Letting themselves in for hard work...

Renovating your entire house is tough. Renovating someone else’s seven-bedroom Grade-II listed Georgian farmhouse and turning it into a high-end holiday let is even trickier. CHRISSY HARRIS went to Kingston see how it’s done

-  CHRISSY HARRIS

Holly Rahder is making coffee for six or so tradesmen in a kitchen covered in decorating equipment when the gardener walks in to say there is no water coming out of the outside tap. It might be that there’s an air lock or the pressure’s not working.

“Right,” says Holly, picking up her phone that has been constantly beeping from the worktop. “I’ll just ring the plumber and get it sorted.”

Within seconds, the plumber is called and the gardener reassured that the problem should be fixed and that Holly will come out in five minutes or so to check what’s been happening, once she’s finished doing this interview for Devon Life.

Project managing a major property restoration is a full-time job – and this isn’t even Holly’s house. Or her full-time job. She and husband Will, both in their early forties, came here to run Langston, in Kingston, near Kingsbridge, when the farm and beautiful Georgian house were bought by new owners last year.

“The owner asked me and Will to run the house and farm but there was no way we were going to live in the property because it’s so vast,” says Holly. “We thought, well, it would make a great holiday let and the owner agreed.”

In what sounds like a dreamy scenario, Holly and Will were then tasked with making it happen: leading the restoration and renovation of this incredibly elegant house on the owner’s budget.

“We’ve both been working seven days a week for ten months,” says Holly, immediately dispelling any notion that this has been non-stop fun.