A homeowner who set out on a Grand Designs mission to create a house dedicated to wellness told how the mammoth project ended up destroying his family’s health.
Tony Searby, 65, admitted he would never have undertaken the ambitious construction job if he had known the impact it would have on wife Ara.
In emotional scenes during the latest episode of the hit Channel 4 property show, host Kevin McCloud was left in tears after revealing Ara had been diagnosed with cancer as the home was being built.
And now in an exclusive interview Tony has told MailOnline of his fears that the stress of the £1million self-build project had taken its toll on his wife.
He said: ‘The way things have worked out specifically around Ara’s health and wellbeing does create a level of questioning.
Tony Searby, 65, (right) and wife Ara set out on a Grand Designs mission to create the house dedicated to wellness
Host Kevin McCloud was left in tears after Ara had been diagnosed with cancer as the home was being built
‘If I had known what would happen to Ara’s health maybe I wouldn’t do it over again.
‘The whole irony was how the house was being built for wellness but there was the negative impact it was having on Ara.’
The dramatic episode shown on Wednesday night highlighted the challenges and setbacks the couple faced during the five-year building project which has yet to be completed.
The ‘unconventional’ couple’s vision was to build a brand new eco-friendly ‘forever’ home that ‘draws inspiration from the healing power of nature’.
Physical therapist Ara has an autoimmune condition and the programme highlighted how she needed ‘a tranquil and peaceful place to heal’.
The plan was to build a new six-bedroom two-storey modern ‘horseshoe-shaped’ home with large windows that look out at the surrounding nature.
High tech features include state-of-the art biodynamic lighting which change colour ‘to reflect the shift of daylight to help preserve the body’s natural circadian rhythm’.
The property is divided up into four parts with Ara living upstairs on one side while Tony has the ground floor.
The larger part of the house has been built for guests with the couple hoping to run wellbeing programmes and retreats.
Physical therapist Ara has an autoimmune condition and the programme highlighted how she needed ‘a tranquil and peaceful place to heal’
They began the project by demolishing Tony’s childhood home – a bungalow built in the 1960s by his late parents, John and Betty, in a woodland clearing on six acres of land near Henley-on-Thames in Oxfordshire.
Construction of the new house started in July 2019 working off architect’s plans while builders quickly put in ‘the shell and basic Lego bits’.
Mounting costs meant the couple ended up labouring on site with Tony taking over project manager tasks in a bid to try to protect Ara’s already fragile health.
Tony, a former physiologist who now works as a personal development coach and mentor, ended up building most of the house on his own despite having no experience or training in construction.
At one point, Ara travelled abroad to stay with a nephew in Madeira while Tony concentrated on completing Ara’s living quarters first so she could move out of the mobile home where they were living on site.
Shortly after she returned disaster struck when Tony was rushed to a casualty unit after he fell off a trolley while screwing a board into a ceiling.
He spent a week in hospital after fracturing a bone in his back while also needing stitches after suffering nasty cuts.
He was back at work a month later and shortly afterwards Ara received her bombshell diagnosis.
Describing the devastating news which forced the couple to ‘reassess everything’ she said on the programme: ‘I went to have a lump investigated that had been there for some time but was getting bigger. I was told straight away that it was a cancer.
Reflecting on her diagnosis, Ara said: ‘It really forces you to look at what’s really important in life and I really just have to do the best I can to take care of myself and try and step back.’
At one point, Ara travelled abroad to stay with a nephew in Madeira while Tony concentrated on completing Ara’s living quarters
Describing the devastating news which forced the couple to ‘reassess everything’ she said on the programme: ‘I went to have a lump investigated that had been there for some time but was getting bigger. I was told straight away that it was a cancer.
‘It really forces you to look at what’s really important in life and I really just have to do the best I can to take care of myself and try and step back.
‘I think it’s really necessary for me to put it to one side.’
At the end of the programme Tony went on to tell a tearful McCloud: ‘The whole project started out as creating a house that promotes health and wellbeing and from Ara’s perspective it’s a house that has created pretty much the opposite of that.’
