Kevin McCloud has largely managed to avoid revealing any information about his own architectural tastes since he started presenting Grand Designs 25 years ago.
But the design guru has now given fans his insight into one of the most controversial fads of the past few years – the kitchen island.
The 65-year-old has been quietly spending the past three years turning an unloved 400-year-old former farmhouse into his own dream home.
He bought the rural hideaway – which came with planning permission to convert a cow shed into another new home – for £1.1 million in June 2021.
Planning documents highlighted how McCloud set out to restore the ‘lost dignity and historic character’ of the Grade II listed property in Herefordshire, however he has now revealed a kitchen island is not part of his plans.
Kevin McCloud has largely managed to avoid revealing any information about his own architectural tastes since he started presenting Grand Designs 25 years ago
He design guru has now revealed the kitchen island (pictured) in the Grade II listed property in Herefordshire is not part of his plans to restore the ‘lost dignity and historic character’ of the building
A look at the property before it received a makeover from the television presenter
When asked about the potentially obstructive design feature in an interview in The Times, he responded: ‘How interesting. I have just taken a centre island out. I kind of think islands are for people who want to leave society.
‘And yet so many want to be and somehow the kitchen island has become sort of symbolic. If you can’t go and buy a real island, then put a centre one up in your kitchen.
‘So instead we’ve got a peninsula, like a breakfast bar. Two people either side of it can talk to each other. It’s a very social thing.’
The news means the large central island with granite work surface which previously appeared in photos of the home has now been ripped out.
The revelation gives Grand Designs fans a real insight into the mind of design master McCloud following a quarter century of secrecy.
There have been no World of Interiors or Hello! magazine photo spreads that allow us to inspect his living rooms, and he has kept a tight lip when asked questions by journalists.
The 65-year-old has been quietly spending the past three years turning an unloved 400-year-old former farmhouse into his own dream home after buying it for £1.1 million in June 2021
McCloud pictured in the kitchen of his former home in Somerset in April 2004
A series of images show off the ‘charming and generously proportioned’ layout of the farmhouse
Highlights include ‘very generously sized reception rooms’ with the main sitting room featuring ‘a wonderful inglenook fireplace with wood burner’, pictured
The first floor features three double bedrooms and a single bedroom. The attic, pictured, has a further two large double bedrooms
Later in The Times interview he said his taste was changing and due to this he has deduced that ‘everybody’s taste is unreliable’.
He also addressed the rumours he detests bifold patio doors, and said he anything ‘intrinsically wrong’ with them but thinks they are more suited to the climates of Greece than the UK.
In his experience he said when people install them instead of getting the ‘outside in’ and the ‘inside out’, it is like being outside.
He claims half a tonne of leaves fall into the kitchen when the wind blows and a ‘sparrow flies in and poos on the floor’.
Father-of-four McCloud snapped up the property after splitting with his wife of 23 years and tying the knot with businesswoman Jenny Jones.
A previous owner of the farmhouse, which dates from around 1600, was prosecuted for undertaking a major series of ‘disrespectful’ alterations without planning permission.
It has been described as a ‘secluded, spacious farmhouse situated in a superb rural location’
A look at the staircase and hallway in the 4,858 square foot farmhouse
Kevin with his then wife, Zani, and children Elsie, then two, Milo, then six and Hugo, then 15, at their Somerset farmhouse, in 2003
Planners said the unauthorised works led to ‘irreparable loss of historic fabric which has compromised its character as a building of special historic and architectural interest’.
Despite this, estate agents were keen to highlight the positive selling points of the property when it went on the market in 2021.
The 4,858 square foot farmhouse was advertised through Country Life magazine after a local estate agent who specialises in the sales of country houses and equestrian property was instructed to sell it.
Described as a ‘secluded, spacious farmhouse situated in a superb rural location’ with ‘land available separately’, a series of glossy photographs showed off its ‘charming and generously proportioned’ layout.
Highlights included the farmhouse’s two ‘very generously sized reception rooms’ with the main sitting room opening from the ‘kitchen/breakfast room’ and featuring ‘a wonderful inglenook fireplace with wood burner’ and ‘a snug nook’.
A second reception room also featured a fireplace with wood burner and offered ‘a versatile space’.
The kitchen included an electric range cooker and the ground floor featured further rooms including study, utility room and boot room as well as two WC.
The first floor features a galleried landing with three double bedrooms and a single bedroom, three with ensuite bathrooms as well as a separate family bathroom.
The attic has a further two large double bedrooms and a family bathroom with separate wet room.
But it is hard to know much much of this design remains true, as McCloud has not revealed his progress, despite the project sounding like his very own juicy episode of Grand Designs.
Kevin McCloud, pictured inside the ‘Grand House of Ideas’ as part of Grand Designs Live in May
The presenter sought permission to turn one of the first floor’s double bedrooms into a huge bathroom with ‘his and hers’ sinks. Pictured: A bathroom before it was redesigned
Cambridge-educated McCloud has followed the trials and tribulations of families as they attempt to create their perfect home as host of the popular Channel 4 programme for the past 25 years.
