Building a Life by the Sea

Nicola O’Mara and John Merriman used their design-andbuild skills to revive a run-down property in Port Isaac, on Cornwall’s north coast

- Alice Westgate

Keep your eyes peeled while watching ITV’s Doc Martin and you might just spot Albany, a handsome late-Victorian house on one of the narrow streets that snake down through Portwenn, the fictional name for Port Isaac. Step inside this stone-built, end-of-terrace property and you’ll find a beautiful interior that’s bright and breezy in summer and snug in winter. Its wrought-iron balcony looks out over the village and gives a fine view of the doctor’s house above the harbour. What a blissful place to lead a coastal life.

Turn the clock back a couple of years and the picture was very different. Albany had been uninhabited for six years. The walls were running with water, all the woodwork was rotten and the kitchen was home to an irrevocably rusty Aga. Many potential buyers would have run a mile, but Nicola O’Mara and John Merriman considered it the perfect project. ‘It was the saddest house in Port Isaac,’ confirms Nicola. ‘But it’s our passion to do up properties like this, so we weren’t put off for a second.’

Nicola, an interior designer, and John, a builder, run a design-and-build business that has been breathing new life into properties for the past 20 years. ‘We work really well as a team,’ says John. ‘Nicola dreams up all these amazing ideas and I put them into practice. We rarely fall out as our taste is pretty much identical.’

In 2014, after refurbishing and selling their cottage in Somerset, they were ready for another challenge. ‘We had itchy feet and were planning to buy and renovate a large rambling house in Wales,’ explains Nicola. ‘But at the last minute we were gazumped, leaving us high and dry.’

THE LURE OF THE COAST