By: Peter Backeberg, BERMUDAMedia/Building Bermuda 2025
In 2002, the legendary Clayhouse Inn was shut down after being badly damaged by a fire, bringing a close to a celebrated chapter in Bermuda’s entertainment history. The founders of the club, and the owners of the property it sits on, are as illustrious as the club itself. Clayhouse Inn was first opened in 1952 by Ewart D.A. Brown, father of former Premier Dr Ewart Brown, and the property was owned by James T. Browne, the father of Bermuda National Hero, Dame Lois Browne Evans.
Clayhouse Inn was patronised and enjoyed by so many Bermudians and visitors alike, that when Chan Aming, son of the late Choy Aming Sr, who ran Clayhouse from 1967, told The Royal Gazette that anybody over the age of 40 in Bermuda has a Clayhouse story, he wasn’t exaggerating.
So it comes as no surprise that the architect designing the new building for the site, Michael Emery of Entasis Ltd., has his own personal connection to the property.
“My granny and my aunt rented a two-bedroom apartment upstairs from Clayhouse, so I spent summers and weekends clambering all over the rocks, fishing. That’s where I learned how to swim,” he recalls.
Today, Mr Emery is proud to play a part in the revitalization of the property, a dream that began when the family of Mr Browne formed Clayhouse Rennaissance Limited in 2006.
The design calls for a three-storey building, with each floor measuring 5000 sq. The basement will be used for storage and utilities while the ground floor has a tenant in place for retail activity and the first floor is a multi-purpose space intended for offices.
“Having a retail tenant on board was important for the project and its going to be a benefit for the surrounding neighbourhood, and passing traffic,” says Mr Emery. “There is also space for 31 cars, including handicap spaces, and 32 bikes, so it will accessible and convenient”
Despite his personal connection to the property, Mr Emery says the design was driven by building’s intended use.
“That (the purpose) was given to me, so my job was to make it work,” he says. “We tried to keep a traditional Bermudian architecture aesthetic that blends in with the neighbouhood. When you’re designing a big building that can be difficult to do, but I think we’ve been pretty successful with it.”
In fact, there were no objections from neighbours to the plans, something Mr Emery says could be attributed to the building sitting essentially where the Clayhouse Inn did and it being the same height as the original. Given its position alongside a major roadway, there are regulated set-backs that include a sidewalk and “even another five-foot strip that will have planting and vegetation to soften it more.”
The narrow dimensions of the property, and that it is bordered by North Shore Road on one side and actual North Shore on the other, will be one of the main challenges when construction begins, but Mr Emery doesn’t anticipate major disruptions to traffic flow.
“It is still a large property so everything will be handled on site,” he says. “We are required to show our construction methodology and there are restrictions on things like hours of operation during the week and weekends.”
With such close proximity to the ocean some waterfront development was considered but a dock, for instance, would have required a breakwater and the cost of that was prohibitive. Fortunately, the property sits approximately 12 feet above the high-water mark so there was no need for mitigation in that area.
One way the designers will be able to benefit from the nearby ocean is the use of a Water Chill HVAC system. Using water as the chilling agent is common in larger buildings and facilities in Bermuda, especially where there is easy access to a water source. The sheer volume of freon needed to chill big buildings can make it more costly and less environmentally safe in the case of a leak.
“A water chill system has a couple of benefits for large scale projects and, where Clayhouse is located, standard units won’t last very long, so it makes sense.” says Mr Emery.
With the project finally moving forward, Mr Emery says making the property a productive part of the community again is an exciting prospect.
“It has been a dream of the family to get it redeveloped for quite some time. It took a while, getting financing for something like this was a challenge,” he says. “We had approval back in 2009 and then picked the project back up again in 2022. We plan to begin construction by the end of 2024 or early 2025. It’s definitely going ahead, no doubt about it.”
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