Riverside property: Tide is high for seafaring buyers seeking waterfront bolt-holes

By Caroline McGhie 315PM GMT eleven March 2010

Comments 5 |

Previous of Images Next Go with the upsurge Scott and Linda Couper Photo CHRISTOPHER JONES The Boat House, nearby Plymouth Photo CHRISTOPHER JONES Perchwood House in Devon (�795,000) Temeraire in Dartmouth (�1.35m) Cliff House on the Fowey River (�825,000)

Scott Couper lives on the really dilemma of the River Lynher in Saltash, only opposite the Tamar from Plymouth, where Devon ends and Cornwall begins.

He keeps his vessel in a bizarre old construction subsequent door. "We cocktail around the dilemma to the beer hall in Saltash, or go right up the Tamar or over to Newton Ferrers," he says. Estuary dwellers were ever thus, vital by the tides and the transformation of the water.

Worth striking out for 10 most appropriate waterside homes Self-build awards Riverside in Devon Go with the upsurge on the riverside When a stream runs by it Best waterside homes

The vessel is amphibious so he drives in to the water, afterwards unfolds the wheels and heads onto dry land. It is called Legs-Akimbo.

His father additionally keeps a 34ft yacht moored outside, and nephews and nieces in the encampment come to disaster about in boats with him. The Boat House is remarkable, too, in that it has the own harbour, dual deep-water moorings and slipway, and Scott creatively longed for to rise it as a fantasy house. But he and his mother Linda have motionless to sell it for at �1.5 million and move to France. It has formulation accede for a five-bedroom residence with a helipad.

The riverbanks are full of curiosities similar to this, ruins of old waterside life, that are regarded as bullion dust by house-hunters in poke of magic. "This was built in the Seventies by a man who was a tip representative and engineer, who never got formulation accede but lived and worked in it," Scott says. A packet once ran from this harbour, receiving estate workers opposite the stream each day. Now a army cadet precision propagandize creates unconstrained diversions, such as man-overboard and upset precision exercises.

On the River Dart at Dartmouth is an additional mudlark"s treasure, a large dull boathouse owned by the Dartmouth Trust, that is offered it by Savills and Marchand Petit at �1 million. "Beacon Boathouse was the old coastguards" surveillance with the old flare on the sea wall, that the boats line up to as they come in and that has to stay put," says Peter Gardner of Marchand Petit. The construction is vast, with an office, seminar and stairs down to the old mooring.

So select has this front row of houses on the Dart right away turn that Gardner is certain it will be demolished and rebuilt. "Values on the H2O haven"t forsaken in the past integrate of years so it is seen as a good investment, and people wish to put their income somewhere alternative than the bank," he says. Indeed, new investigate by Knight Frank shows that bay vital is right away sought after, with normal properties on eight key estuaries in the South West autocratic an normal 31 per cent some-more than elsewhere.

These are properties that constraint your heart. Geoff and Jackie White saw Perchwood House, on the H2O at Bow Creek in Tuckenhay, Devon, when they were on legal holiday eleven years ago. "We only upheld it by possibility and thought wow!" he says. They were vital and operative in London.

"We packaged up the car on Friday nights, outlayed weekends and holidays there. Every time we arrived it strike us how extraordinary it was." It altered their lives. "I had never been meddlesome in boats, but being right there I had to, so we paid for a 20ft engine cruiser. We felt similar to characters from Swallows and Amazons. We explored the Dart in good detail, up stream to Totnes, to villages similar to Stoke Gabriel, scored equally up and had afternoon tea. And down stream to Dartmouth," Geoff says. "Once you get to know the stream it is easy to navigate. On excellent days we jumped in the vessel and off we went."

Vast cinema-screen windows gave them a skipper"s-eye perspective of the landscape, from the unprotected murky flanks of the stream bed at low waves to the flowing scenery when the waves is up. "We have seen a sign bask, a salmon jump. We have held sea bass, grayling, mullet," Geoff adds. "And the fish move the birds cormorants, egrets, heron."

So deeply in love did they tumble with the area that they have right away changed from London to a riverside residence in Dartmouth and substituted the cruiser for a Sunseeker yacht. They let Perchwood, earning up to �40,000 a year from it, but are offered it for �795,000 (through Marchand Petit). The residence has harbour access, 3 bedrooms, a walled grassed area opposite the highway and a riverside terrace.

Families gather, girls and boys lurch to their dinghies and the total universe seems to take to the boats in the summer. Even estate agents and residence poke agents raise their sails. "August is the month, with Cowes in the initial week, Falmouth the second, Fowey the third and Dartmouth the fourth," says Jonathan Cunliffe of Savills, that sponsors a May regatta at the Mylor Yacht Club in Falmouth.

It isn"t the same as seeking true out to sea, as Graham Falconer, owners of Sailor"s Creek in Flushing, says. His residence is on the Penryn river, on tip of the harbour, and he keeps his 26ft ship in the important Carrick Roads marina, origin he sets off to try the mixed of creeks and inlets. To be closer to their grandchildren in Suffolk, the Falconers are offered by Chesterton Humberts at �1.75 million. "There are pubs you can tie up up to such as the Smugglers Inn towards Truro," he says. At the bottom of the wooded grassed area is a haul-out for a boat and stairs down to a in isolation beach.

The Boat House, �1.5m, Knight Frank (01392 423111) Beacon Boathouse, �1m, Savills (01392 455744) and Marchand Petit (01803 839190) Perchwood, �795,000, Marchand Petit (01803 847979)Sailor"s Creek, �1.75m, Chesterton Humberts (01872 278288)

ESTUARY VALUE (Average prices on the tip estuaries. Source Knight Frank)

Salcombe �560,000 Dartmouth �482,000 Falmouth �438,000 Helford River �435,000 Camel �408,000 Fowey �422,000 Exe �366,000 Teign �320,000

ESTUARY FINDS

Riverside chair Temeraire with 4 bedrooms, terraces and views right up stream in Dartmouth �1.35m. Strutt & Parker, 01392 215631. Creek bower Cliff House at Cliff on the Fowey River, with 3 bedrooms and stream front �825,000. Savills, 01872 243200.Lighthouse views Castle Cottage at Kingswear, with 3 bedrooms and in isolation entrance to the Dart �950,000. Savills, 01392 455755.