Angels’ House 2007-08
Design and build
by Michael
Simon Toon

Rodbaston
College, (Angels’ House before redevelopment)
In
2003, I met Amy Quayle, member of a proud family of Quayles, including
Sir Anthony Quayle CBE
(co-star of Lawrence of Arabia) and Quinton Quayle, formerly the
British ambassador to Lithuania, Thailand and Laos. Amy, who was
extremely hard-working, had a regular full-time job at a temp agency.
She showed me the site of the former location for
Rodbaston College, in Weeford, Lichfield. Amy explained to me that her
immediate family was in the property development business, and that
they intended to purchase this particular property for redevelopment.
Their existing business plan was to construct four separate apartments
for resale; this same business model of converting old buildings to
multi-dwellings, had already been successful for the company several
times in the past. Amy said to me, while we were looking at this
abandoned school building, “I think it would make one very nice, big
house.” “I think you’re right,” I replied. “I can already see the
house. I would like to design it. I would like to write the business
plan, and I would like to build it. I would also like you to leave your
job so you can work with me.” “Okay.” she said.

Cladding
construction,
Angels’
House
The
development company was directed by Amy’s father and her brother. They
were unsurprisingly unenthusiastic when they were approached and told
that they were wrong about their decision to build four flats instead
of one large house. The entire company’s future depended on the success
of this one project, which was to extend the company’s credit to beyond
its limit. Failure would have meant bankruptcy and forfeiture of the
all of the company’s assets including several properties. I wrote a
detailed business plan, with drawings, market research, cost and profit
projections, as well as a breakdown of existing assets belonging to the
company that could be used as security against a business loan. I gave
the plan to the company directors and asked them to have it formally
appraised, which they did. The plan was formally appraised by three different
real estate agents that universally agreed that the plan that I had written would make at
least four times the profit, and it would cost less to build than the
existing business proposal. They would also only need to make one sale,
instead of four.

Geothermal
channels being dug by my oldest friend, Wayne
I
negotiated a business deal with the development company, and I agreed
to be a consultant. I directed the entire project along with Amy, and I
assembled a construction team that consisted of all my childhood
friends, many of whom were builders; others just hard-working and competent. The building site was
close to my home town, and so I was able to use all of them as a
resource. The development company also provided some of the labour and
the sub-contractors, but it’s worth noting that my men were the
only
ones remaining at the end of the job. It’s also worth noting that
the
only real setbacks of the whole project in the end, were created by all
the tie-wearing ‘so-called’ experts, which included the
architects,
engineers, bankers and lawyers. It’s enough to give any
reasonable person a deep-seated prejudice of all tie-wearing people.
It did allow me
to say to my mother, who was always a little disappointed that I was
never an architect, “Still want me to be an architect? I’ve
just fired
three of them in the last year.”

Membrane
roof installation,
Angels’
House
One
of these architects suggested that we make the top half of the outside
of the house white (for no particular reason) and became aggravated
when I suggested that it was a bad idea. I eventually found an
architect myself that would do exactly what we
wanted. I found them at one of my favorite places to spend time as a
youth, The Custard Factory in
Digbeth, Birmingham, which had exhibited my photography
ten
years previously.
It was home to artists of all kinds, including architects. I asked the
receptionist, “Who’s the nicest architect?” and she
sent me
straight up to their office. I had
designs,
and specifications for everything from the landscaping
to the lighting,
and even a scale model
for
the building, but I required an architect to produce drawings for
the builders, and to certify the quality of the construction at each
stage so that the house would be mortgage-able upon
completion. We intended to take as few chances as possible to ensure
its success. Everything would be surveyed, appraised, and insured. I
learned a bank term for the first time: “Belt and braces.”

Winter
construction,
Angels’
House
Together,
we produced working drawings for what would become Angels’ House. I
named it Angels’ House for a few reasons, one being that Angel was the
name of my dog. Mid-construction, what would become my own dog, Angel,
was born on the building site, littered by an American Bulldog called
Buffy that had been brought to us due to us having two acres at our
disposal, albeit temporarily. We became the local unofficial dog rescue
center; since the official pound would have meant death for the dogs,
people would bring stray animals to us instead. This was just one of
many unexpected responsibilities that were a part of occupying a
piece of land that is a visible local landmark, and in this case,
almost half the inhabited area of an entire village. Although I had not
asked to be a local animal
shelter, I brought at least a dozen animals back to health and found
homes for them all, including all of Angel’s siblings.

Living
room, Angels’
House
The
value of the project needed to be appraised multiple times by
independent valuers for the various lenders that were required to fund
the project up until its sale in 2008. Many of them did not go as well
as the initial appraisals. One of real estate agents came to value the
property, and before even walking through, or around, the building,
proceeded to tell us that we had wildly overestimated the potential
resale value of the property once we had finished. When I asked him if
he would at least visually inspect the building before presenting his
conclusion, he started to tell me that there was no reason to, but
after hearing that much, I made sure he left the building site before
he could finish his next sentence. It was this, and several
experiences like it, that taught me that I was more accurate at valuing
property and real estate than most real estate agents. It also
confirmed the theory I was beginning to develop about tie-wearing. Beware the tie-wearer.

Angels’
House after completion, Google Earth image
We did find a real estate
agent, Knight Frank, that agreed with our own appraisal of the
situation. When the
high street bank that had originally agreed to fund the entire project,
suddenly, and for no given reason, stopped making down-payments
mid-construction, it was Knight Frank that appraised the building
project at an amount which meant that we could then qualify for funding
from a private finance company, and complete the build to a point
that we could put the house on the market for sale just before
completion. In 2008, we advertised the house in Dream Homes Magazine
solely with 3D renders, and the house sold two weeks after placing the
advertisement. The architect saw the images and asked me, rather
disturbingly, “Did you know it [the house] was going to look like
that?” to which I replied, “Yes. (I had produced the images.) Did you not?” The real estate agent
selling the house said that he’d “never seen anything like it.” - We
had two viewings every day for two weeks (which included some premier
league footballers) before it was bought with cash.

Angels’
House at night
The neighbors thanked me
for raising their property values, just by virtue of being in the same
village as Angels’ House. We had set a county record for the
highest ever sales price for a single-family residence in
Staffordshire, £2M/$3.5M (far more than it was ever appraised
for).
The buyers already owned a home just a few miles away, but they wanted
this one too. The buyers also owned the companies that manufactured
many of the products, including all the soakaways, and the insulation,
which
we used to build not only the house, but also some well insulated,
cedar-clad dog kennels. In 2012, four years later, Angels’ House was
named in a
list of four “modernist marvels for sale” in a (national
press) Telegraph
article titled, “The rise of the Modernist,
eco-friendly home.” Before
they bought the house, the buyers asked me, “Would you mind if we made
some changes to the decoration?” to which I replied, “If you buy the
house, you can paint it pink if you want to.” And that
is, to some extent, what they did.
Michael Simon Toon
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