For tens, if not hundreds of thousands of years,
human beings have relied upon the pharmacy that nature provides.
We have taken the leaves of plants
and rubbed them into our skin to cure ailments.
We have chewed on bark.
But who, in the 21st century,
would decide to take all of these arcane ideas of healing
and wellbeing, and from them, build a house?
Tony is someone for whom life is one long journey.
The more I look at life,
the more I recognise that labels and boxes are limiting.
In his 60 years, he's been a nutritionist,
a health researcher, and a wellness coach.
But now Tony wants to draw his beliefs and passions together
in bricks and mortar.
I want to be able to use the project to express
the vision of wellness through creating
a house that is about health and wellbeing.
And Tony has a partner on the path less travelled,
Ara.
My first career was 20 years in the corporate world,
working my way up to senior management roles.
But there was a massive shift going on inside me,
which made me re-evaluate what was really important in life.
And having fled office life to become a physical therapist,
Ara now feels more at home in the woods.
I've always needed to be close to nature.
I'm definitely a tree hugger.
Ara has been able to spend time among the trees...
..because seven years ago
the couple moved back into Tony's childhood home near Henley,
to care for his ageing parents John and Betty,
who designed and built their terrific 1960s family home
when Tony was small.
But sometimes revolution is more alluring than evolution.
Tony's vision is to tear down the old house and start again.
The journey that I'm about to embark upon is
a new journey of embracing skills that I haven't got, around building.
Tony's vision of a health-promoting house is driven especially
by Ara's increasingly fragile health due to
a debilitating autoimmune condition.
A nature-inspired house that promotes wellbeing is maybe
just the tonic that Ara needs.
Rather sweetly set in the woods here.
Hello, Kevin. Hiya. Welcome, Kevin.
Thank you very much. I'm very admiring of your estate.
What are you planning to do with this?
We are building a new house,
a very environmentally friendly house,
that promotes wellbeing through its interconnection with nature.
But what's spurring the healthy aspect of the project?
I developed a number of autoimmune type of conditions
and that's really the drive for some of
the health aspects that Tony's bringing into the house.
And to have a space that allows me to be able to heal, erm,
as much as possible.
Stress is a big problem with autoimmune. Mm.
So during the course of the project, your health might be tested.
I'm sure will, it already is being. OK.
The only way I can think of to do that is to emotionally
and mentally let go of as much control as I can
because we would do it differently.
Ara has her very own quadrant,
her quarter of the house,
to do basically exactly what she likes with.
There's definitely an Ara area. Is there?
You're going to be in your wing upstairs having a nice time. Yes.
Yeah, meditating. Or playing in the woods.
Yes, or playing in the woods. Exactly.
The first task facing this pair of health-seeking dreamers
will be to demolish their old 1960s bungalow.
A highly insulated raft foundation of polystyrene
and concrete will then form a U-shaped footprint,
onto which 170 prefabricated wooden panels
will be slotted together to form the structure.
The house will be separated into two wings that'll wrap around
a central atrium,
conceived by the architectural designer Nigel Hefferman
as a way of bringing nature right into the living space.
The east wing will contain two self-contained apartments,
allowing Tony and Ara to earn an income
and share their therapeutic work with guests.
Ever the unconventional couple,
they will each have separate quarters in the west wing,
Tony's one-bed apartment with its own kitchen
and bathroom downstairs, and Ara's above.
In pursuit of wellbeing,
the house will have mechanical ventilation
and biodynamic lighting to track natural daylight,
so that on dark days, it can still be sunny inside.
Big glazing panels will give views in all directions
out into the old growth forest which completely surrounds the plot.
Larch cladding will also mirror the woodland.
And curves will flow around the building in bands,
topped with a slender zinc fascia,
echoed at first floor level by elegant connecting balconies.
This is a low-carbon design that seeks to emulate
the vibrant life-giving force
of the forest that inspires it and its occupants.
I just hope that the task of building it doesn't drain them
of spirit and energy in the process.
