Villa Marina, Colwyn Road, Craigside Llandudno

A two-storey house and roof gazebo. The exterior is smooth white render over reinforced concrete, with brick banding, and a flat roof, It is largely re-glazed but retains some original 1930s metal glazing.

Designed in the International Modern style – no doubt as shocking to the residents of Llandudno as the Pavilion to the residents of Bexhill, - Villa Marina was built as a holiday home for the Birmingham baker, Harry Scribbans, to the designs of Harry Weedon. The site, on Colwyn Road at the east end of Llandudno Bay, offered direct access to the beach. Nautical references were freely incorporated such that the house with its balconies, rails, slab chimneys and porthole window was said to be reminiscent of an ocean liner when viewed from the beach. Terraces descend to the seashore and a fine pavilion. A more traditional formal area to the side has a sunken lawn and pond.

Harry Scribbans died before the house was completed and his wife, Ada, disliking it so much, immediately sold it for less than the build cost. It became a convalescent home and for a short time a hotel before finally being sold as a private house in 2012. Scribbans had made his millions out of a government contract that supplied troops with slab cake during World War One and subsequently the baking of his own brand Swiss Rolls on an industrial scale.

Reference    Builder 19 March 1937 Page 631-632
Reference    House at Little Orme near Llandudno by Harry Weedon Architectural Design and Construction, Vol. 7, February 1937. pp 122-124