This Surrey Mansion Was Designed to Make You Live Longer

We're in Kingswood, Surrey, south of London, an area known for its outstanding natural beauty and affluent neighbourhoods. Checking out this gorgeous house by Vader Homes and the best bit is Dean, the founder, is going to personally be showing us around to explain his design philosophy and the story behind this house. So get comfy and settle in. We'd like to punctuate space so that it has a clear identity and meaning. Well I think that's fundamentally the overarching style that we have gone for is that organic, earthy, natural palette. It looks beautiful as well and really I'm so impressed. Thank you very much. I really am. And now I've never seen one of these before. This is a wellness room adjoining your bedroom. Now before we head inside I wanted to show you the exterior. As you can see it's been built in the style of the arts and crafts movement. Symmetrical, lovely red brick, traditional windows and it is a big building. Three floors, 6,000 square feet, up to six bedrooms. Around the corner we have a triple garage with an EV charging point. Now it looks stunning but what was most important to Dean when designing and building this house was health and wellness and what better person to speak about that with than the main man himself. Head inside. Now we're in the entrance hallway and I'm with Dean but we're in this sort of like central atrium which I have to say this is unusual for a British home. Yeah I guess it is a bit unusual. You know typically a house of this size you would normally walk in, you'd have a hallway and a staircase and if it was a grand house it'd be a sweeping staircase. So we said okay we want to walk in, we want to see natural light and you know we've got big skylights right the way up to the top. We want to have a connection to nature, we've got a tree and we want this to be the kind of central core that the whole house revolves around so that when you're moving around this house it feels fluid, you get a sense of connectivity wherever you are. Amazing. Okay so where shall we start then? Well we may as well walk straight through into here. I guess this is the kind of main reception room. Look at this. Which I mean you know a big dining room, we've got a little sort of reading nook but I guess this is the kind of centrepiece from which the whole house kind of revolves around and you know as a family you probably spend the majority of time in this space. Yeah yeah. You look at this, the space is not disconnected so you would be hard pushed to say that this isn't open plan living but we'd like to punctuate space so that it has a clear identity and meaning. You know it gives the hopefully the homeowners like I say that sense of comfort, calm and not stark open space that's somehow intimidating. Oh no no it feels very like cosy and intimate in here. I would not mind having my family dinners here with all of this light. I mean look at these. These are French windows opening up onto your lovely garden. You didn't have to but you went big. We went big. You went big. Yeah we went big and these are all bespoke timber so all sustainably sourced, all bespoke and even you know we've got multiple doors obviously. Connection to the natural world is a big thing for us and even roof lights. These roof lights open so these are ventilated. All these controls here make the roof lights open so lots of fresh air, lots of natural light. Connection to the natural world outside elevates our sense of well-being I guess which is kind of what we stand for. Unusually you actually use a timber frame not concrete or steel as much. No no no so everything we do typically is timber frame when it comes to the construction. So the frame of our house is timber because a it's sustainably sourced. You won't get more sustainable than timber frame. Actually it's carbon negative. Also it's thermal performance. You don't get better than timber frame generally. So we use timber frames to build our houses but also when it comes to interior fit outs like I'm saying you know we use timber windows for this development. We use timber windows anyway but a lot of the the floors, the walls, the timber joists that we've bespoke specified are all designed to give you that sense of connection to the natural world and you know for example these tiles you'll see that they're kind of imperfect right. It's natural limestone for one natural material but also we go for the tile that isn't perfectly square and perfectly kind of manufactured because having those imperfections gives us a sense of calm. Well I think it's like you said you're embracing the organic materials that you're using here yeah like well you know you like you said I'm already feeling this connection to the outside world because you've got you know so many windows you're getting all of that lovely natural light all of these raw materials. I mean honestly look at these exposed timber beams. I mean tell me about that because I'm seeing them in pretty much every room down here. We're big fans of timber frame. They look great. It's a nod to the arts and crafts heritage of the area but also helps us kind of bring the design up to you know 2026 standards. Tell me a bit more about the style and how you decided on that. If truth be told there's a lot of Neo-Georgian houses. I see a lot of them and