilu is actually here who's preparing us some lunch today and has been here at Casa for, how long have you been working here? Nine years ago, yeah. Nine years. I'm doing a tour with Tom. What is your favourite bit of Casa La Siesta? Well, I love everything but I have to tell you I prefer the swimming pool area because it's heated, it's warm and healthy but I love the bar. For a drink? Okay, Tom let's go to the bar. Thanks Marilu. This is I think one of the biggest I suppose triumphs in the sense of it all being relatively new. This wall out here was made just from all the leftover bits of the actual build from the house. So it's got old tiles in it it's got old bricks in it and we literally just used every single last bit of crap that was left over on the building site is in this wall. When we have friends and family come or guests they always say to me how did you do this wall? I mean it's so amazing how you did it and I'm literally like it's just all the leftover bits not wasting a single thing. So this makes me very, very happy that it'd be in essence like 100% salvaged stuff. This is obviously a bar and we've used the reclaimed tiles we've just got some old timbers some reclaimed timbers and then the kind of the structure of this I think it feels it is a building but the fact that we've gone with this they call it in Spanish like mimbre it's like the caned roof you just get beautiful kind of rays coming through and it feels indoor outdoor kind of vibes going on so it works really well and then I suppose most importantly got our own little beer tap which I can test my pouring skills and see if it's up to scratch oh dear some kind of joke coming about giving good head now there you go thank you very much cheers I feel like I'm really in Spain now this is what it's all actually about so it's more of the old doors again same system as I talked about inside found the doors and then made the hole fit the doors not the other way around and there's no genius kind of magic in what I've done I've just found the beautiful things it's these materials that are doing all the shouting for us really this is a really great space made from old pallets the furniture some nice kind of outdoor quality fabrics on it and next to this kind of very rustic materials around it just feels I think pretty effective these are again just old roof tiles with lights behind them it's a very simple pallet and I think lighting is probably one of the hardest things to get right in a building like this I sometimes think the gardens are probably a bigger success in some ways than the house because to think there was nothing here it was just a plain field it was on a hill there was no terracing and it's southern Spain it's pretty dry and arid so we had to do an awful lot of work with landscaping to get it to look like this this is our main pool we've actually got two pools and I'll show you afterwards but we're building another little cottage so we're going to have three pools so it's feeling a bit like Aqualand now so that's definitely the last pool we're building this one's heated and it's eco so we've got solar panels and a supportive heat pump so it's kind of relatively sustainable but it's about 28 degrees at the moment so pretty nice and then just try to give it that kind of Casa La Siesta aesthetic I suppose by using the antique tiles around the edge so this is just a little zone you can have a little afternoon, a bit of shade you can have a little nap in there have a little beer as we're doing now and then in this side there's a little kitchen area where I guess it's full of drinks cold drinks, water you can have lunch here and a nice seating area as well for reading did you have the whole family here? you've got a lot of ground yeah, suddenly the kids now want to bring all their mates I'm not surprised so that's nice but we tend to come out here every summer and every Easter as a family and then Phil and I come probably once every six weeks for a week so it's really flitting between the two quite a lot OK, let's go up to the house I feel like I need to show you some of the bedrooms this is my favourite part I think the courtyard it's the real hub as well you think about the climate down here this is where you spend the vast majority of your time so having the outside space is right and in the right proportions is really key and we do a lot of events here so people get married here we do several weddings a year but when we come out here as a family this is where you are I'd say 70% of the time is spent in this patio so it is really key I'm not allowed to tell you that we've had former Prime Minister and we've had former Prime Ministers but I think part of the deal of coming somewhere like this is to keep them coming back they need it to be a little retreat as well so we keep stum as to who it is so this is I'd say one of the biggest bedrooms so I want to show you a little bit around this room I suppose and just go into a little bit of detail of the design to give you an understanding of what we did the main thing I suppose is the view so once I knew that let's get it's quite a big room so I figured let's create this small wall to just zone the space a little bit so I bought a good 100 metres of this floor and it's kind of brave because it's a red floor and when you buy it you think is the whole house going to be too same