A water tower is an unlikely place to make a home, but Robert Hunt was determined to make it work. Hunt, who used to work in a factory in the filtration industry, was scrolling through real-estate listings when he chanced upon an old water tower. He had been looking for a property to fix up and was immediately intrigued by the listing.

“It was within 20 miles of where I lived, so basically local. I could see there was an opportunity with it and the price was pretty good for the size of the property and the land that came with it,” Hunt said.He brought the property, located at Cloverly Cross, in November 2019 for £1,50,000, per property records. The water tower, which was decommissioned in the early 2000s, had been sitting empty for years, Hunt said.

Inside the tower was a large, empty space with no rooms, no interior walls, and no windows. The interiors were almost bare, save for a few electric panels and water pipes from its early days. “When I first viewed it, it was hard to describe. No windows, and no stairs — you had to go up a ladder in the center of the tower to get to the top of the tank,” Hunt said.

Beginning December 2019 and for the next two and a half years, Hunt worked with architects and builders to transform the property into a home. Hunt left his full-time job, moved into a mobile home on-site in July 2020 alternating between living there and at his girlfriend’s home about 10 miles away.

He said: “I’ve basically been like a laborer, doing bits and pieces, and project-managing it. I had three property rentals before, rented out to tenants, and I’d do the odd DIY painting, decorating, helped with kitchens and bathrooms but I’m not in a trade.”

Although he has some general DIY experience, Hunt admits that this project “was another couple of levels up” from everything else that he’s done before. Hunt estimates that he spent around £600,000 on the entire conversion. He moved into the water tower in May 2022, when the renovation was completed.