As the managing director of Island Trading, Laura Farge-Lowe is an expert in contemporary island living, and Blue Sea, her south shore home, is testament to that. Practicality and flexibility are at the heart of every aspect of the modern family home that she shares with her husband, Staff, and their two children, Freya, age 9, and Jude, age 6.
Laura spent her childhood playing in the rock pools on Grape Bay, one of Bermuda’s most beautiful and secluded beaches, and the area has always had a special place in her heart. “We would always walk this Grape Bay Drive loop, and we said that if something ever came up that we could afford on this road or one of the neighbouring roads, it would be our dream,” she says. When a property did come up it was a one-bedroom cottage. “It was the smallest house on this whole road,” she laughs. But the location was unparalleled. “You are far enough from the ocean that you don’t get salt spray all the time, but you’ve got a lovely view of it. It’s unique because you’ve got the ocean and a lot of greenery.” Despite this, the couple were unsure about the existing property and daunted by the task of possibly having to rebuild from scratch. The current owner, however, knew that it was the place for them. “She wanted to sell it to us so much that she kept on coming in to Island Trading. She knew that we were on the fence because it was an amazing location, but it needed to be knocked down. It needed a lot of work. She kept on coming in to talk to me about the house and how much she envisioned us living here. In the end she convinced us.”
They moved into the cottage in 2016 and spent 18 months living in it, moving out after the birth of their daughter. Planning began, but overwhelmed by the process and with a second baby on the horizon and a business to run they put the house back on the market. A bidding war quickly escalated and showed them just what a special location it was. “I said, I think we need a sign that Grape Bay Drive is for us,” Laura says. “Later that day Staff was getting a coffee at the old airport, and he looked up and saw that it was called Bay Grape Café. He took a picture of it, sent it to me, and said, ‘Is this the sign we were waiting for?’ And I was like, it is! It’s a go. Let’s take it off the market.”
After two years of back-and-forth with architectural plans and planning permission, they broke ground in October 2020 at the height of the COVID-19 restrictions. The build took a further two years. After a false start with another architect, they settled on Jacob Hocking at CTX. “In the end, we partnered with and love CTX. Jacob is the most practical person. He doesn’t overbuild. He doesn’t build big spaces for the sake of big spaces. He’s always thinking about how it is going to be used, and I think that’s really important,” Laura explains. Flexibility and long-term family living are at the core of the design. Two bedrooms downstairs next to the den are allocated for the teen years, with the master bedroom safely tucked away from the fray upstairs. “We tried to build in the flexibility because we were building our forever home,” she says. “The other thing we’ve done is that the downstairs can be closed off to be an apartment so that if we wanted to rent that in the future, or be in that space, then we can do that.”
Upon entering the house, visitors are greeted by a striking glass wall which runs the length of the upper floor. In the summer months it folds back entirely, opening onto a covered porch that overlooks a sweeping vista of Grape Bay in the distance. Built for open-plan living and entertaining, the house maximises the light and breeze from the nearby ocean. The inside and outside merge throughout, with the layout designed to celebrate the joys of island living. The outside was planned as carefully as the inside and no attention to detail has been lost, from the children’s treehouse nestled under the shade of a royal poinciana to a large hammock swaying gently in the breeze in between three towering palm trees—moved three times around the property until a picture-perfect spot was found in the corner of the garden. Everything is by design. “We moved these trees three times, and they’ve thrived,” she explains. “They look like they’ve always been there, but I did the triangle because of the hammock.”
The hammock, much like everything else in the house, comes from Island Trading. Working with interior designer Sue Kemp, the couple kept to a palette of blue and white throughout. “You’ve really got to work with the space around you,” says Laura. “The nice thing is that with the ocean and the sky being blue in Bermuda, it makes blue quite a neutral colour. And we wanted to allow the outside to speak because we’ve got so much beauty here.” The practicalities of island and family living were also key. Every fabric used throughout the house is a performance fabric. There’s a mud room at the entrance and an outdoor shower. “It needs to be practical, because kids are coming in and out of the pool and to and from the beach. We are really living inside out,” she explains.
“I like the practicality of the outdoor dining chairs with no cushions…And the dining table has a ceramic top, so you can literally spill ketchup all over it and just wipe it off,” she says. “I think I’m probably one of the only people in Bermuda who’d chosen the outdoor furniture before we’d moved in,” she adds, laughing. Furniture has become even more of a key category for Island Trading since she built her own home, expanding into indoor furniture alongside the outdoor sets they are known for. “I live it now,” Laura says. “We even created new supplier relationships through this!”
