The Saltings

Two seaside apartments occupy the top and middle floors of an eighteenth century listed Saltings on Porthmeor Beach, St Ives, so-called because it was where pilchards were packed and salted. We converted the top one in 1992 and the lower one in 2012 to create a double holiday home for a large extended family.

Upper Saltings is on the top floor, a former sail loft where nets, ropes and sails would have been stored and repaired. Bedrooms and bathrooms are made as small as possible in order to create a very large living room at the beach end of the apartment, under a tent-like roof. A day bed fills the projecting bay window and hangs over the beach. One of the bedrooms, the bunk-room, inspired by ship’s cabins, accommodates six full size bunks in the space of a former single bedroom.

Twenty years after completing Upper Saltings, we created a second holiday apartment, Old Saltings, on the middle floor of the same building. A serpentine hallway takes you past bedrooms and bathrooms, to a vast living room at the sea end of the apartment, giving fine views across Porthmeor Beach to Clodgy Head. The design celebrates and enjoys its very low floor to ceiling height, barely 2.2 metres. It has level access from the street and one bedroom is designed for wheelchair use.