Into the woods

When Neville de Souza found the site that is now Edward Milner Terrace, he immediately saw its potential. “There was a dilapidated building that had been squatted and was falling apart. But it was on a stunning, deeply wooded site containing 21 mature listed trees,” he says. “I saw it and thought ‘wow’.” 

An architect and developer, de Souza had spent 12 years living in one of Dulwich’s 1950s townhouses. “There’s a distinct architectural vocabulary here. I didn’t want to build yet another block of flats, but to reinterpret the family home, drawing on the townhouse vernacular. They can maximise height, light and space, but I wanted to design out the flaw of having multiple floors and no connection between levels.”  

As a result, each of the six townhouses on Edward Milner Terrace is deeper and taller than other townhouses in the area, though from the front the size of the house is deceptive. The site slopes steeply both left to right and front to back, which in de Souza’s house gave space for an extra floor, housing a Judo dojo and gym and cinema room.  

“When people come through the front door, they often say it feels like the Tardis,” he laughs. It’s a feeling emphasised by the design. A double-height space and glass floor in the kitchen links it to an upstairs living area, visually expressing a large volume of space. Discrete hidden channels carry LED lights whose light tone is set in sympathy with human circadian rhythms, while an exposed stair creates a sense of movement 
and rhythm. 

“I wanted the aesthetic of the house to be honest to its construction,” de Souza explains. “I wanted people to understand how a stair or a wall was built.”

That honesty continues in the materials – in an homage to the National Theatre, de Souza used board marked concrete for the structural walls, which carry the texture of the raw timber moulds used to make them. But it’s the connection to the landscape that makes this property remarkable, its large windows and balconies drawing you to look out over London.  

“From the start, we wanted the building to resonate with nature.” The terrace is named after one of the foremost British landscapers of the Victorian era, and previous resident of the site, Edward Milner, who designed the gardens with Sir Joseph Paxton, famed for Crystal Palace Park. De Souza and his young family have lived in the house since it was completed in 2019, but are planning to spend a few years abroad, “while the children are young enough not to have figured out how embarrassing their parents are”.

He hopes the house will be “a point of calm in a busy city,” for whoever lives there next. “I wanted to embrace our surroundings, to feel like you’re in a space-age treehouse, perched on a hill overlooking majestic London.” 

This property has now been let. Explore more properties to rent in London, or contact one of our lettings agents.