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However - I like to be able to walk from my house to a cafe, a pub, a high street environment, and Kenley doesn't appear to have anything like that. I think that for a coffee and a paper you'd be in the car, driving to Purley, and I'd hate that.
I noticed this when I looked on the map. Unfortunately this is often the trade off with mid-century modern houses, they are often further out/in suburbs on the edge of town with very little going on. I'd love one but they don't tend to be in places we (well, my other half tbh) would want to live. Committed mid-century-modernists tend to trade location for the property. I can't remember where @villa-ru lives other than south but his take on this might be interesting.
I think it's a doable level of project and you could make it amazing with a loving restoration and I would be very envious of your house. The surprise parcel of land is an obvious bonus. When you say clearly belonging to, have you checked with the Land Registry? It only costs a few quid and land which logically would obviously belong to one property doesn't always...
But yeah, I agree with your reasoning. Except the problem with West Hoathly is the location, not the weather - have you not got a rain jacket? HFTU ;)
(I'd actually flip that around and say that feeling more connected to the weather and being able to observe it changing is one of the nice things about living in the country. Also SE England is normally very dry, we've just had the wettest October ever or something).
Fox-
I think mid century houses tend to be more suburb based, but not exclusively. We're in Streatham and there are others in the area.
That does look an awesome house - and even if a bit rundown, ime is likely to be really solidly built. Ours is mostly reinforced concrete (nightmare for picture hanging).
I'd be the same as Neil and want to be able to walk to at least some amenities, but I have plenty of friends who've moved out and seem to have adapted to living in the back arse of nowhere.
villa-ru
We went to see two properties today, the cottage in West Hoathly with the great garden, huge shed and recent studio, and the mid-century modern place in Kenley.
Just after we arrived we were told that an asking price offer had been made for the West Hoathly place, and that we'd need to beat that by Monday if we wanted to stay in contention.
I really liked the place, still, but a couple of things were on my mind - one, I think it'd a fantastic summer residence, but when (as it was today) it was absolutely pissing down then going down into the garden to for e.g. work on your bike in the shed would be a significant test of motivation. I think your enjoyment of your own home (federated as it would be over half an acre of grounds) would be strongly linked to the prevailing weather that day. Two, my girlfriend would be working in London still, and had started to explore staying with her sister for at least half the week to make the commute less hellish - which is unfair and counter productive, and made me rule the place out.
I can wear wellies as a matter of habit, I can't make Mitcham closer to East Grinstead.
Onto the second place - the photographs flatter to deceive, it's quite run down, water stains everywhere, but it's a great size and it's got great potential. I love that the vast majority of it's period features are still there. The garden has been levelled (presumably when the property was built, into a hillside), which has lead to (an ominously bulging, propped up with scaffold poles) retaining wall around the western edge of the garden. To give you some sense of scale, the retaining wall is around 9' tall.
But that's all resolvable, and there was a surprise bonus - a patch of land, clearly belonging to the property, that wasn't in the listing and would make a perfect workshop/shed/study location without losing any of the existing garden space. It's already got a double garage, and plentiful off-street parking, and the (theoretical) new workshop would be accessed on metalled surfaces from the road, so very easy to move stuff in and out.
The place needs work, but I can do the work - or be the cause of the work in others.
They've had an offer for it, but the EA wouldn't say what it was, other than "not asking price".
However - I like to be able to walk from my house to a cafe, a pub, a high street environment, and Kenley doesn't appear to have anything like that. I think that for a coffee and a paper you'd be in the car, driving to Purley, and I'd hate that.
I've been turning it over in my mind and I don't think I can get away from this desire for, and lack of, local community. I also suspect that the only way of getting to the house is to walk up a single track road that doesn't have a pavement - such is the "if you want to go anywhere you get in the car" nature of the place.
If I've managed to miss a thriving little high street in Kenley please let me know, otherwise I think neither of these places are a goer.