don't get me wrong they're lovely but I could tell you almost where every room is in one of these new Neo-Georgian houses and I'm a bit bored of it. So the way we are programmed and we're set up is we consider absolutely everything from the ground up and we said okay if we're going to go with something that's a little bit different let's reinvent that arts and crafts look. It's classic it's traditional but I'm not sure anyone had kind of run with it to bring it up to a modern yeah kind of feel. Reimagined it. Exactly. It's nice to have something that is those modern touches but that leans into that more classic and traditional style of architecture. Absolutely yeah I guess it's our heritage isn't it? Yeah. It's our British heritage and we give a nod to that. Yeah. Whilst also. Spicing it up a bit. Exactly. Yeah yeah yeah. Making it a bit more sexy. All these materials this is natural quartz. Yeah natural stone yeah. Absolutely gorgeous. You've got plenty of storage space and I see a cooker tap here but also you did mention earlier about filtered water. This terrified me. Give me the download of the water quality and why it's so important. I don't mean to scare you but like you mentioned earlier our wellness offering is clean water, clean air, low toxic materials and a connection to the natural world and that's every single property that we build has that. This tap has purer than bottled water. Tap water today is full of antibiotics, hormones, particularly oestrogen, microplastics, a lot of nasty stuff that we shouldn't be ingesting as humans that slips through the net when it goes to the treatment plant or whatever. I'm a tap water girly. So there you go but this stuff is kind of one of those things that people don't necessarily take massive interest in because it's a slow build-up of these toxins over the medium and long term that causes chronic illness right and I'm not trying to scare people. These environmental factors are everywhere in modern day life. Yeah. But we do everything we can to strip them out of the indoor living environment in our houses so that our families who buy these houses live longer, happier, healthier lives. Your ethos is very much about wellness and I love that you're not just ticking boxes. You have done this from the ground up. You know every option that you offer, every design element you have thought about with purpose, health related. It's amazing and we'll talk about that as we go through a bit more but I just wanted to have a little explore in here. Yeah. Now that is a pantry unit isn't it? Yes. This is the smoothie maker, your coffee machine, whatever it is you want but we've got, it's all bespoke joinery, British made, oak dovetail drawer boxes. And then we've got Miele appliances, nice big bridging for you to look at. Look at this, every bit of space used. I like it. Back of house, the boring bit. Back of house. The functional bit but you know again thinking about how how you use the space. You know I'm a father of two young kids. They are two boys, particularly messy, particularly muddy. So you know the idea is you can go for a walk with the dog, come in through here, everything can be contained in here and you've got a giant dog slash child shower. That's for the dog? This is for the dog so you can you can clean your, you know, get everything cleaned down, coats and everything in the boot room cupboards and then this becomes the kind of you know your family messy area before you go through into the main house. So what, bougie dog? Yeah. That's nicer than my flat. Okay so this is the utility, wow, I mean yeah nice utility room. Yeah well I'm not sure how incredible utility rooms get but this is the idea is this is another sort of back of house area right. So it's functional, a lot of space for storage, pantry, if you've got a dinner party this becomes your kind of dump or your washing up and your meal prep area, that sort of stuff. Amazing and then we have the stairs. I must admit I was wondering where they were. I like that that's just tucked here just to get you upstairs. Oh it's functional isn't it? Yeah. We don't live in the Victorian times so. Because we want this. We want an atrium that's filled with natural light. It is, look at these soft curves everywhere, like just undulating and like you've kind of, you've replicated that in things with the table and I can see that with some of the furniture and again I know you would have done that on purpose but people don't kind of understand those details. So this is what we call the family snug. I love that this is snug. I mean this is a decent size snug isn't it? This is a cozy room but yeah this is the kind of idea that you have that private space, family space, a bit more relaxed, TV, you know lounge around after a busy day. Oh you could really cozy down here, hunker down with a blanket, get some candles going because I didn't realise, I can see a fire through here, that looking at things like moving water, it can do so much for your stress levels. I didn't realise the power of it. Yeah 100%. I mean that's, nature is fluid isn't it? So the natural world has all those imperfections, that fluid nature, like you say water, even air, leaves blowing, all that sort of stuff gives us that sense of calm. I mean Dean, I'm in a flat in London and I was one of those people during Covid where I just