Surrey Homes | SH112 | May 2024 | Love Your Home Supplement inside

Above: Over the course of their seven year renovation,
Claire and Jonny were careful to preserve as many of the
original features of the house as possible, as is evident here
in the entrance hall Left: The downstairs cloakroom
law before switching to the dynamic world of startups. “I
was a barrister for a number of years but I joined a startup in
the early 2000s which got me more interested in the business
side of things.” Working for the startup was a great move for
Claire and it became a stepping stone for starting a business
of her own in 2011. “It was a short let business called Veeve.
We thought people would rent their home out for a bit of
extra money.” The business grew rapidly and opened offices
in Paris as well as Los Angeles. But in 2018, Claire decided it
was time to step down and she sold her stake in the company
to start a new chapter and a family with husband Jonny.
A few years prior, during the market peak of 2014,
Claire and Jonny had started looking for a place together in
London. But the market was tough for buyers and forced
them to take a different approach. “Prices in the London
property market were so high at the time and the market was
really competitive. We were gazumped twice in the space of
a couple of months, so decided to see what we could find
an hour further out,” she remembers. Their widened search
soon opened their eyes to a different way of life. “We never
actually planned on leaving London. But we just fell in love!”
The home they fell for was a 10 bedroom former country
estate in a small village in Kent. They quickly had an offer
accepted and were days away from completion when they
got a call. “We were about to complete when we received
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