Highcliff House Dorset, southern England luxury home architect design, modern UK property photos

Highcliff House, Dorset, England

20 February 2026

Design: MortonScarr Architects

Location: Lambert’s Castle, Dorset, southern England, United Kingdom

Photos by Unique Homestays

Highcliff House, Dorset, England

Highcliff is a contemporary 3-bedroom residential property situated in the picturesque location against the backdrop of the National Trust woodland of Lambert’s Castle. Perched on a steeply sloping site, this stunning black timber-clad home is carefully designed to maximise the breathtaking views of the surrounding Jurassic Coast of Dorset, and replaces a set of dilapidated buildings once featuring in a painting by Lucian Pissaro.

Completed in 2021, Highcliff boasts a single level of living space and bedrooms, totalling 120 square metres. The clever design and construction of this property ensure that it seamlessly integrates into its natural surroundings, creating a sense of harmony and balance. Clad in black timber and with a dark grey standing seam zinc roof, the house helps accentuate the verdant surrounding landscape. Internally, the connection with nature continues, with the use of polished plaster walls, expose plywood ceilings, and a micro-cement floor adding to the stripped back, natural feel of the property.

An open plan kitchen, living room and dining space dominates the centre of the house, with a suspended terrace running full length outside and offering an experience of being with the canopies of the surrounding trees, whilst at the same time providing views out towards he Jurassic Coast. A master bedroom with ensuite is positioned at one end of the house, with a further two bedrooms situated on a slightly lower level at the opposite end of the property.

With its sleek and contemporary aesthetic, Highcliff provides a unique and captivating living space that showcases the beauty of its surroundings.

Given the steeply sloping site, what were the primary architectural challenges encountered during the design and construction of Highcliff, and how were these overcome to create a functional and aesthetically pleasing home?

Highcliff was designed to replace a series of delapidated buildings running parallel to a country lane. The buildings had been the subject of a painting in 1915 by Lucien Pissarro, and so retained an element of local interest. The site itself is steeply sloping, and so to create an inviting home with adequate rooms sizes it was neccesary to design a new ‘home on stilts’.

The main challenges to the design of the house lay not only with the steep slope and the limited height of the previous buildings, but also the close proximity of the lane. Indeed, there was no pavement or guarding from passing traffic, which could have resulted in extensive damage should a crash occur.

The solution to this was to design a house that was sunk into the ground. This required the construction of a concrete retaining wall to facilitate this, which at the same time provided a defence against passing traffic. The house was then designed as a lightweight timber frame superstructure in order to reduce structural loads onto the slope, which was then built inside the protecting concrete retaining wall.

This concrete retaining wall was then clad in local dry stone, whilst the northern elevations of the house were rendered and painted in a light pink colour, to echo the colours used in Pissaro’s original painting.

The view over the surrounding valleys and out to the Jurassic coast beyond is the main focus when in the house. All rooms are orintated toewards the view, with a suspended deck running the full length of the living room and kitchen, access via sliding doors.

The description highlights black timber-clad as a key feature. What was the rationale behind choosing this specific material and color palette, and how does it contribute to the home’s character and its relationship with the surrounding environment?

Black timber was used extensively on the house, as a vehicle to expressing other colours inside and out. The darkness of the timber enhances the verdant green colour of the surrounding forests, whilst also elevating the natural plaster and other tones uses throughout the interior, including green tiling as a further reference to the woodland.