thought I'm going to buy loads of plants, I'm going to be surrounded by it, I can't leave and now I'm going to buy even more after hearing that. Because it does, it makes a real difference, it's good for the air quality but also just makes you feel better doesn't it? It does. But you said earlier fig tree. Fig trees yeah, so my little word of advice would be get yourself a fig tree. Fig trees are great for air purification, one of the best plants we can get. Purify the air and make us feel good at the same time. There you go guys, put it on your bucket list, get yourself a fig tree, this little tiny one. I mean another beautiful room, I'm loving using these timber, exposed timber beams in all of the rooms, you know it creates that cohesiveness but again it just makes you feel like you're in a bit of a cabin, it's really nice. There's a lot of styles going on here, I saw like you know there's a bit of Mediterranean, Moroccan going on outside, this is giving me Scandinavian slash Victorian and it all works. Well I think it's fundamentally the overarching style that we have gone for is that organic, earthy, natural palette and like you say maybe I hadn't really considered that there was sort of Scandi, Moroccan, whatever. I think maybe it's just the fact that different cultures all like to reference the natural world right, so it seems like a kind of amalgamation of different cultures but who knows maybe we've kind of just drawn on something a bit more fundamental. Okay so this is like your more formal reception room so that's really nice, maybe the kids can have that one, you can close the doors but I have to say I love how big the door frames are actually, again it just creates that openness, that space but you can also close them off as well. Absolutely, well again you know it's we want privacy and retreat but we want privacy and retreat. Retreat is the good word, that's what I'm feeling, this is like a retreat. But we need that space that allows us to feel cosy if we want it to feel cosy, that we can entertain in if we want it to entertain in, so yeah having that flexibility is important and like you say I mean the doors, these are all bespoke doors, oversized, super high, we've got really high ceilings you know there's almost three meters the ceiling and that's all the way up so it gives us the opportunity to do some architecturally interesting things like have the oversized doors and they've got that kind of. But it's the flexibility as well about having a family home because your pillars are you know luxury, refined, you know built for families, sustainable but also having this sort of it looks beautiful as well and I mean really I'm so impressed. Thank you very much. I really am. All right where should we go now then? I guess upstairs yeah. So up onto the first floor because there are three floors and heading into the first bedroom. Very soothing, very soothing in here. I love the colour on the walls that you pretty much use throughout, it's like a stone like torch. Yeah I have I'm not actually quite sure how you describe it but yes it's okay I guess quite earthy isn't it but yeah with one colour throughout, I think they call it colour drenching in the interior design world. Something I learned recently. Very nice well but it works though because it is such a beautiful neutral colour and it works everywhere and yet all of the bedrooms do feel quite different of which we have five or six. Yeah up to six up to six depending on how you want to configure the top floor which is a flexible space really. We'll see that a little bit later. Bedroom number one great size yeah and look at those views oh my goodness so we've got a sort of like Juliet little balcony here. Juliet balcony yeah walk-in wardrobe en suite. We've got that wood again I really like it especially up here it feels so cosy. Yeah it's a theme that we repeated throughout and tried to try to give every room that accent that sort of nods to not just the fabric of the building but you know the natural world all that sort of good stuff so yeah it's an architectural feature that you wouldn't normally find in a bedroom. I know it kind of elevates the design a little bit you know and all these lovely tactile raw materials again whether it's wool cotton beautiful and then the en suite in we go oh wow look at that look at the windows nice you've got separate toilet shower nice space look at this this is spot see very modern traditional windows very modern sink. Exactly that's it well that's us bringing arts and crafts up to the modern day standards. Leveling up amazing all right then so bedroom two Dean the sizes of these rooms just to give you an idea of the size this is a full-on sofa and look at the space that we have and you've got a nice little vanity unit that you can look out onto your lovely garden. The average family is probably mum dad two kids right and we want the space to evolve with family life or suit family life whichever stage you're at so on this first floor you've got the master suite two really good secondary bedrooms that you can have probably younger children in all on one level all on one level and then as the kids grow up they can go upstairs there's a games room you know that becomes the kind of teenagers out the way their own space kind of floor so that's the the idea behind this kind of configuration. Cool