A family swapped their terraced London home for an abandoned countryside mansion and say it will cost them hundreds of thousands to restore the mouldy property to its former glory.
From London to the countryside
Ben Charles Edwards, 42, and his husband Sam, 34, loved their life in the capital but chose to leave the city behind so their two sons, aged eight and five, would have more room to play and explore. While out on a drive just outside Canterbury, Ben, a film producer, and Sam, a model, stumbled upon a vast 11,000 sq ft Georgian property that had previously been converted into a care home and left to decay since 2017. The couple were instantly smitten, snapping up the property for £1 million before moving in back in February 2026.
A decade-long project
The pair intend to spend at least ten years painstakingly returning the home to its former glory, stripping out the 24 care home bedrooms and reinstating each room to its original purpose. The couple, who still commute to London a few times a week for work, have settled comfortably into rural life, with their children reportedly delighted by all the extra space they now have to explore.
Ben, from East London, said: "London's an amazing city, I owe so much to London, it's always going to be my home. But we wanted to move to the countryside so that the boys would have more outside space. We wanted them to feel alive." He added: "They've never had more cuts and bruises from playing outside than they have in the last couple of months. They're climbing trees and doing things that London couldn't offer a young family. Lawn House was a dilapidated mess when we found it, but it's one of the most stunning examples of Georgian architecture I've ever seen."
Countryside community
Ben continued: "It's only 50 minutes on the train to London, which is great when we need to commute into the city for work. You get a different form of community in the countryside; everyone is so friendly and supportive. Within the first few hours after we moved, five or six people came and introduced themselves." Over the past decade, Ben and Sam had been moving into various properties across East London, doing them up before moving on to their next project. "We bought each one with the intention of staying, but I love a project," Ben said.
Discovering the mansion
Since welcoming their children, the couple had long discussed relocating to the countryside, eager to give their two boys the freedom of wide open spaces and fresh air. Then, one day in August 2025, while driving through the rural outskirts of Canterbury, the pair stumbled upon a vast, crumbling mansion up on a hill. Curious, they made their way up and peered through the window, where they were greeted by the sight of a grand ballroom dominated by an imposing white marble fireplace adorned with a carved Greek goddess. "I immediately fell in love with it, and I said to Sam, 'we need to move here'," Ben said.
A few months later, in February 2026, the family left their four-bed terraced house and relocated to Lawn House, an 11,000 sq ft Georgian mansion, ten times the size of their London home. The vast property, which they bought for £1 million, had previously been converted into a 24-bedroom care home before being left derelict in 2017. The estate sits on one acre of land, which Ben and Sam intend to transform into a vegetable garden complete with a chicken coop. "There's a gorgeous walled garden, and so much space for the boys to play and run around and have adventures," Ben said.
Living in a wing
As the main house is currently uninhabitable, plagued by leaks, extensive mould, and a partially missing roof, the family are living in a wing at the rear of the property, built by the care home and therefore considerably more modern than the rest of the building. Ben and Sam are now tackling the enormous challenge of painstakingly restoring the property to its former glory, a process that could take decades. Ben said: "It's all being hand done and repaired, we're not looking to change anything, we're just looking to slowly repair it and allow it to operate as the Georgian house it was."
To date, the couple have cleared 20 tonnes of rubbish from the property, including old wheelchairs and hospital beds, stripping everything back to the original materials to allow the building to breathe. Ben said: "There were floorboards on top of floorboards, the care home kept adding bits instead of restoring anything. We found a new staircase the other day that we didn't know we had, it was hidden by plywood." Throughout the restoration process, the couple unearthed an auction document dating back to 1901 that reveals the original layout of the property. Using this remarkable find, they intend to return each room to its former purpose. Ben said: "It was like a treasure map, we were able to use it to go, this is where the library was, this was the parlour, this was the drawing room."
Cost of restoration
As the family begins their gradual, long-term restoration of the property, the total cost of the renovation remains uncertain, though they are expecting it will run into hundreds of thousands of pounds over the course of their lifetimes.
