Pent Roof Garden Office & Gym Building
Published: 19 August 2025
Reading Time: 3 minutes
This bespoke garden room by Miniature Manors has been designed within the grounds of a Grade II Listed property in West Sussex. Created to serve as both a home office and a gym, the building needed to respect the historic setting while offering the clients a modern, flexible workspace. Miniature Manors’ skill at designing sympathetic buildings that sit comfortably within their surroundings was key to the success of this project.
Planning Service for a Listed Home
When a property is listed, even modest additions within the garden require planning consent. Miniature Manors offers a dedicated planning service to guide clients through this often-daunting process. For this project, their team handled every stage of the application. From preparing detailed drawings to liaising with the planning officer, they ensured the proposal was sympathetic to the setting and won approval. With their extensive experience in applying for garden rooms within sensitive locations, Miniature Manors has built an enviable record of success, giving clients peace of mind that their investment is in safe hands.
A Sympathetic Design Approach
Miniature Manors is known for tailoring designs to suit both the client’s needs and the surrounding environment. In this case, the architecture of the main house and traditional Sussex barns inspired the character of the new building. The design combines rustic black weatherboard cladding with a red brick plinth finished in brick slips—a nod to heritage detailing that grounds the structure in its countryside setting. Aluminium doors and windows ensure modern performance, while the cedar shingle roof adds warmth and long-term durability. The result is a design that feels perfectly at home in its historic surroundings.
Two Rooms, One Flexible Building
The 5m x 3m footprint has been carefully configured to serve two distinct uses: a home office and a gym. This is a popular combination, but here it has been executed with notable finesse. Each room benefits from its own external access, with sliding patio doors opening onto the office and aluminium bi-folds leading into the gym. A wide sliding-folding doorset in the dividing wall allows the rooms to be opened into one expansive space when needed. The thoughtful choice of décor ensures the interior works just as well as two private rooms as it does as a single multifunctional hub.
High-Specification Interior
Internally, Miniature Manors finishes their garden rooms to house-like standards. Plastered and decorated walls and ceilings are paired with luxury vinyl flooring, which has been enhanced with rubber gym matting in the workout area. A rectangular picture window above the desk creates a pleasant working environment, while a slimmer version in the gym allows for natural ventilation. The pent roofline—less common in today’s garden rooms due to planning height restrictions—creates a vaulted ceiling, adding valuable volume and a sense of airiness. This design choice is particularly well-suited to a gym space, where the extra headroom enhances comfort.
A Turnkey Service
As with all their projects, Miniature Manors delivered this building as a turnkey package. Their team managed everything from the design and planning to the construction and final connection to mains electrics. The result is a move-in-ready workspace and gym that has immediately transformed how the owners use their garden and home.
Learn More
Miniature Manors focus their work in East Sussex, Surrey, and West Sussex, where they have become known for blending traditional detailing with modern garden room design. To learn more about their approach and explore their portfolio, visit www.miniaturemanors.co.uk, email contact@miniaturemanors.co.uk, or call 01403 610 619.