When do you deliver Ara her finished beautiful apartment, her space?
April 2021.
Which is 21 months away, yeah, yeah.
Where are you going to live, you guys?
Well, there's a small room that I will use as a bedroom. Yeah.
Tony will use part of the garage. Yeah. So how much have you got?
I want to do it for 800, we need to do it for 800,000.
Is there a pension? Everything.
That's everything. Wow. What happens if it goes over?
I mean it, it can't, can it?
It can't. It can't.
So as I understand it,
project management involves spreadsheets, forecasts.
Is this something you're familiar with or have done before?
To be learned. You know all about that though, I'm sure?
I've been a project manager in the past.
I suppose I have to let go
because this is Tony's project,
and he has to do it his way.
So, you know, I have a mantra - fortune favours the brave.
And Tony is certainly brave.
That's the way the project works.
We need to find lots of fortuitous people
and opportunities to fall into place at the right time
and the right way. Yeah...Yeah.
So project management doesn't do luck and fortune, does it?
No, it doesn't, there's no, there's no spreadsheet for luck.
But before any construction can happen,
there's the small matter of what to do with Tony's parents' house
and its treasure trove of memories.
This is rather beautiful.
It's lovely, isn't it?
Yeah, yeah. And this, with a clock in the middle of it.
It's all been done with love. And you can feel it.
We got married in that room.
My goodness me. The memories keep coming, don't they?
Wow. How are you about this, Tony?
I mean, this place must be first of all full of memories.
I think for me I've worked on a strategy for being able to let go.
Breaking eggs to make omelettes.
Yes.
Letting go of this place is going to be as hard for you, as well?
Oh, probably harder for me.
Harder for Ara. Really?
Harder for me because I cared for John and Betty
and because I know how much they loved it,
I know how much it meant to them.
It meant a lot to me, too, taking care of them here.
Yeah, yeah.
Wow. I mean, talk about loading up your emotional wagon
to the maximum permissible weight.
I mean, here's Tony,
tackling project management for the first time,
with no discernible skills for that at all,
with an extraordinary agenda for this building,
to do with health and happiness and wellbeing
and the biodiversity of this place.
And he's doing it on
a site which is kind of absolutely replete
with these kind of nostalgic, well, time-bombs, really.
Boy, oh, boy.
I mean, house building is difficult enough.
There are two days to go until the old house comes down,
just time to salvage the precious bits
from John and Betty's '60s interior.
Is that the right screwdriver, Tony? Yeah, I think so.
And with demolition day looming,
events in both Ara and Tony's past are casting their shadows.
I've done a build before, a long time ago,
with my first husband.
We split up before it was finished
and that's why I've been very reticent.
I can feel all this churning going on in my stomach that
I've been feeling for the last few weeks,
and you've been feeling things too.
I mean, when, just the other day,
you know, you were really close to tears.
I find certain things about the past really difficult.
It's important that, rather than me live
the rest of my life in the shadow of my parents,
what I need to do is to kind of demonstrate my own competence
and value that I've always doubted throughout
the whole of my life, really.
The project is really important.
It's really his sense of purpose now.
It's the purpose of his life.
The day of no return finally arrives in the form of
a demolition crew.
Tony's parents' life's work in brick and teak,
the home they built from the ground up when Tony was a toddler,
is about to meet a brutal end.
But for the moment,
his inner child is transfixed by the process.
We have got a massive, dinosaur-like machine
with big grabby hands.
But I'm not feeling greatly sad at the moment.
Tony might be putting a brave face on it,
but Ara is less comfortable
with such a deep uprooting of the past.
I spoke to Betty about it while she was alive,
and she said, you know, she'd be horrified.
This was their forever home.
I know that this is something Tony has to do.
He has to do it his way, which is different to his parents' way.
And now the space is being cleared for Tony's creation
because it's now just a pile of rubble.
I hope, for Ara's sake,
that out of destruction comes renewal.
