The Clay Retreat, as the name suggests, was conceived as a place of refuge – an exhale made of oak, polished concrete and plaster. Situated in the New Forest a few miles outside Lymington, it belongs to Emi and Oscar Peterson, and their two children, Lina, 12, and Tom, 16.
The family fell in love with the area in 2014. “We rented a cottage here for a week in the summer – just the four of us and the dog – and we loved it. When we returned to London, we started to imagine what it would be like to have a place of our own down here.”
Two years later, a local estate agent showed Emi and Oscar around a single-storey cottage. “He described it as quirky,” recalls Emi. What he meant was ramshackle and disjointed. The cottage had been haphazardly extended, with a conservatory that was either too hot or too cold and a single bathroom that was located at the wrong end of the house.
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