By John Baron
Setting foot into comfort and warmth of ‘The Overlook’ you wouldn’t believe that 12 months earlier the site housed a draft, run-down horse shed.
Once abandoned, vandalised and structurally unsafe, the original building – based off Tong Road, Farnley – contained an asbestos roof, smashed electrical infrastructure and fire damage.
Today, it has been transformed into an off-grid energy efficient family home thanks to the vision of its owner – dad of two James Smethurst.
“My mum and day thought I had a big imagination when I first showed them what the site and building first looked like,” smiled James, 36, who runs his own company Velocity Property Development alongside a recruitment firm.
With no viable grid connection available, The Overlook has been engineered to operate independently using a large solar photovoltaic array and a smart energy management system that optimises generation, storage and consumption in real time.
James added: “I wanted to test myself and see how far I could take it from a design, environmental and engineering perspective.
He says household utility bills are less than £200 a month. “You’d expect them to be three or four times that for a house this size. This home is proof you don’t have to compromise design choices to be economical and eco-friendly.”
The home combines:
- South-facing glazing for passive solar gain
- High-performance insulated walls, floors and roof
- Thermally efficient aluminium glazing
- Low-temperature underfloor heating throughout
- Sustainable soakaway drainage (SuDS)
- Solar PV renewable generation.
The Overlook is officially certified with an EPC A rating of 94, placing it among the top-performing residential properties in the UK. The national average is 60.
Work started on building the home in January 2025, and was finished seven months’ later in July.
While the original agricultural structure has been retained, the architectural language inside is unmistakably modern. Clean lines, large-format aluminium glazing and open-plan living spaces sit within a former steel portal frame barn, creating a rare fusion of rural character and contemporary design. At 314 sqm, the home demonstrates that large-scale properties can achieve true eco performance without compromise on aesthetics or comfort.
The project has been led by Velocity founder James Smethurst, whose route into development began not through the trades, but through business leadership.
“I did not come from a trade background,” James. “Much of my family are engineers, many friends work in the trades, and I built my career first in recruitment, then as a buy to let landlord, before moving more into construction and development.
“Recruitment taught me how to build elite teams. Starting small with refubishing properties gave me a leg up into more complex developments. Over the past four years, I have applied myself to projects on a national scale, creating high-quality homes from dilapidated properties.”
Since founding the business in 2021, Velocity Property Development Ltd has delivered projects across the North West, North Wales, North East, Surrey, London and Yorkshire, specialising in complex refurbishments, conversions, and bespoke new builds.
The Overlook has been developed not only as a private residence, but as a live showcase of Velocity’s capability in eco-focused, technically demanding developments.
“This project is our proof of capability,” said James. “I’m hoping we can now start to build this sort of home for other people.
“We took a building that was unsafe, vandalised and written off, and turned it into a future-proofed, EPC A-rated off-grid eco home. That same engineering-led thinking is now what we offer to clients nationwide.”
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