Fantastic family home hits the market in popular seaside town close to Edinburgh

North Berwick is a great seaside location for a property that is all about having fun, discovers Kirsty McLuckie

A work life balance can be difficult to achieve but sometimes the right house, and the right ideas, can make it a lot easier.

Klaus Frömmel and his late wife Brigid bought Cherrytrees in Old Abbey Road, North Berwick, in 2005 when their three children were under seven, and he says that the potential of the house to offer an excellent work life balance was what first attracted them.

“It was a big house already, but there was such a lot of space in the garden that we knew it would be able to take an office extension so that I could work from home.”

Picture: Savills

Klaus’s company, Rob Roy Tours, coordinates trips around Scotland for inbound tourists and he says that having got to know Scotland in his work life, and marrying Brigid, who was Scottish, the couple chose North Berwick as the ideal place to bring up a family.

Sadly, Brigid passed away just a year later, leaving Klaus a single father and making the time he spent at home with the children even more precious.

Picture: Savills

The extension, with a large office over the garage and a multifunction games room, music studio, library and self-catering unit over the two floors, which was completed in 2007, have hugely added to the family’s quality of life, however.

Klaus says: “I have a 20-second commute from doing the laundry in the utility room to chairing a business meeting.”

The office is reached through a secret bookcase door in the first-floor library so he can slip in to make essential phone calls when the children are otherwise occupied.

Picture: Savills

He says: “It means I can spend the maximum amount of time with the family during holidays and in the evenings without having to waste time commuting.”

The secret door is just one fun aspect of a house you suspect was designed and adapted to be a true family-friendly home while having plenty of grown-up entertaining space.

Picture: Savills