Owner of Grand Designs' 'saddest ever house' speaks out years later for the very first time
The owner of Chesil Cliff House, one of the most famous builds ever shown on Grand Designs, has spoken out about the project that cost him so much.
When Ed Short first appeared on Grand Designs with his plan to build his family a home by the seaside, the idea was to have it ready in 18 months with a budget of £1.8 million.
Sadly, things spiralled and Chesil Cliff House took years to complete, while costing vastly more than Ed had budgeted for it.
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Ed's family never got to live in the home and during the build, he split from wife Hazel, admitting that he felt 'cursed' at times, though he's still 'the best of friends with her' and ended up getting engaged to someone else.
While attempts to sell the house are now underway, Ed has spoken out about the ambitious project that ended up being dubbed the 'saddest ever house' shown on Grand Designs.
According to the Daily Star, Ed spoke at Grand Designs Live in Birmingham and discussed the trials and tribulations of building Chesil Cliff House.
He said: "When I originally approached Grand Designs, I did it because I wanted to have the security of having a documentary showing the building of the house.
"The plot is probably more dramatic that you’d seen on TV, it didn’t show you the gradients. The house is about 100 feet above sea level, and in front of the house there’s a large amount of rock.
"So, anyone driving past would think ‘oh, the house could hold the sea’, hence, I wanted people to know what lay beneath it.
"I was quite excited with the rock, but we were effectively digging out and replacing the concrete. The concrete was weaker than the rock that was coming out.
"It was a nightmare from the moment the first spade hit the ground. We were up against it from day one, with the really vulnerable cliff in front of the house."
While the house project didn't go as he wanted, Ed had good things to say about Grand Designs host Kevin McCloud, saying he was 'exactly how you seen him on screen, you just flow with talking to him'.
That feeling is very much mutual, as when Kevin McCloud spoke to LADbible he told us that he knows Ed 'very well now' and likes him 'a lot'.
Kevin said: "We wouldn't have had such a memorable set of films or original film were it not for Ed’s honesty, his absolute integrity.
"His honesty and his integrity kind of drove the show. In the original film at the end of it we say this is a story of hubris, it's a story of overreaching, it's a story of somebody's life falling apart, their relationships falling apart.
"And he got all that, he was the first to say that. So it didn’t make it hard for me to say that in the closing moments of the film, I didn't feel I was betraying his trust, because he was so open and transparent."
Kevin said that Ed had 'made huge errors' with his build and was 'guilty of overreaching' but felt 'you couldn't fault him' as he was 'a great human being'.
Topics: Grand Designs, TV and Film, Channel 4, Home, TV
Joe Harker