ROSS MURRAY is working on a formula to make a traditional country estate function on modern business lines.

The chairman of the Country Landowners' Association (CLA) Wales lives at Llanover near Abergavenny with his wife Elizabeth and three children.

He has renovated several redundant farm buildings to create some desirable offices and workshops.

Some of the buildings are linked to adjacent houses so that tenants can enjoy a live-work experience.

Developed over the last seven years, the project is said to place a major emphasis on the partnership aspect of the landlord/tenant relationship.

Mr Murray said he preferred a seven-year lease on the houses so that people working and living on the estate can feel at home and care for their properties as they would their own.

Several of his tenants became involved at an early stage of the development and were able to have some input into the design process.

"We go for the top end of the market and we like to find tenants who are prepared to stay.

"If we have a tenant whose business grows then we like to try and find them accommodation elsewhere on the estate.

"Having said that we have always been prepared to start renovating the properties without the certainty of getting a tenant.

"It has been a leap of faith each time."

The Greencourt Offices, just off the main A4042 three miles south of Abergavenny, have been sympathetically renovated at a cost of £250,000.

There was £20,000 in grant assistance from Mon-mouthshire council.

One tenant is chartered accountant Alison Briggs who occupies part of a redundant barn and cattle shed.

"Our clients love it", she said.

"They can park outside and it's easier for most of them to come here. It's no more expensive: in fact, for what you get it's more cost effective and it's a pleasure to come to work."

Furniture makers Lyn and Rachel Morgan have lived and worked at Llanover for seven years.

They moved from a factory unit in Crickhowell. Their present home, Court Farmhouse, is a Grade II-listed Elizabethan manor house and a former manorial court. The house and, across the courtyard, the office, showroom, and workshop, provide a natural setting for a bespoke furniture making business.

Lyn said: "We manufacture and refurbish sofas and chairs and the environment is an ideal setting for the trade. The showroom is located in the barn so we have room settings laid out with thousands of choices of upholstery and curtain fabrics.

"I've had factory units over the years which have served a purpose, but really they are no comparison to this."

Tucked away in another corner of the estate is inventor Andrew Fairgrieve. His office, home and workshop command some of the best views on the estate, taking in the Sugar Loaf, the Skirrid and the sweep of the Usk Valley.

His company, Aditel, designs and manufactures marine electronic navigation systems. He was formerly a merchant seaman and has been all over the world.

He subsequently worked for South Wales Redifon, but in 1987 started his own design and manufacturing company.

He said: "It's hard to find a unit that suits my type of work. You need more office space than a typical laboratory. Mr Murray has put in a lot of investment to get this to suit us."

Mr Murray said flexibility was the key to a good working relationship with his tenants. His aim is to steer the ancient estate through 21st century life and keep it prosperous without changing character.

The rents are all reinvested and most of the farms have remained in the same family for a long time. But they have adapted and two of the dairy enterprises now extend to five hundred acres.

Mr Murray said: "We do what we can to help them. They are the backdrop for what we are doing here. We are effectively cross-subsidising from one business to another.

"Take forestry. It's a nightmare, but you keep it going because it's a backdrop to the landscape."

He feels there is more scope for landowners in the right locations to make similar changes.