The original of the breed is The Lakes by Yoo, an estate of 170 waterside cabins and cottages built by Notting Hill developer John Hitchcox on a former quarry in Gloucestershire. Hitchcox bought the land in 2006 after finding that he loved his country bolt-hole (at the time a barn in East Grinstead) but that he had no “like-minded mates” to hang out with in the rube-thick sticks.
Frequent guests and owners at the site, where properties have had interiors designed by, among others, Philippe Starck, Jade Jagger and Kelly Hoppen, include Kate Moss (godmother to one of Hitchcox’s children), Simon Le Bon (best man at Hitchcox’s third wedding, to former communications director Phoebe Vela, which was held at Yoo) and Take That’s Mark Owen. Yoo’s advertising literature crows that it is “safe” and “gated”. Homes here cost from £1.25 million, with one-bed apartments for holidaymakers from £500 a night.
Telegraph Travel canvassed locals about their view of the new compounds. Cotswolds-based retiree Chris Roberts, 74, who lives near The Lakes by Yoo, said there’s regret that the site took over Bowmoor, a lake previously used by the community for sailing, but added that Yoo has tried hard to fit in.
“They invite select locals to their summer and firework parties and let the Scouts use their swimming pool from time to time,” she explained. However, there have been “tiffs” with the community, she said, over the closure and diversion of public footpaths across Yoo’s 850 acres, and the fact that Yoo is gated and cloistered. “Not many locals can afford to buy there,” she added. Gloucestershire faces an acute housing crisis, with high rents and young people struggling to get on the property ladder.
The Cotswolds is fast becoming a hotbed of luxury compounds, from Lower Mill Estate in Somerford Keynes, where luxury holiday home developments sprawl over a 600-acre nature reserve and where homes cost from £1 million, to the Cotswold Water Park near Cirencester, where properties cost from £650,000.
North Cornwall local Tom, a café worker aged 38 who declined to give his full name, told Telegraph Travel that he is “galled” by luxury holiday developments in Cornwall at a time when locals are “crying out” for places to live.
He said: “Funny how these [luxury compounds] can be built when social homes take years to get off the ground, isn’t it?”
“They are just holiday ghettos for toffs, really, aren’t they?”
It’s a sentiment echoed by Cornwall campaign group First NOT Second Homes, which is calling for at least 51 per cent of homes in any Cornish community to be for local people and for higher council taxes to be levied against second homes.
My family and I stayed at a home in Willingcott for October half term, enjoying the low-key comings and goings of fellow holidaymakers, the dream-home fixtures and fittings at The Vista No 6, a smaller property on the site, and coastal walks through fields of wild flowers and brambles to Woolacombe’s surf and cream teas.
Is it more ethical to stay in tourist compounds over town Airbnbs? Will the holiday mansplainer ever work that hi-tech light system? I don’t know, but I do know a hot tub awaits.
How to do it
Luxury Coastal (0330 113 7005) offers seven nights at Willingcott from £767 (sleeps eight), including a luxurious welcome hamper.