Four Unique homes are available right now, allowing you to swap cityscapes for coastal horizons.
After basking in our unexpected run of warm weather, you might have found yourself daydreaming of sea breezes and salty air.
Why settle for fleeting sunshine when you could make waves your everyday soundtrack?
Area Partner Madelaine Cooper has four handpicked Sussex homes to tempt you.
The Lawn | St Leonards | £1,250,000
The Civilised Confidence of The Lawn
There are streets that merely contain houses, and there are streets that embody an idea. The Lawn in St Leonards-on-Sea belongs emphatically to the latter. It is one of those rare pieces of urban theatre where architecture, landscape and aspiration still perform in harmony, almost two centuries after the curtain first rose.
This handsome Victorian house sits at the heart of that composition with the easy assurance of something that has never needed to advertise itself. It doesn’t shout. It doesn’t perform architectural acrobatics for Instagram. It simply exists with the quiet confidence that only genuine quality possesses. That, incidentally, is becoming increasingly rare.
The story begins, inevitably, with Decimus Burton. Burton understood something many contemporary developers seem determined to forget: that architecture isn’t simply about buildings but about civilisation. His vision for St Leonards was neither a seaside resort nor a suburban enclave, but an elegant experiment in gracious living. The Lawn remains one of its finest expressions – a sweeping crescent where houses converse politely with one another while collectively acknowledging the sea beyond.
Properties here seldom come to market. They are less traded than quietly inherited, passed between those who appreciate that good addresses are cultural assets as much as financial ones.
What distinguishes this particular house is not perfection but potential. It requires cosmetic refreshment rather than salvation. Estate agents habitually describe this as having “good bones”, a phrase that has become dangerously overused. Here, however, it happens to be true. The proportions remain impeccable. The structure possesses integrity. The architecture has survived fashion with its dignity intact.
The lower ground floor reminds us that Victorian houses were designed by people who actually understood domestic life. The kitchen is expansive enough to encourage serious cooking rather than culinary theatre, with generous dining space that suggests conversation lasting well beyond dessert. Pantry, storage, shower room and utility spaces quietly support the rituals of everyday living, while a garden room opens directly onto a secluded rear garden that feels curiously detached from the modern world.
The drawing room is flooded with light from floor-to-ceiling shuttered windows framing uninterrupted views towards the English Channel. It is a room that understands the value of generosity – of height, of proportion, of restraint. Double doors open into a morning room before leading into an enclosed orangery, a wonderfully civilised sequence of spaces that gently dissolves the boundary between house and garden.
Victorian architects excelled at choreographing movement, and here the journey through the house becomes every bit as pleasurable as arriving in any individual room.
Even the surviving wooden-seated Victorian lavatory on the half-landing has escaped becoming an ironic curiosity. It remains exactly what it should be: a charming reminder that good houses accumulate stories rather than simply square footage.
The upper floors continue with admirable consistency. Four generous bedrooms occupy the second and third floors, many enjoying commanding sea views or looking across the mature gardens and delightfully irregular rooftops that give St Leonards much of its character. Bathrooms are practical rather than ostentatious, quietly reinforcing the central lesson of the house – that genuine luxury rarely requires spectacle.
Perhaps the greatest luxury, however, lies outside the front door.
Residents of The Lawn share access to beautifully maintained private gardens that soften the formal architecture with greenery and community. It is the sort of arrangement that feels almost European in its civilised optimism, where private ownership coexists with shared enjoyment.
Beyond that lies the increasingly compelling story of St Leonards itself.
For years it existed in Brighton’s shadow. Today it has become one of the country’s most fascinating coastal towns – not because it has been manufactured into a lifestyle destination, but because artists, designers, architects and independent thinkers have quietly colonised its handsome streets. Independent cafés outnumber chains. Galleries appear where betting shops once stood. Restaurants earn national recognition without losing their local soul. The atmosphere is creative without becoming self-conscious, fashionable without feeling contrived.
And then there is the sea.
Victorians instinctively understood what neuroscience now confirms: proximity to water changes the way we think. Looking out across the Channel from these lofty windows is not merely picturesque; it is restorative. The view becomes part of the architecture, changing hourly with weather, light and tide.
Fast rail connections to London make all this remarkably practical, but practicality is not really the point.
The point is that houses like this represent something increasingly difficult to manufacture. They embody accumulated intelligence. They remind us that elegance and domesticity are not opposing forces but natural companions. They offer scale without vulgarity, history without museum-piece preciousness, and character that has evolved rather than been installed.
In an age obsessed with novelty, The Lawn quietly argues for permanence.
It is a persuasive argument.
You can read all about The Lawn here…
Penbuckles Cottage | Hastings | £335,000
There is something delightfully English about Penbuckles Cottage. Not the contrived Englishness of a developer’s brochure, but the genuine article: a house with a story and a sense of place.
Set within the former grounds of a grand Victorian mansion, this three-bedroom cottage occupies a privileged position above Hastings, surrounded on three sides by woodland. From the principal bedroom, the view drifts over the canopy of St Helen’s Woods before finding the sea on the horizon – a reminder that, despite the sylvan tranquillity, the coast is never far away.
