Sea Roads

Cadw's description

Location

Towards the end of Cliff Parade, below the level of the road, approached via a ramped drive-way.

History

Sea Roads was designed by Gordon H. Griffiths, architect, of Cardiff, for John Gibbs esq., in 1939. Though ostensibly conceived as a conventional 4-bedroomed family house with servants' accommodation, the design marks a radical break with convention in its adoption of a thorough-going modernist idiom.

Exterior

House in a strong modernist idiom. Construction is reinforced concrete for floors and roof, with brickwork piers and metal window detail throughout. White rendered walls and flat roof, with bold projecting eaves. 2 storeyed, rectilinear form, the entrance front stepped in plan, with entrance in recessed block to left, and staircase in the curving angle of the advanced right-hand range. Windows are arranged as horizontal bands on each floor. Entrance and 4-light window in recessed block, with long slender curved cantilevered canopy over. Double doors with small glazed panels. Deeper windows aligned in the upper storey. Stair-window in curved angle advanced to right is trapezoidal in shape, its lower line following the slope of the stairs. Banded windows in long elevation beyond, those to ground floor shorter, as before. Return elevation to right has side doorway with curved canopy hood, and similar bands of window. Garden front is dramatically glazed with almost continuous bands of window on each floor, forming a strong geometry, and interrupted only by the full-height curved near-central bay, which itself has continuous fenestration. Whereas the detail is absolutely plain on the entrance elevation, here, the bands of window to the ground floor have a sill and cornice, introducing an element of modelling. Left of the bay, French doors are incorporated into the window band, and all lower windows have narrow top-lights.
A low terrace repeats the lines of the house with ramped central feature echoing the advanced bay: this continues to the right of the house, where a curving wall encloses a small terrace. Similar walls define a circular parking area on the entrance front, and these serve to integrate the house with its gardens on each side.

Interior

The house is planned with a spinal corridor, principal rooms all overlooking the garden, and the kitchen at the front. Sitting room and study are separated by a folding screen, and the kitchen retains original fitted units. Dramatic tightly curving cantilevered stair with solid balustrade. Upstairs, a similar arrangement, with main bedrooms overlooking the garden, and former maids rooms and bathrooms in the front. Further fitted furniture and some original fireplaces.

Reason for designation

Listed as an exceptionally well-preserved modernist house. Its flat roof, white walls and strong geometry are characteristic of the modern movement, and the expressive use of fenestration to articulate the facades and express the organisation of space within the building is developed to a dramatic degree in the bold use of glazing of the garden front. Sea Roads is also unusual in retaining its original interior virtually intact, and is an excellent example of modern movement architecture in Wales.