Tony's parents' house has been consigned
to the great skip of history,
and work has already started on the foundations.
As part of his journey of self-discovery,
Tony wants to prove he can roll up his project manager sleeves
and help his groundworker Shaun.
Away you go. All right.
I think the key to driving it is just to keep it
at a nice steady speed.
Not too fast, no sudden movements.
Well, most customers just want the house built,
but Tony, he was desperate to have a go.
You'd probably find it easier if you use that. OK.
Tony's ambition with this project was to learn on the job,
and he's passed his first dumper test
with flying colours.
A month later, I'm hoping to see some progress on the foundations,
which Tony promised would be kind to the environment.
Disruption in the middle of Eden.
It's a sea of polystyrene!
A prefabricated mosaic of pieces marking the outline of
the new house, like the remains of some Roman villa.
How are you? Nice to see you. How are you? Good to see you. Very well.
Are you apprentice or are you master wrangler of polystyrene now?
Just playing, really.
No. I don't believe that. This is a sandpit,
and this is Lego to play with, that's all it is, really.
Sandpit and Lego.
The pieces form a kind of massive tray,
into which a minimum amount of concrete will be poured.
And the technology in fact forms part
of Tony's nature-friendly ethos.
Much of this polystyrene is recycled.
So have you been on site every day?
This is you finally making your mark in this place?
Definitely. For so many years,
both practically and psychologically,
I felt a little bit hidden in
the shadow of what my dad had done,
so now it's really my project.
It is down to me to be able to make it happen,
to take away the doubt
and the uncertainty and the lack of confidence.
Tony is clearly thriving,
as is Ara.
Since the demolition, I've felt a lot better,
and the reason is because now Tony has taken over.
So, it has released me from feeling a need to be responsible.
That, that is inherently a stressful process
and therefore don't go near it.
A week later, a thin layer of concrete is poured,
and then the next phase of this, so far, speedy project can begin.
They seem to have brought a couple of tree branches with them too.
Today, this timber-framed house will begin to rise from the ground.
There are panels that come in
that are pre-factory made. It's very quick.
This lorry load of highly engineered timber panels
should slot onto those insulated foundations
over the next couple of weeks.
A simple construction method for a complex design.
Looks like they're all labelled,
so it's like a big jigsaw.
And Tony always loved jigsaws as a child,
so he'll love this.
And he looks great with his pink hat on, doesn't he?
Completely dressed for the occasion.
As the first floor comes together,
Tony's architectural designer Nigel makes a visit to site.
He's been working on the general design with Tony
and Ara for a couple of years,
and he's got to know his clients' quirks.
They are totally unique,
and that's what makes them special.
And I think the eccentricity that they have is...
It's going to actually reflect in the building.
But after 40 years of experience,
Nigel is nervous about Tony's decision
to manage the project himself.
I see buildings abandoned when people try to do it themselves.
And they can't adapt themselves to it, get into a pickle,
which could be a disaster.
This house must not be disaster.
Tony's vision is to construct a healing house
where the pressures on Ara's health can be eased.
And there is a special place that could act as
a fantastic reference point...
..where the therapeutic potential of nature is deployed
in a truly unexpected way.
This is a hospital.
Like any hospital in Britain it is medical,
it's functional, it's practical, it's institutional,
it looks even industrial.
It's got all the "als", except one perhaps.
It's not magical.
That quality, that quality is something that instead
has been concentrated on a little tiny site just next to it,
hidden behind these trees, shrouded in greenery.
It even has a forest on its roof.
This is a building which is so magical
and demands so much of your attention once you find it that
you don't even realise it's built next to a multistorey car park.
This is the Maggie's Cancer Care Centre
next to St James's Hospital in Leeds -
a building where it's hard to tell
where the realm of nature ends, and the human one begins.
Its architects, Heatherwick Studio,
wanted to unleash the healing power of nature
by dragging it right in.
Wild planting envelops the structure,
and the structure itself speaks of natural forms.