dad thinking ahead I like that when she's to the top floor it's really really fun we have named it the fun floor uh okay into the en suite but just love these like hideaway spaces everywhere it is honestly the attention to detail how neat just perfect niche to put your bits and pieces on oh we've seen this sink before how much of a hand do you have in choosing things like the sink because I know obviously you are the brains behind the build what about a sink kind of go oh yeah I like that I could tell you that it's all my but uh it's not no uh I have a very good team and so I kind of set the parameters and you know set the ball rolling go off on your way and choose good things exactly and then it comes back to me and we you know we throw around ideas but fundamentally you know I've got a very good interior yeah yeah yeah guy so uh yeah I rely on him come on let's go next floor Dean I've noticed the absence of any carpets so far I mean was that um I'm presuming it was purposefully done but why absolutely yeah so we use solid floors everywhere yeah so what people generally don't understand is that the biggest contributor to toxicity within a home in terms of air quality is your carpet so generally carpets are pretty nasty in terms of their production cheap carpets are almost entirely plastic even the good carpets that are 100% wool or organic tend to be coated in things like formaldehyde to make them last but all these all the stuff that they cover these carpets in or make the carpets out of are known carcinogens and what happens is as we live in a home we we kind of brush across the carpet repeatedly and tiny little fibers spring off into the air and then we just breathe that in and out in and out in and out for our lives wow I didn't realize it traps so many pollutants in it so so we have solid floors everywhere easy to clean look great underfloor heating everywhere as well so they're nice and toasty and warm zonally controlled all controlled through the smart automation within the house we'll look at that yeah look at that in a sec but also the ambient temperature probably helped by the NVHR which maintains constant temperatures across varying rooms so in exchange heat from one room to another to kind of maintain a climate constant climate throughout the house all right we are moving now into the principal suite very excited to see loving this view we'll show you when we go to the top floor because it is phenomenal to look down so so yeah so this is so that the principal suite actually starts here so there's kind of in two two parts so we've got a kind of reception area I guess I don't know what you would add because of informal seating this becomes sort of private quarters so this is this is you've got the atrium there which is obviously filled with light and connected to the whole house and then this is the bit of the master suite that then is private so you know a wing yeah right so I've just seen the bathroom which looks incredible but we're going to go this way first and this is very nice wow a walk-in area not just a wardrobe oh that's quite it's quite roomy but this is yeah master dressing this is so nice and oh look at that we've got drawers as well that is so smooth yeah all the joineries bespoke again british made it's gorgeous see a makeup station where you've thought about the natural light of course so this is this is the principal suite so bedroom here connected to walk-in wardrobe another juliet balcony out onto the garden you're waking up and seeing that absolutely and you like I say you look at ancient woodland protected trees sunrise massive for your cognitive function start the day correctly when this is all the happy if you get the sunrise between pre about 9 a.m the angle of the sun against the earth means you don't get all the harmful uva uvb's but you get all of the happy hormones serotonin dopamine all that sort of good stuff and it sets your cognitive function so that you can be productive in the day basically this is incredible and now I've never seen one of these before this is a wellness room adjoining your bedroom okay so I think one thing that I fight with I'm hoping I'm not the only one I find it really difficult to motivate myself to do any form of exercise or to get up and do something sometimes because I think I've got to go all the way to London or I've got to get up and it feels like such a faff or is here just wake up bring your morning coffee in do some yoga get all of that lovely good uv did you see the uv stuff the stuff you don't that's the one but early morning sunlight you don't get okay but again you know we face the sunrise here big windows but the you know the idea of this space is yes we have a nod to wellness because that's what we we like we don't want wellness to be hard work we're not saying anyone who buys this house has to get up and sweat for five hours exactly it's not it's not that it's just this is a space that's off the master suite where you get the sunrise you can sit here have a coffee read the paper check your emails or you can do your pilates you can do whatever it is you want to do that gets the day going whatever that routine looks like for you now believe it or not we are not done with the primary suite yet we now have the uber luxe on the suite very excited to do this come on now at night time i can imagine