samey but I think it's actually quite a neutral palette in terms of the architecture the big decision really was to go with the roofs because everything all down here it's all kind of on this kind of high pitched roof so we went with quite a big generous space in terms of the roof height and I think it works out here in Spain because it's very hot it feels super generous now when you're in here and airy and it just I think gives clients that feeling or guests when you have them of luxury yeah and I think going with materials that you love you know like this floor is a bit busy for some people but it kind of is a bit of a statement and I think it makes it feel a bit more characterful but there's quite a lot to look at in here you know you've got the big view you've got oversized furniture you've got a freestanding bathtub here we just kind of I found this old step I think I mentioned it when we were in the front room but made that into the shelf and then tiled with Moroccan tiles up on the upstand and then this bath is actually just sat on these are what you would have in old houses to support the beams in the ceiling so I figured that they make quite a neat little kind of cradle for a freestanding bath and then in here his and hers basins and we've got a double shower as well so we can come and stay and it was some of my parents friends that came to stay and I figured that this was like the nicest room or one of the nicest rooms so I thought it was like a real treat to show them in here so I said this is your room come on in and I got to the shower bit and I said it's really lovely you've got this double shower with all my lovely antique tiles in it and the wife the lady said to me and I was like ahhh but so maybe not for everyone but it's pretty cool so yeah this is the obviously the terrace to that room where we've got this incredible view this is a public track I associate relaxing and running here and being healthy and that track has done me a lot of good I know that I've spent a lot of time thinking about problems and that track for me has been a bit of a saviour yeah and we've got our neighbours goats and sheep whenever we've got a bit of grass in the field he'll just turn up with them so now I've just grabbed a jumper because it's got a little bit nippy out here today we're just going to go on to have a look at the next bedroom that comes off this central courtyard similar in size to the last one but just got a bit of a different vibe to it so this is very very similar in square footage to the last one we've got the same main floor the reclaimed encaustic floor I think it's a slightly more modern we've got the wall hanging we've got the lamp here that's kind of hanging from the steelworks so from the structural steelworks which I think just helps kind of make the room maybe feel a bit cosier and then in the bathroom we've used the different kind of palette of materials so this was actually a collaboration that Bert and May did with a designer in London and then just chose really to pair what is quite an interesting design very kind of geometric off-centred tile with this raw hand-made zeliz tile from Morocco and then in the shower though we just embraced the tiles, floor and walls so we've now seen the bedrooms down here off the central courtyard and now I'm going to show you the rooms on the first floor so let's have a look at some more of the bedrooms this is an old oar that we've used as the handrail actually it was my ex-wife's grandad so he was in the rowing team and that was his oar so that was quite nice that we incorporated that reclaimed railings from Cadiz which is our closest city really and then just to show you a little bit of the architecture this is an example of where we really did just embrace the whole meeting together which I think is really interesting it kind of just creates a nice atmosphere so as I said before this is one of our guest rooms upstairs in the main house high ceilings and we've used some of the Casa Hallmark design techniques or statements really so we've got the antique tiles which are about 100 years old got the reclaimed shutters that the basins are sat on and then we've got the another reclaimed shutter so the palette is simple but it has that immediate kind of impact I think in the room and then in the shower here we've got plain encaustic tiles or cement tiles and they're all very very slightly different in tone which again I think just gives it this character and you feel when you walk in there or go in that shower that it's tactile that there is an emotional emotional reaction when they come in I really want them to say I can't wait to read a book in here or I want to have a coffee and look at that view so using the antique materials I think is a very easy way or a good way to try to achieve that goal this view when we bought the house was very different it didn't have any of the windmills here and about a year after we opened they went in and we had a field with nothing around but now we've got used to them and actually I think they're just part of the landscape and I think in themselves they're actually a thing of beauty okay so I want to show you one of our smaller rooms guest rooms that goes on to that central courtyard where we were before so what we've done in here in quite a small space is take obviously the basins and the shower areas