Saintfield home named house of the year in NI

Saintfield home named house of the year in NI

8 February 2012 - by CIARA COLHOUN

A SAINTFIELD home in the heart of County Down has been named Northern Ireland’s House Of The Year.

Drew and Pamela Wylie’s contemporary barn picked up this year’s overall title, beating off tough competition from 11 other homes across Northern Ireland in the grand final shown on BBC on Monday night.

Series presenter, Laurence Llewelyn Bowen, presented the couple with their award, which is a bespoke locally designed handcrafted trophy, in the BBC’s Blackstaff Studios in Belfast.

Mr. Wylie said the home had been created through team effort.

“This is our home and it was a team effort -— it was ourselves, the builders, all of our contractors and subcontractors and our gardeners all of whom had a part in making it,” he said.

Throughout the series, 12 homes from across Northern Ireland were featured and an expert panel of judges viewed and evaluated the three houses in each programme and made their final decision on the winners, based on a number of criteria.

The Saintfield house outshone the others according to this criteria which included architectural integrity, interior design, use of space, external merit, environmental credentials and overall ambience and appeal.

The judges included Des Ewing, award-winning architect, American designer Michael Tavano and Suzanne Garuda, international interior designer, who has worked on everything from royal palaces to luxury yachts.

It is the second successive year a local house has won the title. Last year a clifftop house on the outskirts of Newcastle named winner of the award.