Hygge-feels in an outdoor hot tub: stunning £1.75m Lancashire mansion has it all

There are a few things in a home which are innately 'oooh'-worthy. Things which tick all the bling boxes and make you nod your head involuntarily. Featured on Fantasy Homes By The Sea, a certain Lancashire mansion on the coast is definitely one of them. And it's yours if you have £1.75m.
Waterloo Road mansion.Waterloo Road mansion.
Waterloo Road mansion.

An unassuming (from the outside) but sprawling (on the inside) mansion which sits both on the coast of the Irish Sea and on the highest natural point in Southport, this property is about as glamorous as homes come. Put very simply, it boasts a list of genuinely impressive USPs covering everything from being the first Canadian post-and-beam home ever constructed in Britain to having a hot tub in the garden. You could feel like you're in Vancouver and Honolulu at the same time.

A gated residence with a double garage and five bedrooms, this detached behemoth really is in a league of its own. Light, airy, and full of an architect's sharp lines and nooks, it's the kind of superhome which would look very much at home, so to speak, on some Netflix Original series about Scandinavian mansions hosted by a tall Swedish TV personality who speaks charming English. I can see it now: "Stockholm Tøp Häus".

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Maintaining the Scandinavian je ne sais quoi (11% of people in Sweden speak French, so there), the home is bookended rather viscerally by two heavy exposed brick fireplaces which really bring out the elemental nature of the property, which features more wood than most small forests. Earthy tones, icy brooks, rich warm stews, dewy mulch, the smell of rain and linseed oil - the atmosphere conjured up by this house brings to mind a brochure for Hygge living in the North West.

The kitchen is very cool. It feels sacrilegious to use such a pretty room just to unbox takeaway and rustle up beans on toast - this is a genuinely high-standard room with everything from bespoke fitted cabinetry to a breakfast bar and an island unit. It's both quaint and debonair at the same time: how does it even do that? It also leads through into a vast conservatory which looks like the interior of an Oliver Bonas showroom. It's legitimately brilliant.

Upstairs, the home's grand central staircase opens up like a river delta into the galleried landing which, to put it bluntly, has more open space than the Milky Way. Speaking of The Way, as Neil Armstrong famously never called it, there's also a charming balcony offering the classic night-sky views (disclaimer: views only available at night and when the weather behaves) to anyone who can drag their eyes away from the damn kitchen (yes, I'm still thinking about it, okay?).

To the bedrooms then, and I think we can all agree that en suites are innately fancy things for people with no time to use such foolish contraptions such as hallways when carrying out their morning ablutions. Well then, wait 'til I tell you that every bedroom in this place has en suites. Yep. Take you pick and you'll find an en suite. Absolutely, even that one. And that one.

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When all bedrooms have en suites, however, the master has to pull it out the bag to remain the master. On that note, how does 'French doors leading into private bathroom with its own sauna' sound? And if you're not a sauna person, there's a hot tub with an adjoining bar in the garden. Bet you're not even thinking about that kitchen anymore...