The usual suspects (sun, sea, surfing) are all present and correct on this Cornish B&B's website. There the stereotypes end. While the sky is predictably azure, the house is a big white concrete rectangle, and the rooms wouldn't look out of place in a Design Hotels handbook.
Someone has clearly decided to do things their way – and since such a website rarely comes my way, I'm itching to get past the westbound caravans and in to St Ives. I turn off the main thoroughfare into a street of predominantly inter-war houses in plum positions looking across to Carbis Bay. There it is – the cube – looking slightly out of place but intriguing. It faces the sea, on an elevated road; only a beachfront location could beat it.
Alan Spencer opens the door and, from a narrow lobby, takes me up one floor to a landing. Unobtrusive etched glass panels riveted to the wall tell me that one room is called North, and the one beside it, South.
We go North. At this point I should advise anyone who prefers ye olde worlde bedde and breakfaste to go and mow the lawn. Everyone else, come with me.
North is an open-plan expanse of whiteness and glass. Through sliding glass doors is my own private balcony and a seascape beyond.
As with all minimal but well conceived interiors (rather than the places which stick one dodgy print of a gerbera on the wall and furnish from flatpacks), it is all about the detail. The floor is solid oak. A walnut (Conran) sideboard bears a selection of ground coffees, Orla Kiely mugs, and Jing teas (new B&B fad) in a Perspex box.
Grey wool BoConcept easy chairs swivel so I can watch sky or screen – Samsung's latest LED HD.
At the opposite end to the glass windows is a solid sliding door which rolls back to reveal what can only be described as a destination bathroom, of the kind more often found at five-star resorts in the Maldives. The Kurv bath is shaped like an ostrich egg.
So what's the story, I ask Alan and his wife Sharon, later. Now, here's a niggle – there is no guest sitting room, which means conversations must take place in hallways or in my room.
The house started life as a "quite ugly, boring 70s detached", Sharon says. Luckily planners took their modern eco-development (solar panels and a living green roof are next on the cards) seriously.
It is a spectacular place to stay. I'd prefer to make tea in a pot than a cup, and perhaps, when a lone female is staying, breakfast (from a stylish menu, with options such as Greek yoghurt with honey, and boiled eggs with soldiers) could be brought in by Sharon, rather than Alan. But waking enfolded in cotton from one of the White Company's most expensive ranges to watch the mist lift over the Monterey pine, chestnut and mimosa trees, is heavenly. Cornish cubism is about to take off in St Ives.
• Try the Blas Burgerworks on The Warren in St Ives (01736 797272, blasburgerworks.co.uk, booking advised) for unexpected brilliance at dinner