But Ara added: ‘Nobody could have predicted what was going to happen to me. So now, the path is to do peace, contentment and gratitude.
‘I have so much to be grateful for. I mean, I live in a little piece of heaven. It’s heaven round here.’
She added: ‘I think it’s quite awesome what Tony has achieved. It’s a lovely space. My main focus is to be as happy as I can because I think being happy helps your immunity. It helps healing in every way.’
Tony told MailOnline how he now hopes the home can finally fulfil its purpose – even though he admitted there’s still a lot of work to do.
And he insisted he would never have come this far had it not been for his wife’s contribution.
He said: ‘I wouldn’t have been able to do it all by myself. Before Ara became unwell she gave me a lot of help.
The plan was to build a new six-bedroomed two-storey modern ‘horseshoe-shaped’ home with large windows that look out at the surrounding nature
Construction of the new house in Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, started in July 2019 working off architect’s plans
‘Things have picked up for her at the moment to a degree, which is good, but she nevertheless has concerns about the underlying health conditions.
‘With a project into the unknown you have to plan and think carefully about how two people embrace a journey they haven’t been on before and how they deal with the challenges.
‘There’s always unknown elements that kick in too and you have to be ready and prepared.’
He added of the project: ‘Knowing what I knew at the time it felt the right thing to do. All the indicators that I got at that point all fell in place to say this is the project that should be done.
‘With hindsight I’m not so sure but you can never turn the clock back in life. Life is what it is.
‘With any project you have things you can look at with a level of satisfaction, achievement and pride but you have other things that you look at and think if I had my time all over again I would have done it differently. That’s life.’
Speaking of the delays that set back the construction work Tony said: ‘You either pay somebody who really knows what they’re doing a fortune, which we didn’t have, or you do it yourself.
‘I’m a bit slow at getting things done. I had never done anything like it before and I was just making it up as I went along.
‘It could have been done in a different way. We started in July 2019 and we could have done the whole thing by the summer of the next year.
Tony told how he ended up doing everything ‘except the plumbing and electrics’ and forked out £10,000 buying an array of tools he had never used before
‘That would have involved having extra contractors in. You just coordinate all the contractors. You get someone to do all the plaster boarding, someone to do all the painting, someone to do all the floors and you have big teams of people who can get things done relatively quickly.
‘What you had as an alternative to that was myself working at a slow pace. I always keep in place my own lifestyle, doing my exercises on a daily basis, going to the gym every day and I like to stay there a reasonable time.
‘My background is in health and fitness. I don’t have any background in construction.
‘If I were to do the project again I would know a lot more about how to do it and I would do things better.
’It would be easier with simpler, more effective ways of doing things. It would have been quicker and less expensive. It’s a learning curve.’
Tony told how he ended up doing everything ‘except the plumbing and electrics’ and forked out £10,000 buying an array of tools he had never used before including potentially lethal industrial cutting machines.
He said: ‘When you use a table saw you are at risk of cutting your fingers off every time. One has to be really focused and mindful in terms of never making a mistake. You can’t get it right 99 per cent of the time and wrong once.’
He revealed that while the house is habitable there is still a long way to go.
Tony said: ‘I think the programme did a very good job of making it look more completed than it is.
Tony complemented the Grand Designs crew, adding: ‘I think the programme did a very good job of making it look more completed than it is.’
‘It’s a house of four quadrants. The upper guest area is not done at all.
‘I don’t really do timelines but it will be 12 months to fully finish it. There’s too many things to do. One is to put the glass balustrade on the balcony.
‘It will mean you can safely walk on the balcony without the risk of falling off.
‘I’m happy to walk on the balcony without any balustrade but building regulations and from a health insurance point of view, you certainly couldn’t let anyone else do that.
‘They’re delivering it next week and I’ve got to figure out how to do that.
‘I’ve thought it through but I’ve got to make sure that what I’ve thought through works.’