but again I think what we kind of emphasise in the design of this room is those antique tiles so rather than them just one or two we've really embraced it and just taken them right to the ceiling height it's that part really that is the difficult bit for me of the design of a property it's how do you actually procure and find the right materials for the space so we've actually reclaimed tiles from an area in Arcos quite close to here and it's just so so beautiful and they're probably a couple of hundred years old but all the different colours on them but also the way that they've constructed the roof this beautiful curve at the end just looks for me really lovely we get a great view from up here of the courtyard and the pool it's actually got a bit cloudy but you can still see I'm not this genius interior designer what we've actually got there is a really really beautiful antique tiled rug sat within reclaimed terracotta flooring and of course it looks beautiful it's amazing but anybody could really do that the difficult bit is finding the great materials to go into the space and I think that's you've heard it throughout the house tour so far that's really what I'm passionate about So Lee, you say you're not a genius who is the type of person you're designing for? Who have you worked with in the past? Well, I think the Burt & May so my main business is Burt & May and I think it works with all kinds of people you know hotels like Soho House or we've supplied tiles to Prince Harry and Meghan when they had their place in the UK but I suppose on a personal level I tend to do one or two projects a year where I'll actually help design and build the entire thing or renovate the entire property so my kind of wish or kind of goal is to try to find somebody that we can actually work really well together and it's about that it's not about me being a diva and saying I don't want to work with X or Y it has to you have to really have that connection and understanding and respect for what each other want because I've actually never done a full project in the States so somewhere warmer than here today would be pretty good because it's absolutely freezing despite being in Andalusia Let's say Jude Law in California please Yeah, that would be nice A lot of people will be watching this quite inspired by you second time out here in Spain What have you learnt along the way that you think would be really valuable to someone? I would say it's go for it I was a lawyer and you cross something and you think that looks like me it's a journey we're on a journey so just go for it and take a risk I'm really lucky I do know that to be here, stood here with this lovely house but my background is I don't have rich parents I was brought up in Blackburn first one to go to university and I rolled a few dice I would just say go for it, have fun and keep trying if it fails failure is not a bad thing either So I'm going to show you now our little casita which is basically a three bed independent little cottage that we use for our own friends my mum and dad stay there Phil's family stay there so come on in so as you can see this has got it's own little independent kitchen reasonably good sized dining space and then through here this is a really nice room this is just a small salon but it's got it's own swimming pool so come and have a look outside and it's own private garden as well so when we do have guests come in here it's really nice because they can be absolutely private and get their own space away from us so this is the casita's three beds and it's probably like the most popular room that we actually rent when we do rent the house out everybody wants these little cottages so we're actually building at the bottom of the garden we're reforming an old stable and I did actually used to have horses here it was a funny story with the horses the room I showed you in before we had friends come over from England and the horses could come right up to here where the animals are now and this lady escaped over the fence and my friend Chris who was staying in the room basically woke up through the night with a horse with it's hooves in the room and he said he thought it was hallucinating but it was actually he escaped and he was looking for us in the room we've kind of planted lots of fruit trees almond trees we've got a huge veggie garden going on so we're just trying to make the most sustainable kind of healthy living here as possible this is the entrance to the old stable yard we used to have three boxes for the three horses and then like a hay barn it's a little bit off being finished I suppose this is the main feature of the cottage it's going to have this fantastic view and then we're building this swimming pool here I keep looking at it and I'm not sure if I'm trying to convince myself or not I think I am by saying it's not too big, it's not too big I think it's the right size but right now it feels a bit big thank you very much for coming along and if you do want to contact me then you can get my details at the bottom of the video and if you are Jude Law or you know Jude Law then you can get in touch and I will help you build something fantastic and I'll be seeing all of you guys at my house in Yorkshire very very soon thanks very much, bye Hi Luxury Home Show my name is Pearl, I'm a designer and this is my home in Somerset come in