I’m selling my unique ‘marmite’ West Sussex house for £5m – do you love it or hate it?
Father-of-four and former Grand Designs homeowner Clinton Dall is selling his latest unique property.
Shards, in Haywards Heath, West Sussex, is on sale via Savills for £5million.
‘The house is marmite. You either get it or you don’t’, Mr Dall told This is Money.
The 62-year-old managing director of Dall Cleaning Services has lived in Shards with his girlfriend since it was completed in October 2022.
Building work on Shards started in 2019 and Mr Dall admits the project was an ‘extreme build for an extreme house’.
Before building Shards, Mr Dall was happily living in Pavello in West Sussex, which featured on Grand Designs, the television show presented by Kevin McCloud, in 2015.
‘I move around quite a lot and always want to be starting a new project’, Mr Dall said.
He found the plot for Shards, on an old quarry site, in 2019 and secured special paragraph 80 planning permission.
For a paragraph 80 house to be built in the open countryside, it has to be exceptional on every front. It had to be an extreme house to clear planning permission.
Clinton Dall is selling his home, Shards
‘Shards was built during Covid, so it was a challenging project’, Mr Dall said.
He added: ‘I completely redesigned the inside of the property myself. I chose the black brick, black wood and the glass.
‘It’s a very dynamic house to look at and live in. It’s like a James Bond-style house. The dark kitchen is timeless and won’t date.’
Shards was meant to be a downsizer for Mr Dall, but that did not happen, either from a size perspective or financially.
Mr Dall is in the process of buying a plot of land to build a new smaller three-bedroom single-storey bungalow in Kingswood. He has designed it all already.
‘There is nothing in Shards I dislike and I will miss it’, Mr Dall told This is Money.
The all-black property has angular overlapping panels on the outside resembling shards of glass and stone, inspired by the site’s former use as a quarry.
Impressive: Shards was built in West Sussex using a special form of planning permission
Substantial: Shards spans more than 5,000 sq ft and black is a big feature in the property
Enough space? Shards has an expansive open-place living room finsihed to a high standard
The dream: The buyer of Shards can make the most of its swimming pool and grounds
Connected: The main bedroom in the house overlooks the pool terrace
Luxury living: Shards has six bathrooms and five bedrooms
Design: Each of the bedrooms has been designed to make the most of the views
Join the discussion
What makes a home truly worth millions: bold design, unique features, or just location and prestige?
The house was designed by architects to fit in with the topography of the site. It has won both the Eco Award and Small Scale Residential Award at the Sussex Heritage Trust awards, as well as a Building Craft Award.
The five-bedroom property has six bathrooms and spans 5,080 sq ft. The main bedroom opens out to the pool terrace.
Entry to the house is via a wide glazed front door into a large reception hall, which opens into the principal reception room, a vast dual-aspect open-plan room. Lutron mood lighting is used in the house via a zoned control system.
The Italian Modulnova kitchen is black and has handleless cabinetry, with moulded worktops and an island incorporating a Bora hob with ‘discreet’ extraction.
There are twin Gaggenau ovens and warming drawer, a Gaggenau dishwasher, full-height Miele freezer and Bosch fridge. A walk-in wine store, fitted with a Swisscave wine fridge and bespoke shelving also comes with the house.
The house sits in about two acres of grounds and has a swimming pool.
According to Savills, it has ‘high levels of insulation, significant thermal mass, an air source heat pump, and brown roof systems designed to encourage biodiversity and manage water attenuation’.