Built in the 1980s, the cottage possesses none of the period anxieties that often accompany genuinely old houses, yet manages to capture much of their charm. It is thought that the cottage was originally intended for a senior member of staff when the estate served as a school, and it retains an air of quiet dignity.
The house has recently been refurbished with commendable restraint. The newly fitted kitchen is practical, stylish and refreshingly free from gimmickry that will soon date. Adjacent sits a dining area where French doors open directly onto a sunny courtyard garden – an intimate outdoor room filled with planting and sheltered enough to become an extension of the house for much of the year.
Chestnut-toned tongue-and-groove flooring runs through this part of the ground floor, bringing warmth and texture. The sitting room stretches the full length of the cottage, anchored by an elegant fireplace that provides precisely the sort of focal point modern interiors often lack.
Upstairs, a broad landing leads to three bedrooms and a family bathroom. The principal bedroom enjoys its own en-suite and those captivating sea views beyond the trees. The second bedroom benefits from extensive built-in storage, while the third would work equally well as a generous single bedroom or a wonderfully bright study for those embracing the work-from-home lifestyle.
Practicality has not been neglected. There is a garage, off-street parking and the intriguing possibility, subject to the necessary permissions, of converting the garage into additional living accommodation. Recent works have included substantial roof improvements, new utilities, new flooring and carpeting throughout, ensuring that the next owner can focus on living rather than repairing.
Approached via a private drive, Penbuckles Cottage enjoys a degree of seclusion unusual for a property so close to town. Hastings can be reached by a pleasing downhill walk; the return journey, mercifully, is assisted by excellent bus connections.
And then there is the wider context. Hastings and neighbouring St Leonards have quietly become one of the South Coast’s most interesting cultural success stories. What was once regarded as faintly unfashionable is now celebrated for its independent spirit, thriving creative community and increasingly sophisticated food scene. The Old Town remains irresistibly atmospheric, while St Leonards offers an eclectic mix of galleries, cafés, restaurants and shops that feel discovered rather than manufactured.
Penbuckles Cottage offers an appealing contradiction: a woodland retreat with sea views, hidden away yet connected, practical yet charming. The sort of house that reminds you why people fall in love with Hastings in the first place.
Marine Court | St Leonards | £128,000
Marine Court is one of those buildings that makes you wonder why Britain ever stopped believing in modernity. Completed in 1938 and inspired by the streamlined glamour of the great ocean liners, it remains one of the South Coast’s most recognisable architectural statements: a monument to optimism, elegance and the seductive idea that life by the sea should be lived with a certain panache.
On the second floor of this Grade II-listed landmark sits a flat that understands its setting perfectly: immaculately presented and entirely ready for occupation.
The principal living room enjoys a cinematic panorama of sea and sky, with uninterrupted views sweeping along the coastline towards the white drama of Beachy Head. The double bedroom shares the same maritime spectacle, ensuring that even the most mundane morning begins with a horizon. A well-appointed bathroom, complete with shower, and a practical kitchen with generous storage complete a layout that is both sensible and pleasingly unfussy.
Recent improvements include new carpets to the living room and bedroom, fresh flooring to the hallway and bathroom, and complete redecoration throughout. In short, there is nothing to do except unpack and begin enjoying the peculiar luxury of living beside the sea.
Marine Court itself offers a lifestyle that is difficult to replicate. The building is the subject of a carefully managed programme of restoration and maintenance, reflecting the realities of preserving an architectural icon. Residents benefit from services that feel almost grandly old-fashioned in their generosity: hot water included within the service charge, a 24-hour concierge, and even daily refuse collection from outside each apartment. It is a level of care more commonly associated with a good hotel than a residential building.
And then there is the location. The sea, naturally, is directly opposite. But St Leonards has become something more interesting than a conventional seaside town. It has evolved into a creative enclave whose independent shops, galleries, cafés, restaurants and cinema have given it a reputation that extends far beyond Sussex. At ground level within Marine Court itself is a lively collection of businesses, including galleries, pottery studios, characterful cafés and an excellent Reformer Pilates studio.
A short stroll leads to the atmospheric streets of Hastings Old Town, whose jumble of historic buildings, pubs and cultural energy has made it one of Britain’s most intriguing coastal destinations. The landscaped tranquillity of St Leonards Gardens is moments away, offering greenery and elevated views of the coast.
For those occasionally required to return to reality, St Leonards Warrior Square station is around ten to fifteen minutes on foot, with direct services to London Charing Cross, London Bridge, Cannon Street, Victoria and Waterloo East, as well as connections to Ashford International and Brighton. Local buses run frequently along the seafront, while the nearby funicular provides a delightfully anachronistic route into the Old Town.
This is not simply a flat with a sea view. It is an opportunity to live within one of Britain’s great examples of twentieth-century seaside architecture – a building that still delivers, nearly ninety years later, on its original promise.