Inside, the call of nature resoundingly echoes
in myriad thoughtful details.
I thought this was concrete -
this is actually cork and plywood.
Actually, the entire building feels like three enormous trees
stepping down the hill, each with its own canopy,
like medieval fan vaulting with these over-reaching spans.
There are more than 25 of these centres across the country,
each a unique space to promote healing.
Maggie's chief exec is Dame Laura Lee.
There's that very famous bit of research
showing that people who recover in hospitals
with a view of greenery need fewer meds,
they recover more quickly.
I think one of the most important things for us
is about how the building is going to make people feel.
People with cancer come in our doors
and are feeling isolated.
All of a sudden, that just settles the mind
and then it allows people to have conversations about the most
difficult things that they didn't know they were going to have.
Wow, I mean this place, like all of the Maggie's centres,
is world-class.
Architecture and nature working as a tonic,
offering a healing spiritual hug for anyone dealing with
the impersonal and technical world of a hospital.
Just imagine what Tony and Ara could achieve
on their beautiful woodland site.
However, there is one glaring difference
between this place and their project.
No-one on this project had to sit
and endure the construction process,
and live in the building, while it was being built.
That's what they're doing.
Back on site,
Ara looks on from her temporary home in the garden shed,
unable to avoid the relentless pace of the project.
Today, the glazing has arrived.
It's a harmonious process when things move in flow and harmony.
And once the roof sub-structure is up,
the company constructing the house frame leaves site.
Tony - something of a novice project manager -
has so far impressed Ara.
He's on schedule but to keep within budget,
he's now on his own,
with an enormous house to fit out and clad.
It isn't long before his first real challenge lands.
Winter is approaching,
and this wooden structure is by no means watertight.
The problem partly lies in Tony's decision
not to commission any detailed drawings for the roof and gutters
from his architectural designer, to save money.
And without drawings, no company will supply him a roof.
I find it really quite a painful experience
to see water leaking through the timber of the roof
and then landing on the floor below
and leaking through that into the layer below.
November turns out to be one of the wettest in memory.
And as the water pours through the vulnerable wooden structure,
Tony has to enlist Ara to help cover the roof in plastic sheeting
to minimise the damage.
The biggest worry at the moment is having
a roof that isn't watertight and the whole of
the black plastic sheeting blowing up in the wind.
So this has become a lot more critical.
The building is in jeopardy,
but the biggest threat may be to Ara's delicate health.
So we spent four days literally trying to cover the roof
with plastic coverings.
You know that something needs to be done,
and you just have to do it.
And you have to take the consequences.
It affects me physically, yeah, and I just feel really unwell
and my energy is very low.
Comma, and I'd hoped to discuss this with you today.
Tony is unsure who is going to get him out of this awful bind -
the house frame company, his architectural designer,
or another roofer, so our rookie project manager...
Please do get back to me ASAP.
..fires off email after email into the night.
Tony and Ara's wooden house is half built
and not watertight, and it's been raining nonstop.
There's not a roofer out there who wants
to help overcome the problem
because Tony hasn't got any detailed drawings
for his hidden roof gutters.
But Tony thinks he has a solution for his gutter details.
It means enlarging one of the key elements in the building,
envisioned by his designer Nigel,
the slender fascia capping that curves around
the entire roof at the top.
Nigel has a way that he wants this house to look.
And 650, which is something like that,
is too big for him. And he wants it to be like that.
It's very deep
and it's the sort of thing you see on a factory building,
not on a house.
That's the problem.
One option is to cut the roof down in situ
to retain that delicately banded capping,
but this would stretch Tony's budget to the limit and cost him £10,000.
Let us just say that Nigel and I have a very clear
and strong difference of opinion on this matter,
and I'm quite happy to run with 650.
And that's the decision I've made.
What's more,
Tony's abandoned Nigel's plan to clad the capping in zinc.
Instead, he wants to use a cheaper liquid acrylic coating.
This is an impasse.
It's very hard to think that a building might be desecrated.