this place is just i'm gonna say sexy very sexy and that has helped obviously during the day we have all of the natural light but in the evening tell me about this this is crestron yes yeah exactly so the crestron system controls all sorts of stuff in house heating ventilation security gates whatever but this is the lights settings switches so various different setups and they control the mood so you can have preset moods very kind of handy for setting the tone in different rooms very easily so you can push a couple of buttons and it'll go to the romantic setting or the evening setting or whatever setting that it is you choose to set that up okay that i mean that ties in very well with the bathroom that we're going to because you're going there to unwind you know like soak in the tub we want low lighting and this one suite comes in two parts two parts dean hey spoiling us part one to my left that's just the toilet that's just the toilet part two here we go this app does most luxury hotels look at you you look so proud you're like well this this thing this has got to be one of your yeah of course it is you can always go a bit uh splurge you can splurge yeah the master master suite generally is nice to create a treat for whoever buys it you know it's indulgent isn't it and that's what this is about this is about going a bit ott sumptuous yeah kind of you know giving somebody a little treat to unwind do whatever um and you know interesting you mentioned that hotels you know we kind of try and position the the house generally like a boutique hotel right was you know with the wellness of sustainability blah blah you know hotels are that kind of relaxing treat yes that we give ourselves every now and then but why not live in one right like why not kind of have that at home so that's kind of what we try and bring here look at that bath the the absolutely beautiful modern shape there but still organic but i actually quite like when you pitch traditional looking things against something a bit more sleek and modern i think it it kind of makes each other yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah and then look at this this is i have to say this is very handy as a short person and ladies out there or guys if you don't want your hair wet this is just for the body you've got to think practically i'm surprised in some ways dean you didn't put a bidet in here they're becoming very popular in a while on this site there are two other properties aren't there because we're in a private estate and this is an incredibly rare opportunity to own such a big family home in a private estate on acres of land yeah yeah so i mean to be honest with you i've been doing this 10 years i've never seen a site like this where all the trees are protected it's on one of surrey's best private estates inside the m25 acres of green belt yeah very private very secluded it is pretty unique so yeah it's been a pleasure to do um and hopefully you know we've delivered something that stands out against the norm when it comes to new build okay time to head up to the second floor the fun floor it's quite grand splitting we didn't forget staircases altogether well let's talk about the staircase because um this is a bit of a feat of engineering although it's a little bit more hidden you know you have not compromised on the design and and the material so speak to me it's a bespoke oak continuous handrail all the way down that uh my construction manager hated me for because it was yeah tricky tricky to get in get right it's a lot of craftsmanship that goes into doing that because it has to be made completely bespoke for obviously this one staircase and and a bit tricky but hey looks good and it means that we you know we haven't forgotten staircases altogether no so what is the actual flooring made out of it looks is it resin yes so yeah it's a resin a bioresin so it's it's plant-based completely organic but super hard-wearing and it's what we've used on the stairs and all the hallways the landing so it's a continuous free-flowing floor all the way up very nice very smooth clean aesthetics up here isn't it i like this this is a bit of me now before we start having a little snoop around this is technically what could be the sixth bedroom yeah yeah yeah yeah so we've dressed it as a games room but it can be whatever you like it to be actually we've kind of buried all of the services electric plumbing whatever here so that whoever moves in can make it a self-contained studio flat an apartment with a kitchen and a bathroom or it can be a gym it can be a an office it can be whatever you want wow a self-contained unit that is i mean it's big enough yeah plenty big enough it's fantastic i just this feels really traditional up here because i think you know we're essentially in the roof we've got these architectural features of the slanting roof here that beautiful little cute window at the end there i think we're leaning again into that hideaway feel yeah that kind of like that intimacy that all of your rooms give yeah hopefully but i feel like well hopefully we haven't sort of compromised on what traditionally can be deemed kind of an afterthought you know we're lost spaces sometimes that kind of can be small staircase that somebody didn't really think about and they went oh we've got some space there so they've got low low