Currently occupied (since 1977) by only the property’s second owners, the house at St. Briavels was originally built for a flamboyant businessman called Brian Nathan. Having acquired a large, stunning site, Nathan commissioned the brothers Bob and Tim Organ to design a suitable house. Having received much press coverage and praise in books, newspapers and architectural journals, the Organs were then the toast of the contemporary architecture world. Indeed it was a large article inThe Timesby Tony Aldous that brought the brothers to Nathan’s attention.

Based in the West Country, the Organs had formed a company called Artist & Constructor (with Bob the artist and Tim the constructor). The sons of an architect, neither of them had received formal architectural training themselves, although both taught the subject at the Architectural Association in London. It is the expressiveness of their designs – the daring forms of their buildings – that mark out the Organs from their contemporaries. Almost sculptural in appearance, their houses, schools, apartment blocks and other buildings still seem daring to this day.

In a recent interview, Bob Organ said that his main aim when designing the house at St. Briavels was to “relate it to the beauty of the landscape”. He added that he “could still remember the thrill of first seeing the site. We immediately knew we didn’t want to smash the site up so designed the house on a series of levels to fit the surroundings”. Admirers of Modern architects such as Frank Lloyd Wright and Alvar Aalto (whose work they travelled to see), the Organs preferred their more organic architectural style to the severe approach of Le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe.

Although the swimming pool is still there (albeit now overgrown), the glass geodesic dome that once covered it is sadly gone. One of the very few glass geodesic domes to have ever been constructed in Britain, it was designed by Keith Critchlow. Critchlow, who worked for some time with Buckminster Fuller, is now a well-established architect, historian and leading authority on the geometry of Islamic art and architecture.

In the 1970s, Bob Organ gave up architecture to pursue painting. He is still an active and successful artist to this day. His brother, meanwhile, went on to form the J. T. Group with John Pontin OBE. Still running today, this Bristol-based architecture and development firm was a pioneer in issues of sustainability in building. When Tim Organ left the J. T. Group, he set up his own firm and he is still a practising architect based in Wales.