‘Boulder’ mansion set to be built in famous Yorkshire beauty spot

Most elderly couples looking to downsize to a single-storey home in readiness for their twilight years would choose a bungalow that needs no work doing to it.

But David and Diane Rasche, 77, are defying convention to have an home built for them that’s so ultra-modern it will look like giant rocks embedded in moorland.

The unorthodox country house near Ilkley in West Yorkshire is designed to look like a cave rising from the landscape, but with vast floor-to-ceiling windows giving views over the moor, as well as outdoor and indoor pools.

The four-bedroom property, which will be created using gritstone from local quarries, will be named Fomorian. In Irish mythology, the Fomorians were a race of supernatural, monstrous beings and giants, but the idea was inspired by mythical giant Rombald who is said to have lived on Ilkley Moor.

Architect Matt Masserella-Gill said: “We took cues from local folklore, the surrounding rocks; ancient carvings, standing stones and escarpments that are synonymous with the landscape.”

The couple commissioned the house for four acres of land in the grounds of their 14.5-acre estate, on the edge of Ilkley Moor, after struggling to find the mod­ern home they wanted in the area.

The green-belt land is in the South Pennine Moors Site of Special Scientific Interest, the South Pennine Moors Special Protection Area and Special Area of Conservation, and has been designated as a new National Nature Reserve.

As a result, Ilkley town council recommended the plans be refused, warning the building would be a “visual anomaly” in the landscape.

Bradford council rejected the plans twice before a government planning inspector allowed them on appeal, under a rarely used planning law that allows a country mansion on green belt land if it “significantly enhances its immediate setting”. The inspector called the design, which looks like a series of boulders, “truly out­stand­ing”.

Architect Matt Massarella-Gill said that when they were commissioned, he and his team “let their imaginations run riot”.

“We asked ourselves, ‘What is our gut feeling?’ I sort of went completely mad and got the plasticine out and started sculpting because, in this day and age of computers and everything, it all felt too restrictive,” he told The Times.

Architects Shaw & Jagger say they wanted the house to look like “part of the moors, its geology and its spirit”. It’s designed to have ultra-low energy usage, like homes built to “Passivhaus” standards.

Mrs Rasche told The Times that her seven grandchildren, who are aged between 11 and 18, described it as “a bit of a Bond villain layout” or a bat-cave.

“If you’d asked me three years ago, ‘Do you want something absolutely radical?’, I’m not sure I would have said yes. But this is something architecturally outstanding,” said Mr Rasche, a tech entrepreneur.

Once the home is built, in about two years’ time, the Rasches will sell their existing mansion.