Life and Soul
Light and shade. Outdoor Living is revolutionising the garden space, but entertaining and relaxing need to come with all-weather solutions. Caribbean Blinds has the answer, says RUPERT BATES.
Caribbean evokes images of sun and rum, calypso and cricket. I am not at a Barbados beach bar, but a corner of Suffolk is doing a fine job of creating the holiday vibe, with meat on the grill under an all-weather pergola. This is an outdoor living experience and solution to silence the harshest British climate naysayer.
DeliVita oven (foreground)
Caribbean Blinds, based in Sudbury, Suffolk, builds a range of top-quality products – louvred pergolas, external blinds and patio awnings. However, I am heading for an Outdoor Living Pod, with the Primo grill cooking the meat and fish, answering the signal of the smoke and the draw of the flame. This is just one of five pods of varying sizes that make up the Dream Gardens at Caribbean Blinds. Beside the Bridgman furniture on top of the Millboard smoked oak and burnt cedar decking are different barbecues across the pods – a Primo, a DeliVita wood-fired oven, a Whistler grill and a Charlie Oven – dining rooms and living rooms, grilling and chilling, under one roof, which can let in the sun and angle the shade, or keep out the wind and rain. The holy grail of #BBQ365 may just have been achieved.
Caribbean Blinds is very much a family business, started in 1987 by Ray and Angie Dantzic and now run by their sons, managing director Stuart Dantzic, who joined in 2001, followed by his brother Brad, the company’s operations director, in 2003, with the brothers buying out their parents in 2016.
The company started out as a trade supplier of awnings and canopies, before introducing louvred pergolas in 2011, setting up a project division and working across all sectors – residential and commercial, trade, retail and contract. Caribbean Blinds now manufactures from a 30,000ft² factory at is Sudbury site – skilled crafts people allied to state-of-the-art machinery.
But to make the best of precision engineering you need great vision, and Stuart Dantzic has it in abundance, unlocking the full potential of the outdoor space and showcasing it through the power of the senses – sight and touch, taste and smell – as well as the strength of top-quality British manufacturing.
‘Holiday at home’ was a harsh reality during lockdowns, but the garden has now been elevated to the status of lifestyle leader, with the best ‘room’ in the house now invariably found beyond the bi-fold doors.
The pods, with integrated guttering and no visible fixings, range in price and size, from the Classic Lite with its streamline aluminium framework and motorised waterproof louvred roof, and options to add windproof side screens, as well as heating and lighting, through to the Prestige pod, with roof louvres – rotating and retracting – that allow you, at the touch of a button, to play with light and shade, setting the temperature and shaping the mood.
“These pods are a great addition to any garden, large or small and made-to-measure. They are a big opportunity for housebuilders to elevate the outdoor space for prospective purchasers,” says Stuart Dantzic.
It may only be a few paces, but rather than a fixed extension to existing premises, a freestanding structure gives the nuanced notion of retreating and relaxing, away from the working hub of the home.
“Featuring in Caribbean Blinds’ Dream Gardens show site, Whistler Grills offer premium outdoor kitchens that create the ultimate cooking centrepiece for all outdoor spaces,” says Steve Rowley, managing director of Whistler Grills.
“Collaborating with Caribbean Blinds means we can showcase our products in the perfect outdoor living setting. The Dream Garden sites really do bridge the gap between outdoor dining and entertainment, offering the best products on the market.”
The pods are already award-winning, picking up Best Garden Buy at the Real Home Awards 2020. Caribbean Blinds has won a raft of other accolades in recent years, with Dantzic himself crowned Young Business Person of the Year at the Suffolk Business Awards in 2019.
The home improvement industry is a big market, but Caribbean Blinds is going beyond that rather prosaic title to create a lifestyle enhancement business, while acutely aware of environmental issues, committed to the most energy-efficient products and made in Britain.
Caribbean Blinds contributed to a report led by architects Pollard Thomas Edwards and commissioned by the Good Homes Alliance and the British Blind & Shutter Association called Shading for Housing: Design guide for a changing climate. The guide claims that by the mid-2030s, 90% of the UK housing stock will suffer from overheating and looks at the best design-led shading products available.
Charlie Oven
As well as the innovative garden pods, Dantzic offers patio awnings for shade and shelter, as well as external blinds providing both solar heat and light control. It is not just the residential space either, working with commercial, education and hospitality sectors. Its pods sit at the award-winning Ridgeview wine estate in Sussex, offering an outdoor dining experience to pair with the English sparkling wines, but flexible enough to provide, as necessary, shelter from the elements, without interrupting the views across the vineyard from Ridgeview’s Rows & Vine restaurant.
Dantzic’s expertise sits at the junction of form and function. His products look stylish, but have a vital job to do as well, preventing overheating in homes, as well as controlling light for visual comfort, inside and out. “Service is at the heart of everything we do, from concept to completion, with communication key.”
The Caribbean Blinds journey covers 37 years of family endeavour and enterprise. But a short walk from factory floor to pod decking tells you all you need to know about the evolution of the business – homemade products performing in a live environment. Now let’s eat – and maybe a glass of rum too.
Primo