The
coveted first prize of The Big Breakfast's 1994 Housey Housey competition
was an exact replica of the programme's East London hq, right down to the
handpainted fried eggs on the kitchen walls.
The eggs were barely dry when presenters Gaby Roslin and Keith Chegwin
handed over the luxury Beazer home to winner Gillian Baker from Grimsby in
May 1994. Valued at £100,000, the two-bedroomed property is in Telford.
After being approached by
Channel 4, Beazer Homes subsidiary Second City Homes built the house in
just 59 days. The firm, which admits to having a good working relationship
with Wrekin Council and the Commission for New Towns, cleared the site on
19 April, the same day as signing the contract with Channel 4.
 Second
City's architect Mason Richard Partnership and md Gordon Marvin took
photographs and measurements of the original Big Breakfast House prior to
the contract signing, from which they compiled working drawings. No
original plans of the house, converted from two of three adjoining former
lockkeepers' cottages, were available.
'Fine tuning of the drawings was carried out by site agent Ron Spence and
our development coordinator,' explains Philip Williams, the company's
construction director. And everything has been made to match the original
house, from bathroom fittings to the open staircase and uPVC window
frames.
Second City carried out a certain amount of background work before the
contract was signed, including the materials scheduling, and is using
subcontractors it employs on a nearby site where it is constructing 90
houses.
Although Channel 4 is the client did not paying for the house, explains
Williams, 'just for the soft landscaping, including the planting of an
orchard, and the construction of a pool at the front of the house.'
So what did Beazer Homes get out of the deal? Well, it was a very good
promotional vehicle as in addition to numerous television mentions since
the competition was launched in April 1994, the Beazer Home logo appeared
prominently on all of the 11 million nationally distributed games cards.
And faced with a promotional opportunity like this, suppliers were
understandably 'helpful'.
 Redland Bricks provided the
26,000 bricks needed and Marley the 16,000 roof tiles, both of which were
chosen to colour match the weathered bricks and tiles of the original Lock
Keepers Cottage. British Gas installed gas central heating free of charge.
Like the original Big Breakfast House, the replica comprises only
two-thirds of the overall building.
But whereas the left hand (third) Lock Keepers Cottage is linked to the
main house, and contains a camera store and make-up area, Second City has
built a second individual dwelling at Telford.
The sale of this smaller (but three-bedroomed) house will go some way
towards offsetting the undisclosed construction costs.
The contractor started digging the foundations for the two-storey
structure on 19 April, and the gang of six brickies and three labourers
proceeded with the traditional brick and block construction soon after. By
2 May, they had fitted the first floor timber joist, and 11 May saw the
topping out of the brickwork.
The roof was tiled by the 17th and the building handed over to the client
exactly a month later (17 June), a week ahead of the original programme,
after Channel 4's supervising architect Hickton Madeley completed the
final inspection and issued the Practical Completion Certificate.
'One of the biggest challenges was applying the various colours of paint
to internal walls,' says Williams. 'As in the original house, we had to
use special scenery paint and we found that because of colour variations,
any touching up meant we had to repaint an entire wall.'
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