Kevin McCloud reveals glimmer of hope for Grand Designs’ ‘saddest ever’ episode

Remember the saddest ever Grand Designs that tore apart the family who had been dreaming of living in a lighthouse in Devon?

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After more than a decade of heartache, debt and a marriage breakdown, Chesil Cliff House in Croyde, Devon, was finally built in its full glory in 2022 and went up for sale with a guide price of £10 million.

Saddest ever Grand Designs

This spring, however, there was more bad news in store as the Grand Designs' lighthouse was taken off the market when it failed to sell.

By early summertime, the lighthouse and its annexe, The Eye, were listed again but this time as two separate homes in a bid to attract buyers.

Has the Grand Designs' lighthouse sold?

Now, TV host Kevin McCloud has revealed the lighthouse's owner Edward Short was "battling along with it" but, most importantly, had not lost hope of the property selling - despite the heartache it has brought him.

In a recent chat, he told Metro.co.uk: "Ed and I still communicate by email now and again. It’s not always the case that you keep in contact with people, but in his case, it was such a special project and we had a lot of shared interests in common and we share a mutual friend.

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"He is still battling along with it. We went back for the revisit which was great and rather redemptive and now I think it is still on the market. I haven’t checked in with him recently, but he is hoping for a bite on the line as it were."

What is the lighthouse worth now?

Currently, the five-bedroom waterfront eco-friendly home is up for sale with a guide price of £6,500,000.

With panoramic views over Saunton Sands and out to sea, estate agents Knight Frank describe the infamous lighthouse as "one of the UK's finest waterfront homes". It is noted The Eye, its annexe, is available by separate negotiation.

What has the owner said about the lighthouse?

In his own words, Edward told Kevin about how his dream to build the lighthouse consumed him. "This is a baby that’s got so hungry that it’ll eat me – it’s that savage now," the owner said on Grand Designs in 2019 when Kevin visited the property.

"If there's one huge guilt that I have over this, it's the impact on the family. I put her through a horrendous time with this — knocking the family home down, not building another one. I don't think it gets much worse than that for a partner. My ambition and vanity has probably collapsed the marriage."

Kevin revisited the property and its owner last year, two years after it first featured on Grand Designs. Recently, Grand Designs and its host Kevin have returned to the small screen for a new series.

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