It's like trying to take an E-Type car
and putting a different bonnet on it.
It's just not going to work.
You know, it has to be that free-flowing form.
I'm very worried about the outcome.
And I don't want my name
to something that's not what I intended.
So, unable to find a compromise between them,
Tony and Nigel part company.
Ara meanwhile, has gone to stay at her nephew's in
Madeira until her health recovers.
Tony really is on his own now.
But at least he's decided what to do.
He forks out for an expensive temporary scaffolding roof,
and gets to work building the guttering and capping
to his own design.
It's a gruelling job,
six metres up and 85 metres all the way round the whole building.
So, I'm basically making it up as I go along
and trying to figure out a way of doing it.
And we'll see whether that works or not.
If it doesn't work, we'll just have to try something else
until we find a way that does.
And, in typical Tony fashion,
he's viewing the challenge as a therapeutic opportunity.
I'm very easily distracted by things.
What I've wanted to be able to do is essentially
to fall in love with the process.
For me, if you enjoy the process,
it really doesn't matter how long it takes.
And so, five months pass,
five months of scaffold hire and lonely work
before the roof is sealed, decked with solar panels and trimmed
with a great big grey acrylic capping band.
Yikes.
But for Ara, who's just got back from Madeira,
there isn't any time for celebration.
It was complete chaos when I got back and way, way over budget.
But I would reckon we're probably, at this stage,
about 50 to 60 grand over budget.
So there's no scope for bringing in any other workers.
With her bags barely unpacked,
Ara is drawn back in to the project.
I caught a bit of a chill,
I had two nights where I was up till eight o'clock in the evening,
it was cold,
painting because we've got a deadline.
She's pulling out all the stops
because the scaffolding's being taken away in the morning.
Tony still paces himself with rest as well as work.
I can't relax until I get the job done
and he can't get the job done unless he has all these breaks
and other ways of being able to deflect
the stress that he's under.
So it just highlights the difference in our personalities.
The contrast in Tony and Ara's sense of urgency
is inevitably a concern for her.
I try and whip Tony into shape, but he's so resistant.
From every point of view, financially, health wise,
I could walk away right now, and I would be...
..well.
But that's not how the heart works because I love him
and I'm just hoping I can survive this.
Thankfully, the pair are able to reach a compromise.
Ara is desperate to move back into a space
with a functioning bathroom and kitchen,
so Tony commits to putting
all the focus into finishing Ara's apartment,
before her health is put under any more pressure.
And, in typical Tony fashion,
he's come up with a left of field plan to cover the walls,
that he thinks will help him catch up time.
I've done something a little bit different.
I haven't gone for conventional plasterboard.
Instead, he's using a wall board
made from recycled gypsum and cellulose.
If it's placed accurately enough, there's a big advantage.
We don't need a plasterer, and we probably don't need a painter.
The downside is it's heavy.
Each board weighs about 45 kilograms each.
That's too heavy for Tony to handle on his own,
so of course Ara is roped in again.
Which way are we doing it?
The way we always do it, sweetheart.
OK. I remember that.
Three, two, one, go.
Each board weighs as much as a baby hippo so it's back-breaking work.
Hold it this way to begin with.
It's progress towards Ara being able to move in.
But with 450 boards to fit,
much is resting on her shoulders.
And getting drawn in was just what Ara wanted to avoid.
I guess, part of what you're trying to do, of course,
is to simply manage your physical health, aren't you, through this.
Absolutely, yeah. And are you cool about that in terms of
the progress being made in terms of your flat?
It's like this whole process has been
a bit like going on a self-development course.
With the building?
Yeah, because at first, I had to learn how to trust.
And trust the process.
And trust that...
..you know, fortune favours the brave. Yeah.
And now I can learn patience,
which is my next lesson.
It's turning into some kind of spiritual treatise.
Yeah. Well, isn't that what life is?
However, this happy state of equilibrium is short-lived.
