‘A nearby farmer took the whole herd’: how a couple turned a cowshed into a dream home for artists

Suzanne Blank Redstone and her husband, Peter Redstone, have lived on the same Devon farm, nestled in a tree-fringed valley a mile from the sea, for 50 years. The couple’s current home was once their cowshed, a simple, functional structure that they built in 1979 to shelter their herd of Jerseys over winter.

Today, it’s an architectural statement, albeit a very livable one. It was longlisted for the Royal Institute of British Architects’ house of the year in 2023 and bagged a prestigious Manser medal, too, while a photograph of the property was selected for this year’s Royal Academy of Arts’ Summer Exhibition, which runs in London until 18 August.

The Redstones worked on the project with David Kohn Architects, which converted this and several other buildings on the farm, including the former farmhouse, into new homes for similarly community-minded people – many of them creatives – along with their young families.

The lofty central space is artist Suzanne’s studio. It has a wall of glass looking on to a leafy veranda, and new dividing walls in a suitably agricultural, locally made concrete block. Wrapped around the studio are the kitchen-dining-living room, library, Peter’s office, a guest suite and the couple’s bedroom suite. There are two more bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs, but it was important that all the essentials were on one level. “To future-proof it, we made the ground floor wheelchair accessible,” says Suzanne.

Similarly, the douglas fir kitchen cabinets have been fitted with large, circular oak handles, made on a local farm. They bring a graphic punch to the space and are easier for older hands to grip.

Natural light is a central theme in Suzanne’s art, so she took a great interest in the positioning of the cowshed’s windows and skylights, in particular the circular one that sits above her studio. She suggested powder-coating the deep surrounds of each roof light in different bright colours to give each room its own character.

As a nod to their home’s agricultural past, as well as a money saver, the couple have used the aluminium shades of the lamps that once warmed the calves – again powder-coated. “We used all sorts of things from the farm: the studio’s sliding door is made from the old cowshed doors; the meat safe is now a cabinet, and an old crate serves as a stand for the record player,” says Suzanne. And much of their furniture was passed down from both sides of the family.

Suzanne – who grew up in New York – and Peter, who is British, met in the US in 1968. They married in 1970 before moving to London, with Suzanne working as an artist and accompanying Peter on his extended projects for management consultancy McKinsey.

It was while they were staying in a farm cottage in Whitley Bay, Tyneside, in 1973 that they wrote a manifesto for their future lives, and decided to buy their own farm. During the search for a suitable place, Suzanne became pregnant with the first of their children.

When they found this 20-hectare (50-acre) plot in Devon a few months later, they were hooked. “We’d looked all over the country but we already knew this area. The old farmhouse and buildings were in this beautiful red soil valley and it was relatively close to the cultural scene in Dartington,” recalls Peter.

To prepare for farming, Peter took some training courses. “Tractor driving, milking, and the artificial insemination of cows,” says Suzanne. They decided to focus on dairy. “I had a dream that some day we’d make ice-cream, so we decided on jersey cows because they’re beautiful and their cream is so rich.”

As their four children grew up on the farm, they urged their parents to put their ice-cream dream into action. The couple took up the challenge in 1987, making and selling ice-cream in a small shop in Torquay, helped out by the children.

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Rocombe Farm organic ice-cream quickly proved a runaway success. Eventually, the couple went into partnership with Yeo Valley and moved production to a factory nearby. After a few years, they agreed to an amicable takeover. In the early 2000s, as foot and mouth disease gripped the countryside, they decided it was time to give up the cows. “We found a farmer not far away to take the whole herd. It allowed me to get back to my art practice, as the children were growing up, too,” says Suzanne.

When Suzanne began to get involved in local artists’ open studios, the couple started using their now empty farm buildings to help set up, in 2003, the nine-day community-based Art Farm Project, for which about 50 artists displayed work in and around the property, drawing thousands to Rocombe.

Suzanne and Peter’s children live and work all over the world, but return with their children for long stays on the farm. The pair thoroughly enjoy the community spirit that comes with the latest phase of their lives. Six young families, several with arts connections, now live in the homes the Redstones have created. The couple had always wanted to live “as a community, with independence, but in close contact with others”, says Peter. “We see these people a lot and it feels like a very healthy way to be.”