ceilings and it's all a bit cramped you know these ceilings are three and a half meters tall yeah so it still feels quite substantial and you don't feel like you're kind of pigeonholed in a corner but yeah we've still got some architectural detailing a bit of character okay let's carry on then so i do want to just have a quick look in here great use of space i love bathrooms tucked in somewhere i always like squeezing as much space as you can get out somewhere so look at this just neatly slotted in there toilet there i just get a lot of pleasure from that you know just like everything just fits beautiful sunken bath very nice okay i'm coming dean so this is the money shot that i wanted to show you earlier i mean look at that yeah it's not often you get this amount of space in the heart the belly of the home opening it up all of that natural light from the skylight which opens very james bond well i guess the the kind of beauty of this space is that it connects the house vertically as well as laterally you know traditionally in a house we kind of have each floor and you go up and down the stairs and you can walk around the rooms on that floor but rarely do you get a house that's connected vertically as well so the whole house kind of revolves around this space that is flooded with natural light it gives the house a bit more fluidity and breathing room and kind of makes it feel a bit more whole okay so this is bedroom i've lost count is this number one two three these could be four or five i guess if that's number six yeah yeah whichever one you choose oh very nice look at this it's like a little like it's like cathedral like yeah yeah i love that yeah all that's sort of intentional to add a bit of character i never doubted it okay and then last but not least okay this one's even more charming there's a tpd there's a tpd yes i'm done done sleepover room for the kids isn't it really sleepover room tucked away in if you had kids you'd be fighting over this one i love this what did you do before or have you always been in poverty or i know you said you did finance so was that yeah yeah and i used to work in in finance for 10 years worked really really hard to get that job and i was you know probably one of london's biggest trading floors i guess to the outside world i should have made it do that should have been me and i thought that as well you know i've you know worked hard to get there and okay this is it i'm done now you know this is great this is me my career's sorted you know life's gonna be great uh but did it for 10 years and was miserable um and it took a lot of soul searching to kind of think okay well why is that and i kind of landed on the fact that i was chasing pound notes for the sake of chasing pound notes you know there was no meaning to what i was doing there was no making connectivity it was just you know six screens and numbers going up and down that was it so decided to ditch that and go do something that fed me as a person fed me as a human you know we need that connectivity we need that meaning that purpose that value that comes outside of just money yeah and so that's what i did and that's kind of the the sort of spark that gave rise to the business and the concept about how we're you know we don't do it just for the money we do it because we care yeah and it genuinely makes life better one in 30 kids is neurodivergent you know we've got a burgeoning mental health crisis so we need places like this that we can retreat to and feel safe calm happy and the rest of it yes we need to quieten the mind and the body and what better way to do that than the garden absolutely all right out we go i mean this is screaming out for a barbecue in the summer yeah terrace entertaining space nice and i mean the area you're in is phenomenal like you said we're on the green belt um in surrey we're only it took me about 50 minutes on the train into london bridge so super quick if you did want to go into the big smoke not that you'd want to i think i would uh enjoy this serenity yes it's one of surrey's sort of premier private estates really because we're right on the edge of the estate or one of the roads on the edge of the state we're looking over uninterrupted protected green belt yeah well it's clearly working because you are shaking up the industry you've already won what is it seven industry accolades yeah you've won a few not surprising many more to come thank you very much well we're going to keep exploring thank you so much i know you're a very busy man so uh i'll let you go but yeah it's been absolutely fantastic so thank you for letting us have a look around thank you very much thank you well that was fun and you can clearly see dean's passion for not only property but the ethos behind his designs so hopefully it won't be the last time that we chat to him and i'm gonna make some small but important changes to the way that i live which reminds me i need to go and buy a fig tree now as a reminder this property is for sale and all of the details are in the description below that's all for me for now and as always stay tuned for more luxury properties from around the world hello luxury home show i'm brian wolf founder and creative director of design mobile and today i'm showing you around my oxford country home come on in the house is actually an amalgamation of two properties you