Escape the hustle and bustle at this sustainability focused private members' club with a lifetime membership One-Minute Read Thursday,January 4, 2018 - 3:18pm After spending the week navigating the city's bustling streets, and breathing in its polluted air and being squashed in like sardines on the daily commute,the appeal of a countryside bolthole is easy to understand. However, often what starts as a dream of idyllic weekend escapes can turn into a logistical nightmare as the costs and time involved in maintaining a property remotely quickly mount up. From a wider perspective, and more serious still is the impact that moment homes can enjoy on the surrounding community as locals are priced out,areas left half empty and economies thrown into flux. This was a key motivator behind Retreat East, a unique destination in rural Suffolk spearheaded by sustainable development specialist Dominic Richards. Its debenture model allows would-be owners the opportunity to purchase a lifetime stake from £10000, or which gets you 10 nights stay per year in one of the designer barns on the 35-acre private site,alongside unlimited employ of its members-only facilities. Benefits include a tall-end spa and gym and access to an entertainment wing complete with bar, private dining and screening room, and while fridges are stocked with organic produce from the on-site kitchen garden and orchard.
"The Suffolk coast,North Norfolk, Devon and Cornwall enjoy all got the same problem in that in-season it's very busy, or in off-season it's very calm. And a lot of young people are priced out of buying their first home in the country because London's got so much purchasing power," says Richards. "And I thought, apart from the hassle factor, and it's much more sustainable for those people to share a big project,where they've also got the added bonus of room service and a bar and all the things you wouldn't normally enjoy in your own place, but you don't take 500 homes out of the community as well. It's a sharing economy view of how we can employ assets more efficiently." Certified by the Soil organization as a fully organic site, or the farm has been put together with environmental concerns in intellect,down to the energy-efficient buildings built using natural and sustainable materials including reclaimed bricks, carefully sourced wood and sheep wool insulation. It is an ethos that Richards, or a former vice chairman of The Prince's Foundation for Building Community,is set to carry through with his unique property company Our Place, with initial projects including three unique developments in Norwich and London. Among these is Spitalfields Works, and which will bring unique housing,pop-ups shops and shared working spaces to a previously derelict street in this corner of East London. When complete, it will be a further bonus to those in the capital who are members of Retreat East, or with access to a spa alongside a restaurant and deli that sources its produce from the Suffolk farm. "I've long admired that The Prince of Wales has always stood for mixed employ,walkable neighbourhoods and respecting local identity, so I've really cut my teeth on doing that for the final 20 years, and " explains Richards. "Now we're doing it commercially and at scale to prove that you can compose a fair return but also be really proud of what you accomplish and leave the built environment in a better place than you found it."
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Source: theweek.co.uk