In May he insisted he would never throw open his doors to TV viewers adding: ‘It’s like walking around with your trousers down’.
But in a teasing insight into his own personal project, McCloud told how he had been inspired to copy a restoration featured in an episode of Grand Designs.
He said he was ‘absolutely blown away’ by the transformation of the ruins of Astley Castle in Warwickshire after it was destroyed in a fire in the 1970s.
McCloud was particularly impressed with the inclusion of a contemporary ‘hanging’ oak staircase among its updated features.
Council documents show that within weeks of buying the farmhouse, McCloud submitted detailed plans to make some major changes to the interior in a bid to restore it to its former glory.
McCloud’s project includes new staircases on the ground and first floor to help create an area that ‘should respond well to a sympathetic contemporary solution’ to the previous botched works.
Host Kevin McCloud said in an episode in May 2023 that he has never spent more than £7,000 on a new kitchen. Here he is pictured speaking to a homeowner on the show
The documents show plans for the kitchen to be moved ‘to the north wing’ while permission was sought to turn one of the first floor’s double bedrooms into a huge bathroom with ‘his and hers’ sinks and a freestanding bath in the centre of the room.
Other proposals include removing ‘false ceilings’ to expose historic beams along with the removal of ‘modern cement and plaster’ to ‘reverse the damage caused by the use of modern previous materials’.
The plans show the removal of partition walls and ‘blocking doorways’ to reconfigure layouts as well as ‘a more sympathetic solution to the altered main fireplaces’.
Outside, the proposals included replacing modern brickwork with a timber-framed wall using traditional materials, landscaping gardens and the removal of the property’s oil tank and its replacement with a heat pump to ‘make an important contribution to the building’s sustainability’.
Architectural historian and historic building consultant Dr Catherine Gordon previously said the proposals represented ‘an important opportunity’ to regain some of the property’s ‘former integrity following a phase of inappropriate alterations’.
Milo’s famous father Kevin has been fronting the renovation and design show Grand Designs since the 1990s
In a heritage statement written to support the application, which was approved by Herefordshire Council in March 2022, she wrote of the staircase feature: ‘The proposed works will address the issues raised by the awkward insertion of the modern staircase, which does not occupy the full width of the stairwell and has altered the layout of the first-floor landing.
‘A sympathetic solution that relates to the historic fabric and layout will dramatically improve this key central area within the house and the extent of recent alterations provides scope for an interesting contemporary design that underlines the house’s dramatic proportions and robust character.’
She said the plans ‘should serve to protect the building’s surviving historic fabric, restore part of its original layout, improve its sustainability, and ensure it is adapted with an informed and careful approach to meet modern requirements’.
Dr Gordon added: ‘They will set an important and valuable precedent for future alterations and repairs to this building that will continue to restore some of its lost dignity and historic character and increase both its individual significance and also that of its exceptional setting.’
On the Modern House podcast last year, McCloud’s eldest daughter, Grace, the former managing editor of World of Interiors, accused him of living now in more of a ‘white box’ than ever before.
The kitchen island revelation gives Grand Designs fans a real insight into the mind of the design master McCloud following a quarter century of secrecy
He strenuously replied that he was no minimalist and that his house was cluttered with objects from his life including the bestselling lamp, named after her, from his own lighting design company.
‘She was just trying to throw a landmine into the conversation. I think within all of us, as we get old, there is that desire for renewal and wanting to feel young and fresh and somehow part of the modern age, but by the same token there is an enormous comfort to be derived from the objects and the possessions that have become part of our story and without which our story would be meaner and rather more superficial.
‘When you’re in your thirties, there’s no time for anything other than childcare and, if you’re lucky, sleeping. And that’s it. At my age, you can go back and make connections, just look back and try to make sense of the paths you trod and the relationships you made along the way.’
McCloud previously told how being without a kitchen for a year gave him an appreciation of the rollercoaster of emotions faced by participants of the home building show.
He said: ‘It’s hard to express and to understand, there was a very deep sense of threat.
McCloud claimed last year he was no minimalist and that his house was cluttered with objects from his life
‘It came from the fact that we didn’t have a kitchen, we didn’t have a heart to the home.
‘It was as though something had been taken away from the building that made it feel more dangerous to be there. I can’t describe it in any other way, and I talk to people about this – it’s a very common feeling.’
McCloud has spoken of his love for ‘ancient buildings’ and has said of his new home: ‘It’s a bit of a new build, a bit of an old build, a bit of a garden build and a bit of a barn conversion.
‘Ancient buildings are fabulous, but like elderly relatives, they do not thank you. And they’re smelly and damp like elderly relatives. It’s like living with a lunatic.’
He also said: ‘My great love is old buildings and I get hot under the collar if I see people doing stuff which is not good. I’ll wade in.’
McCloud had previously shared a 500-year-old farmhouse with second wife Suzanna near Bruton in Somerset.
The couple, who have two children, sold their previous Grade II-listed home in 2010 to Fifty Shades Of Grey director Sam Taylor-Johnson for £1.85million.
McCloud, who also has two other children from previous relationships, told how he lived in a camper van for three years so he could carry on working during the pandemic.
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