A couple of days after my visit,
Ara's worst fears about the danger of working
with such heavy loads come to pass.
I was clearing up something on the floor
and I just heard him...
..make a big noise.
Tony fell off a trolley whilst screwing a board into the ceiling,
fracturing his tailbone and cutting himself badly.
He was rushed to hospital to get stitched up.
It was really scary.
Tony spent a week in hospital.
OK, let's tilt it because you can already feel it bending.
But only a month later, he's back lifting boards,
although, a full recovery is going to take time.
He's a lot slower.
And, like, today, he slept till about 11:30 this morning.
You see, Tony's thinking of how much time he thinks he's lost so far.
I'm thinking of how much time he's potentially
going to lose moving forward.
It's the classic dilemma of the self-builder.
On the one hand, the freedom of doing it yourself,
and on the other, if you're struck down,
and there's no money to bring in anyone else,
then you've run out of options.
So I'll get the trolley now.
Tony has no options but to carry on as best he can.
Almost two years since they began the journey,
there's still a mountain to climb to get this vast house finished.
I have serious doubts about whether it'll ever get done.
So Tony, how are you?
OK. I was looked after really, really well.
Haven't we got an amazing health care system?
Yeah, you were very well looked after.
Good, good.
Forgive me, but I can imagine Tony building this house very happily
for the next ten to 15 years,
because you've accommodated it, into your working life, daily life.
It's integrated into my lifestyle anyway.
And it's a, it's a very beautiful lifestyle, really, I think. Yeah.
I mean, what a privilege and opportunity
to be able to have a wonderful place
and to be able to learn the skills of building a house.
It's a, it's a one-off opportunity.
I love all that, I love all that. It's a disaster of an idea
for the building, of course, because the building wants to get watertight
and weathertight. The building does, yes.
And Ara wants resolution. Mm.
I think all you say is very true and honest and spot-on.
The only way a building gets built
requires a discipline to get it there.
Yeah, and to make it happen.
Over the next few weeks, as Tony's strength recovers,
there is a renewed focus on site.
When Ara's moved in,
that will be a really positive thing for both of us -
for Ara it's because she's moved in,
and for me it's because
Ara can relax and won't be as stressful
and questioning of what I'm up to.
Walls go up, pollution-reducing paint goes on,
a bathroom and kitchen go in.
And before long, a very important milestone is reached.
Do you want me to take your box? Yeah. Or the case?
I'll take the case. You take the case.
You can roll the case, can't you? Yeah. OK.
Right, let's go move in.
Welcome to your new home.
Thank you. It's a lovely new home.
So lovely to be able to be here again amongst the trees.
Enjoy your space, Ara.
I will.
Now that Ara is in,
Tony can start to tackle that mountain of other tasks,
the cladding on the outside.
He's using vertical strips of Accoya wood,
simpler than the original idea of bending horizontal strips
but less elegant,
and the fit-out of the remaining three quarters of the interior.
But, as the peak of that mountain appears through the clouds,
Ara receives some devastating news that forces them
to reassess everything.
I went to have a lump investigated that had been there
for some time but was getting bigger
and I was told straight away that it was a cancer.
It really forces you to look at
what's really important in life and...
..I really just have to do the best I can to take care of myself
and try and step back from the build.
I think it's really necessary
for me to be able to put it to one side.
Ara has to focus all her attention on her health,
while Tony is forced to confront an uncomfortable truth.
Here's the difficulty, here's the irony of the whole thing.
The, the whole project started out as creating
a house that promotes health and wellbeing.
And from Ara's perspective,
it's a house that has created pretty much the opposite of that.
I don't think I've ever wanted a couple
to succeed in finishing their project as much as Tony and Ara.
The seasons are on the turn
in this patch of Oxfordshire forest,
where Tony and Ara have been toiling away for four years building
a house that draws inspiration from the healing power of nature.
Well, I'm approaching Tony and Ara's house with a little trepidation
and no little concern because on top of the emotional,
the psychological, the physical load
that this project has brought to bear
comes this latest news of Ara's cancer, which is so sad.
