Huf House, the German eco-friendly architecture sensation, makes just 150 of its inimitable glassy flat-packs each year, so those who are lucky enough to get one are unlikely to let strangers come in and tramp all over its glossy, low-carbon floorboards. Not so with the owners of this seaside beauty, which trumpets itself as “the only Huf Haus available for self-catering holiday rental worldwide” … Photograph: PR
It’s monstrously expensive – in fact you could pretty much build your own Huf Haus for the price of a five-week stay in summer – but if you and seven friends ever have something to celebrate, at least you can relax in the cinema room in the knowledge that the air-source heat-pump underfloor heating is punishing only your wallet, not the polar icecaps.
• 01637 881942, uniquehomestays.com. From £2,000 a week (£250 per person based on full occupancy) Photograph: PR
John Lewis staff get to holiday in the castle on Brownsea Island, a wooded idyll in Poole harbour, but for others, Agents House is the only accommodation available. If you rent this cottage, once the last boat leaves for the mainland you’ll be the only tourists on Brownsea who aren’t part of the department store’s partnership … Photograph: John Plimmer/PR
It’s an imposing crenellated house, sleeping six, and a sturdy leap from the front door would land you in the sea. The island is a wildlife haven, and remains one of only three places to spot wild red squirrels in the south of England.
• 0844 800 2070, nationaltrustcottages.co.uk. From £621 a week (£103pp) Photograph: John Plimmer/PR
pictured: Veronica cottage
Anvil Point is a squat, Victorian lighthouse, which has been easing ships along the channel for 130 years. Being automatic now, it has no need of a keeper, so the two cottages beneath it are available as holiday lets – and rest assured, the lighthouse no longer operates its deafening foghorn … Photograph: PR
pictured: Veronica cottage
The low building, with its four oversized chimneys is oddly comical, but the small cottages (Rowena sleeps five, Veronica six) are simple and uncluttered. Standing on the lonely headland on a starry night, watching the lamp sweep its 20-mile beam across the sea, is as romantic a prospect as any cottage can offer.
• 01386 701177, ruralretreats.co.uk. From £878 a week (£146pp) Photograph: PR
With its neat, thatched roof, sleek woodburner tucked into an inglenook fireplace and pale Farrow and Ball colour scheme, Piper’s Cottage is a blend of country quaintness and contemporary style, in the hamlet of Throop Hollow, handy for the Jurassic Coast, Lulworth Cove and Durdle Door … Photograph: PR
Previous guests rave about a “five-star luxury hotel” feel, thanks to the high-spec kitchen with Rayburn and posh furnishings, but love its cosiness too. It sleeps four, plus a cot, has a private fenced garden and a patio with a barbecue.
• 01747 828170, hideaways.co.uk/holiday-cottage/pipers-cottage-H321. From £570 a week (£142.50pp) Photograph: PR
One man’s dusty, overdecorated antique is another’s cosy, evocative hideout. The Smithy is a bit of both: an olde worlde, one-bedroom cottage-cum-amateur mechanic’s museum. Stuffed to the gills with rusting machinery and bonafide blacksmith’s clobber, this timbered building doubles as a garage for the owner’s vintage car collection … Photograph: Sophie Kerridge/PR
But even sarcastic hearts will melt before the glowing woodburner and tiny, galleried bedroom. If you needed more historical immersion, biplanes flying overhead from the nearby airfield will contribute to the general feeling of pre-war rural bliss.
• 01747 811881, sawdays.co.uk. From £250 a week (£125pp) Photograph: Sophie Kerridge/PR
