What would you do if you woke up one morning and suddenly realised you’d become rather rich? Those topping the Financial Review Rich List may feel free to skip that question. But for the rest of us, surely you’ve imagined it, and how you wouldn’t change much, but you would splash out on the house of your dreams…

Adam Brown, the founder and creative director of Orlebar Brown, has lived that morning. And right now, we are sitting in that house, its massive sweep of first-floor windows revealing a vista across one of the most wild and beautiful beaches in Cornwall, which is itself the most rugged and southerly county of England.