And do you know? It wouldn't surprise me now if,
as a result of all of this,
the pair of them just decided to walk away from the project.
And I wouldn't blame them for that, either.
Tony's vision was to rejuvenate the site where he grew up,
make his mark here, deal with the difficulties of his own past
and help perhaps restore Ara's fragile health.
Is it possible that, against all the odds,
they may just have got there?
Well, there's a thing.
There is no site fencing.
There is a finished drive.
There is a finished house!
Four years after pulling down the old house,
a new and curvy home has finally asserted its place
as the focus of this woodland clearing.
Kevin, welcome.
Yeah, well, thank you. Long time, no see.
Good to see you again. It's great to be back,
to walk down a finished drive, to see a finished building.
It's come together in the last weeks.
And you're both living in it? Yeah? Yeah, yeah.
I'm really heartened by what I see.
I think it's just awesome, isn't it, what Tony's achieved?
I think we've experienced quite a lot together,
including many challenges.
Yeah. I mean, considering
this man did it without much in the way of detailed drawings.
And complete incompetence, from a project management point of view.
KEVIN SIGHS
Well, you mentioned that, not me. Now Ara,
I'm sorry to hear about your cancer.
Thank you. I want you to save your energies
and I'm sure you want to do the same thing.
Just assuming that I'll have a look round with Tony,
if that's all right? That'd be great, yeah.
Thank you. Yeah, yeah, OK. I know we'll catch up later.
Admittedly, Tony's chunkier grey capping lends the house
the air of a 1950s diner,
but the overall achievement here is astonishing.
They've laboured to turn this house from a shell to a finished home.
Oh, whoa!
Tony, it's done.
It's delightful.
It's airy.
Welcome to our hallway.
You've done it.
The best thing of all is that veranda beyond.
And then, the green of the lawn
and the depths of the forest beyond is really arresting.
There was a pond in your parents' garden, wasn't there?
And there's this sort of echo, stylistically, of this,
it's like almost looking at a mitochondria there, you know.
Those leaves floating around on the top of it,
it's like looking at kind of stuff happening inside a cell.
Yeah. It's amazing. It's quite magical.
The aim has always been to have circles within circles.
So, this is the inner circle,
which is nature and outdoors
and the house basically creates a ring that goes around it.
Yeah. Just remind me of the geography, Ara's upstairs...
Ara's upstairs, I'm downstairs.
And two guest apartments on the right-hand side.
Of course, and the wellness component of that
in welcoming guests into your house,
is that also integrated into each apartment, then? Yes.
I wanted to create something that goes beyond
just the eco-friendly house
and look at the concept of what a healthy house is really about.
Can we go and have a look at some tech?
Yeah. Let's go and have a look. Yeah.
This is where I'll be staying when I,
you know, book my tree-bathing holiday.
Indeed, this is the place to stay.
It's bright in here.
It's beautiful. All of the lights in here do have the ability to mimic
the daytime light.
Even though we've got a grey day today,
if you come and stand where I am...
Oh, my Lord.
What trickery is this?!
That's incredible.
Just, just move and you can see,
it jumps from one to the other.
If somebody came for the first time,
they would look here and think this is a sky light.
It is sorcery,
and yet it lifts my spirits.
As the sun does.
Tell me how you've managed to finish this building.
We went over budget...
..200k.
Where did that come from?
Various things that were originally allocated
as pension funds and such.
Oh. So, what that has now done is placed
a great deal more need upon the house to pay for itself
through programmes and retreats and exciting things like that.
Yeah, yeah. I mean, it strikes me that, in describing this,
what you've sort of provided for Ara is
the most supportive environment
for her to battle this cancer and win.
Obviously, my hope is that all that we are talking about now in terms of
the health benefits of the house can make a real difference for Ara.
Yeah. And indeed,
everybody else who comes to stay
and experience the magic of the house.
There are illusions too in the way the house plays with space.
