the little lookout

Perched on Littlehampton’s seafront, The Little Lookout is a striking former coastguard tower that has become one of the town’s most unusual and celebrated holiday lets. Its layered history tells a story of ambition, memory, and creative reinvention – a story in which LRAR has played a central part.

The regeneration of this stretch of seafront was first energised by the arrival of Thomas Heatherwick’s iconic East Beach Café, which set a new benchmark for architectural quality and ambition in the town.

Building on that momentum, our team at LRAR secured planning consent in 2007 to transform the redundant coastguard tower into a one-of-a-kind holiday apartment. Although that initial scheme was never built and the building was later sold, the seed for its rebirth had been sown.

In 2010, working for a new pair of owners – childhood sweethearts with fond memories of the tower from their youth – we developed a bold new proposal. This consent included an external spiral staircase, a micro-turbine to generate sustainable energy, and even a playful companion structure designed as “the world’s largest bucket and spade.” Positioned off the promenade, the bucket-and-spade store was intended to house refuse and cycles, while complementing Littlehampton’s much-publicised ambition to create “the world’s longest bench.”

Although tragedy struck with the passing of one of the sweethearts, leading to the sale of the tower once more, the vision lived on. The subsequent owner undertook redevelopment based on our designs, completing the project in 2021. Today, The Little Lookout is a distinctive AirBnB property that draws visitors from far and wide – a testament to Littlehampton’s imaginative seafront regeneration, and to LRAR’s role in unlocking the potential of forgotten structures through inventive, community-minded design.