South Winds, including raised terrace to rear

South Winds is a mid-twentieth-century residence of distinctive modern design, built on a sloping site on the south side of Cryfield Grange Road. The garden extends to the city boundary and slopes southwards towards Kenilworth, affording extensive views across the fields to that distant landscape.

The building comprises two storeys, with the ground floor constructed of roughly hewn Hornton stone and the first floor carried on a smooth concrete slab with deep coffering formed from a fibre-glass mould. The upper storey is clad in teak, concrete and glass.

The ground floor is divided into two main sections: a swimming pool occupies the western half, while the eastern half contains an entrance hall serving also as a games room. A garage space lies between them, open to the road side but screened to the rear with opaque glass and wide enough to accommodate at least three cars. The circular swimming pool features a mermaids tile pattern. A curved staircase rises to the principal accommodation at first-floor level.

The first floor contains all the living accommodation, arranged on an open plan. To the east are the living room, dining area and bar area, lined in teak and rosewood, with tropical hardwood exposed joists. A sun lounge with sliding glass doors leads to a long south-facing balcony, onto which all five bedrooms open, ensuring each room enjoys views across the fields to Kenilworth. A northern bedroom corridor with clerestory windows and built-in storage runs the length of the house. The kitchen, with separate external access from the street elevation, is in direct communication with the reception spaces.

The exterior displays considerable architectural ingenuity. The northern road front presents rubble stone walling of darker grey tones with occasional lighter stones for effect. The western wall curves to mirror the circular pool within and projects beyond the first floor. The eastern side comprises a rectangular block and smaller semi-circular block housing the staircase, joined by the glazed front door. The first floor above is clad in horizontally laid wood planks with emphatic recessed joints, pierced by slit windows running the length of the front. The first floor projects at the left with a small kitchen balcony reached by an open-tread staircase. The flat roof features deep, boarded eaves with emphatic edges and a rectangular chimney stack of rubble stone to the east.

The garden front similarly displays the projecting curved wall of the swimming pool at the left and square walling to the games room at the right. Full-height sliding windows light the centre of the east block. At first-floor level, the balcony projects at the left behind a series of sliding glass doors serving the individual bedrooms. The first floor projects to the right with continuous deep windows lighting the reception space. The flat roof repeats the deep boarded eaves.

The interior finishes are of high quality. The living spaces are lined partly in teak and rosewood, with walls in thin cork tiles flecked with gold. The bedrooms are lined in contrasting hessian, with built-in cupboards lining the bedroom corridor. The ground-floor playroom is lined in stone with a coffered ceiling. Stone stairs with thin steel handrail rise to the first floor. Original mosaic tilework survives in the kitchen and bathrooms.

The house was originally equipped with advanced mechanical and electrical services for its period, including a central vacuum cleaning plant, electrically operated curtain tracks and a complete intercom system between rooms. Many of these features remain. Mouldings were eliminated and ceiling heights kept deliberately low to ease cleaning.

A raised stone terrace and quadrant staircase to the rear provide access down the sloping garden, with a stone-paved terrace in front of the ground floor and a rubble stone wall bounding the terrace.