Ballavelt

Ballavelt is an old stone farm building at Cornaa, rebuilt inside and left honest outside. The walls are rubble slate laid by hand, the roof is new, and there is nothing behind the house but grass and the shoulder of a hill.

It stands detached at Ballavelt Farm on Hibernian Road, with a broad concrete hard standing in front of the door where the cars go and a green-clad shed alongside. Sheep work the fields either side. The entrance is your own, and no wall is shared with anyone.

The breakfast bar and the corner sofa

Through the door the ground floor opens out as one long room, floored in pale wood and lit down the middle with spotlights. A deep black leather corner sofa faces the television with a low timber table between them. At the far end the kitchen sits behind a broad wooden breakfast bar with stools pulled under it, and behind that are the oven and hob, extractor, tall fridge, microwave, kettle and coffee machine. It is laid out for a household cooking and eating in the same space.

Beds for five

Three bedrooms take five people between them: a double, a large double and a single, all finished the same way in cream and pale wood with heavy black curtains that pull right across. Two shower rooms are panelled in marble-effect board with heated towel rails, and an additional toilet means a full house is not queuing.

Cornaa, the valley and the road out

Cornaa is farmland and hillside, and the nearest town is Ramsey out on the coast. Laxey and its beach are a drive the other way, and from the ground around the house the view runs up the valley towards the hills.

For a household that wants the quiet

Five people, a car between them and a week of walking would use this house properly. The sunsets in the photographs are the kind you only get with open ground on every side, and the loudest thing after dark is the sheep.