House Hunting in England: Rural Splendor in the South West Region

A Four-Bedroom Home Outside the Cathedral City of Wells

$2.9 MILLION (2.4 MILLION BRITISH POUNDS)

Built on the footprint of a former agricultural building, this 4,170-square-foot contemporary house sits on four acres in Binegar, a tiny village in the Mendip Hills, five miles east of the cathedral city of Wells in England’s South West region.

The home sprawls across a single level, with living areas and bedrooms in an open plan beneath skylights. “It’s very unusual to have a house of this size with such a modern approach, since most homes in this area are more period or traditional,” said Lucy Drane, a senior appraisals specialist at The Modern House, the listing broker.

The sellers, Katherine and Geoff Ladd, worked with the Bath architect Michael Williams “to keep the palette of materials really simple, including wood and microcement,” Ms. Drane said. After a year of construction, the couple moved into the house in 2019.

The home meets passive-house standards to minimize energy consumption, using triple-glazed Internorm glass, mechanical ventilation with heat recovery system, rainwater collection, and a biodigester to recycle organic waste. Reclaimed wood appears throughout (Siberian larch clads the home’s exterior), and the outdoor decking is made of recycled plastic. “Our under-floor heating rarely kicks in because the house is so efficient,” Ms. Ladd said.

A long driveway leads to the house from a local road. The main entrance is through a timber-framed atrium with a clear polycarbonate ceiling, which opens to a foyer and a long great room with vaulted ceiling. Ms. Ladd designed the kitchen, whose black appliances offset a 13-foot, steel-topped island. A sliding glass wall opens from the kitchen to a rear deck.

Floor-to-ceiling shelves line a wall dividing the living and bedroom areas. All four bedrooms are equally sized, and one has an en suite bathroom. The identical proportions were “a diplomatic thing for their children,” Ms. Drane said.

Several hundred feet from the house, the Ladds built a separate cabin with a bathroom and kitchen, which the couple runs as a short-term rental. “It could easily become overflow accommodations for the house,” Ms. Drane said. The couple also “rewilded” the grounds and added a pond, Ms. Ladd said. “So much wildlife has come back,” she said.

Binegar is a farming village of some 355 residents in Somerset, one of seven counties that make up the South West region of England. Wells, known as…