Ferryside Bond-style house on stilts wins Wales’ Home of the Year

Iain, 63, who grew up in Carmarthen, remembered spotting the holiday home as a child and was drawn back to it when they started property hunting.

He said: “When I first climbed up on the rocks, looked over the railway line, I saw this house, and it looked like a house from the James Bond film.

“When we were looking for a house I remembered it, and so it was the first house we saw and kept coming back to it.”

Paula said they thought the property could be “a little Welsh version of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater” which is a house museum built partly over a waterfall in Pennsylvania, United States.

The couple, who are retired educators from Carmarthen School of Art, said the renovation process had been “slow” and there was “a lot of work to do at the start”, which was undertaken by local traders.

Paula, originally from Swansea, said the home still had a “holiday feel”, adding: “It’s a big thing that people come here, they look out the window, and they say, ‘wow’.”

Iain and Paula bought the land next door to preserve it and turned the one-third of an acre into a wildlife garden surrounding the home, which includes a large pond at the rear.

“When we bought the property, we were both working in jobs that could be stressful at times and were also very visually stimulating,” she said.

“So to have a home that’s really quite clear and a quiet, calming space was a great way to unwind at the end of the day.”