The Gables | Pevensey Road | St Leonards | £572,500
The Gables: When a House Refuses to Forget
There is an odd modern obsession with the new. We fetishise fresh plaster, virgin kitchens and houses so clinically perfect they could have been assembled by robots with a passion for beige. Yet the most seductive homes are those that have acquired a patina of intelligence. Buildings, like people, improve when they have something to remember.
The Gables in St Leonards is one of those buildings.
Originally commissioned by a doctor whose professional interests extended beyond conventional medicine into herbalism, it was conceived as both a family home and a surgery. You can imagine patients arriving through the front door with ailments and leaving with tinctures, advice and perhaps a sprig of something medicinal from the garden. It belongs to that reassuring Edwardian moment when architecture still believed that beauty was good for you.
Today the house has been thoughtfully divided into just six apartments, preserving its dignity rather than diluting it. Number Three is perhaps the finest expression of what survives.
The entrance immediately announces that this is architecture, not simply accommodation. A proper front door leads to a generous private hall – large enough for bicycles, muddy boots and all the domestic paraphernalia that glossy lifestyle magazines prefer to pretend doesn’t exist. Then comes the revelation: an original Edwardian staircase of satisfying craftsmanship, spiralling upwards beside an enormous window. Throughout the day the light shifts theatrically across timber polished by generations of hands. It is less circulation space than performance.
At the top, the landing refuses to behave like a corridor. Instead it becomes an unexpected gallery, an architectural pause. It is the sort of generous circulation space Victorian and Edwardian architects understood instinctively but contemporary developers have almost entirely forgotten. Here there is room to read, to think, to work, or simply to appreciate the remarkable surviving panelled ceiling overhead – a reminder that ornament, when intelligently handled, is civilisation made visible.
The principal reception room demonstrates one of the great virtues of period architecture: proportion. Before open-plan became a planning cliché, rooms were designed with an intuitive understanding of human psychology. This one feels simultaneously grand and intimate. An original fireplace anchors the room while an impressive sweep of windows floods it with daylight. Secondary glazing discreetly improves comfort without compromising character – one of those rare examples where modern intervention behaves with impeccable manners.
The adjoining kitchen understands contemporary life without shouting about it. Open enough for conversation, practical enough for serious cooking and generous enough to accommodate a proper dining table, it acknowledges that the kitchen has become today’s drawing room. Beyond lies a secluded balcony, ideal for morning coffee or perhaps a collection of herbs – an elegant nod to the building’s original owner.
Across the remarkable landing sit three bedrooms that continue the apartment’s quiet confidence. The principal bedroom occupies the commanding front position, where generous proportions and lofty windows create the sort of calm luxury that expensive hotels endlessly attempt to imitate. An en-suite completes the arrangement with unobtrusive efficiency.
The two further bedrooms at the rear possess that increasingly rare commodity: silence. Both retain their original fireplaces, those wonderfully irrational architectural relics that continue to exert emotional gravity long after central heating has rendered them technically unnecessary. They lend themselves equally well to guests, work or creative pursuits. The current owners have even demonstrated that one makes an unexpectedly civilised dining room – proof that good architecture accommodates changing lives with ease.
The family bathroom, flooded with natural light, quietly champions the increasingly unfashionable pleasure of an unhurried bath.
Elsewhere, soft wool carpets add tactile warmth underfoot, while a substantial communal cellar provides practical storage – another reminder that older buildings were designed by people who understood that real life generates possessions.
The Gables is not an apartment that depends upon fashionable finishes or decorative tricks. Its appeal lies deeper. It is a home shaped by craftsmanship, proportion and light: qualities that never become dated because they were never fashionable in the first place.
St Leonards: England’s Most Interesting Reinvention
Equally compelling is what lies beyond the front door.
St Leonards has quietly become one of Britain’s more intelligent seaside revivals. It attracts people interested less in spectacle than substance: artists, designers, writers, architects and independent minds who appreciate that creativity flourishes best where there is space to breathe.
Within walking distance are galleries, independent cinemas, thoughtful cafés, proper restaurants and shops that still possess personality. Everyday life remains reassuringly practical too, with every major supermarket close at hand – because aesthetic pleasure and domestic convenience are not mutually exclusive.
A stroll along the seafront leads naturally to the acclaimed Hastings Contemporary, while the calendar is punctuated by festivals, exhibitions, performances and community events that give the town a cultural confidence far beyond its size. St Leonards has discovered that sophistication needn’t be metropolitan.
For commuters, St Leonards Warrior Square provides direct connections to London, Brighton, Gatwick Airport and beyond. Close enough for the capital, yet distant enough to remember why escaping it was such a good idea.
Some properties offer square footage. Others offer lifestyle. The very best offer a civilised way of living. Number Three, The Gables, belongs decisively in the last category.
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This is a selection of unique coastal homes currently for sale, but there are many more. If you are interested in discussing these or future listings, please call the office on 020 3987 1739 and speak to Madelaine Cooper or Nick Benson. Alternatively, email Madelaine at [email protected] or Nick at [email protected].
