The design guru who created the look of the iPhone, iMac and iPad has come under attack from villagers over plans for his new Cotswolds manor house.
Sir Jony Ive, who was chief designer for Apple in the 90s, has submitted proposals for the Grade I listed property in a Cotswolds village, which he bought for a reported £17 million last year.
But the plans, which include a new swimming pool, underground car park and spa have been derided as 'pretentious' and a 'ridiculous vanity project' with objectors saying he is turning the property into a 'fortress'.
A 295-document planning application to Cotswold District Council seeks permission to demolish a 20th century extension and create an orangery as well as demolishing a tower and other 20th-century structures, a tennis court and outdoor riding school.
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A new basement parking area, studio and swimming pool will be built as well as a bat house and sub-station, installation of ground source heat pumps and new gates.
But locals in the upmarket tourist village have been scathing.
One said: "The prospect of this lasting over three years is totally unacceptable, especially for someone who is not going to live here.
"This vanity project will impact greatly on the community without any benefit to the community."
Another said: "The listed walls must not be tampered with. The owner seeks to turn the Manor intro a private fortress".
Picking up the theme, another neighbour said increasing the height of the boundary wall "would give a Fort Knox feel to the area".
Plans for an underground car park and studio were derided by several villagers.
One said: "This must be refused outright. There can be no justification whatsoever for this type of ridiculous vanity structure."
Another said building it will require extracting between 6,000 and 7,000 tons of clay, all to satisfy ‘the whim of one man’.
Another added that at a presentation by the architects: "The reason given for the underground car was given that the family did not want to look at parked cars.
"If this is a family of four this seems somewhat ridiculous, given the size of the garage it's clearly for a car collection."
The plans drawn up by Foster + Partners, a practice established by key Modernist architect Lord Norman Foster, have involved detailed discussions with Cotswold District Council and Historic England.
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But one villager said plans for the orangery and roof for the Manor, which was built in 1590, were "surprisingly lazy, not thought through, 21st Century standard and commercial".
And of the proposals for a proposed service area, they said: ‘The insensitivity is breath-taking.’
Sir Jony worked on Apple’s design team in the early 1990s until he announced he was leaving in 2019 to start his own design firm, LoveFrom, with industrial designer Marc Newson.
Mr Newson, who designed the Apple Watch, also recently bought a Cotswolds manor house in the next-door village.
Foster + Partners have been contacted.
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