The guest wing is generous,
but on the other side of the courtyard,
the couples' own quarters are quite the opposite.
There's a bedroom for a monastic hermit,
a humble kitchen,
and a modest living space.
They're one-bedroom apartments. It's that simple. Oh, absolutely.
I think it's the minimalist appeal that works.
My nature is to let go of the past and focus on the future.
Well, I think your decision to remove
the house that your parents had,
you know, that in itself is a deliberate...
..statement of faith in the future, in your future
and a deliberate letting go of the past.
It is. It is. Very much so.
The house may have taught Tony to let go of unnecessary baggage,
but for Ara, who is now living with cancer,
I wonder what her relationship with the house now is,
in the wake of all the pain of its genesis.
Hello. Hello. Welcome.
This is a...
..a space full of curves. That's what I like.
It's a lovely space.
It's beautiful, looking out.
I'm right in the woods, and for me,
this is the magic and I'm in my chair.
It's just gorgeous. And then the deer,
they come pottering along, you know,
it's all very pretty. Yeah.
My main focus is to be as happy as I can.
And I think because being happy helps your immune system.
It helps healing in every way.
Buildings can also magically almost help that.
Yeah. When you've got a beautifully designed,
beautifully insulated,
the love that's been put into it by Tony
and everybody who's worked on it, you know, like a meal
that's been made with love, you can feel it, can't you?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely.
And allow it to heal you.
Be at peace with life and have fun.
Rarely have I come across a house where the wellbeing of
the people building it is so intimately entwined
with the building itself, and its construction.
So, is it now time for a new chapter for Ara and Tony?
What have you learnt about yourself
over the course of this project?
I can't think you found it very easy, have you?
ARA LAUGHS
No!
It's been the hardest thing I've ever done.
I've had a lot of challenges in my life. Yeah, yeah.
There have been times when I've been resentful,
and I've come through that.
What have you learnt about each other?
I mean, I've learned a lot about Tony.
Before we did this project,
I hadn't seen him be as focused, as dedicated,
as stoic,
and I think that was part of his intention,
you know, the redemption.
He wanted to see what more he could find within himself.
You know, you've learned so much and you've done so much.
My father was somebody who, practically, was very capable.
And I think the redemption was to embrace practical skills.
That bit, I feel a sense of accomplishment.
But what he also did,
which I haven't matched,
was his ability...
..his ability to take responsibility for his family.
I haven't got there yet. I haven't managed it.
And that, I think,
is the deeper disappointment that I feel about myself, really.
I haven't managed Ara and her health that well.
Nobody could have predicted what was going to happen to me.
And so now, the path is to do peace
and contentment... Yeah. ..and gratitude. Yeah.
And I have so much to be grateful for.
I mean, I live in a little piece of heaven.
It's heaven around here.
It's my turn to get a bit tearful now.
I'm...in awe of the pair of you.
Very tough.
And very...
..wonderful of you to have got this far,
I think that's just a great thing.
If it were possible to actually see positive human energy,
then maybe it would look something like this spaceship of a house.
You know, I've always believed that good buildings,
especially houses built by self-builders,
can be a very pure, almost mythical expression of who we are,
our hopes, our dreams and desires, ambitions,
and of course, our fears as well.
And, boy, is this no exception, eh?
Because this place has really put Tony and Ara
through the mill,
the absolute wringer.
But what I think they've learnt,
on the way through,
is that the process of building can also be a redemptive one,
that it can be something where the energies flow both ways.
You see, now, now it's time for this building
to step up to the plate and become what it promised to be.
It's time for it to become a house of healing.
Echo!
It's huge.
If it does go on too long, then we could grow to hate it.
Yeah. Or each other!
I think there's a very good reason
that nobody's tried to live in this water tower before.
It's painful.
This is very, very painful.
I think it's mad.
The one thing that could really bugger us up here is if it leaks.
Urgh...
I'm the one that worries that we break up as a family,
and this ruins us.
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