Pearl Lowe’s Romantic Seaside Home

Pearl Lowe’s lifelong dream to have a house by the sea was finally realised when she fell for this romantic clapboard home near the beach in East Sussex. As featured in her book, Faded Glamour by the Sea, we discover how Pearl has created a home from home that’s brimming with heart and soul. By Rosalind Sack

PEARL PAINTED THE TONGUE AND GROOVE PANELLING IN ‘POINTING’ BY FARROW & BALL AND ADDED A SHAKER-STYLE KITCHEN BY DEVOL. IMAGE: DAVE WATTS

Driven by the joyful childhood memories of day trips to the seaside with her grandmother and her ‘gaggle of girlfriends’, Pearl Lowe has long had an affinity for the coast. Yet her lifelong dream of having a seaside home was years in the making.

After leaving London in 2005, Pearl and her musician husband Danny Goffey lived in five houses before settling with their children in their beautiful Georgian sandstone family home in Somerset. Yet that burning fantasy to have a bolthole by the sea would inevitably resurface every summer when they visited the coast.   

“I’m not sure what it is about the call of the sea that I find so compelling, but it is as though I am magnetically drawn to it. The sound of the waves breaking onto a reef, the sight of the tides rebounding and receding, the smell of salt water… all of these experiences do wonders for my body and soul,” says Pearl.

(LEFT) PEARL HAS SHADED THE WINDOWS WITH A VINTAGE LACE PANEL AND ADDED COMFORT WITH A SOFT LINEN SOFA BY GRAHAM & GREEN; (RIGHT) AN ECLECTIC MIX OF ARTWORK HUNG BY DANNY. IMAGE: DAVE WATTS

What Pearl and Danny wanted to create was a not just a house by the sea, but a home that would sing with the hum of friends, family and pets, come sunshine or showers. The idea of a soulless holiday villa in some idyllic Mediterranean island is not exactly Pearl’s style. Her nostalgic ‘faded glamour’ aesthetic is perfectly suited to the British coast with its promenades and piers, its Victorian guesthouses and colourful beach huts.

And from the moment she set eyes on this two-storey clapboard house on the East Sussex coast, hidden down a bumpy dirt track just a stone’s throw from the beach, Pearl knew it was where she wanted to be. “I didn’t even need to set foot inside it to know this was the one. There was just something so enchanting about it that made my heart skip. I looked toward my husband Danny as we got out of the car and saw that he was smiling too. We’d finally found it,” she recalls.

A WARMER FEEL IS CREATED IN THE BEDROOM WITH THE WALLS PAINTED IN ‘SETTING PLASTER’ BY FARROW & BALL AND THE BED DRESSED WITH SUMPTUOUS QUILTS AND CUSHIONS. IMAGE: DAVE WATTS

Dating back to the 1940s and built by a returning soldier as a gift for his artist wife who had a passion for the sea; the house’s alluring romantic history was an added draw. It had originally been a simple yet charming bungalow, embellished by the artist with mosaic murals made from shells and pebbles collected from the beach.

Subsequent owners had extended it and so, structurally, there was little for Pearl and Danny to do. What they hadn’t realised was that the house was off-grid, or “a glorified shed” as Danny had exclaimed in horror the first night they stayed there. It was nothing that a handful of trusted tradespeople couldn’t fix, leaving Pearl to concentrate on the interiors.

(LEFT) INSTEAD OF CREATING A BOXY ENSUITE, THIS SAGE FREESTANDING BATHTUB SITS AT ONE END OF PEARL’S BEDROOM; (RIGHT) THE ORIGINAL PORTHOLE DOORS ADD A MARITIME FEEL. IMAGE: DAVE WATTS

Sympathetic to the bones of the house with its vaulted ceilings, French windows and tongue and groove panelling, Pearl has imbued it with her trademark vintage, rock n roll style. Many of the furnishings have been sourced second hand from eBay, Etsy and Facebook Marketplace, aside from the major investment of a new shaker-style kitchen from deVOL.

Everything here glows in the beautiful light from the vast south coast skies and while Pearl and Danny have no plans to make the permanent move from Somerset to East Sussex, a piece of their heart will always be here in the faded glamour of their home from home by the sea.

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