Maestro of the house: Jeff Wayne's home

I moved to the UK as a little boy, when my father secured the romantic lead in the first West End production of Guys and Dolls. We stayed here for four years before moving back to New York, and my high school and college days were spent in California. Then, in 1968, I moved back to London. The first home I ever bought was a beautiful place, five minutes from Baker Street. My wife and I stayed in that house until moving to our current home, Lyndhurst, a Georgian manor house set in more than 30 acres of woodland, in Shenley, Hertfordshire.

Lyndhurst and our previous city pad are like chalk and cheese. In London, we hadn't so much as a stitch of green to walk on. Here, we are surrounded by rolling countryside, and the experience has been truly life-changing. We found this place after a year of searching every county in the UK for the right new bolt-hole in which to raise our growing family; every county that is, except for Hertfordshire.

This was a quarter of a century ago, and at the time I was working with Justin Hayward, with whom I'd collaborated on War of the Worlds. Through him, I met a guy named Kip Krones, who started working with us both. He was renting a place on one of the lanes that my wife and I now own as part of the Lyndhurst estate. Kip invited us to Sunday lunch with him and his family, and we couldn't believe how easy the journey was from London – we'd had no idea how close it was. Taking our dogs for an after-lunch stroll, I was taken aback by the gorgeous countryside.

At this time, Shenley was then called Ridge, and the old manor of Lyndhurst – then known as Ridgehurst – had burnt down in the 1920s and had never been fully rebuilt. Though it still had the dimensions of a manor house, what remained of the central property was set over two floors – that's a third of the original main residence. So the place is now rather contained and manageable.

At the time, we peered through the windows of the house in wonder, but found out, upon investigation, that it was not for sale, though it had looked rather vacant. A year later, Kip rang out of the blue and said, "Remember that old manor near Elstree?" He told us it was now on the market, and if we were still looking for somewhere – which we were – that now was the time to pounce. We ended up buying the place before it even went on the market.

Though many of the out-buildings are not restricted by planning laws, the main building was classified as Grade-II listed, which meant we were limited in what we could do to restore it. Our main objective was to get the house looking as though it was meant to be a five-bedroom, two-storey home, rather than the remaining fraction of a larger site.

The result has been terrific. It now looks complete, though there are tell-tale signs that this was a renovation project, such as missing pieces of stone and exterior pillars in disrepair.

The house was previously owned by a Middle Eastern hotel-owner and his wife, who used this as a second home; and their taste differed from ours. A lot of money had obviously been spent, but for us – a family raising young children – their choice of interior was not natural. We bought in some of the things from London, that which we felt was appropriate here.

While the existing carpet and the walls at Lyndhurst had to be redone, there were a few fittings and fixtures in tact, and these we held on to. Now, when you enter this house, you feel comfortable. It's a family home and this is conveyed through the atmosphere.

This is a large place when you walk in, but it doesn't go on endlessly; you don't feel as if you could walk around and not be seen for two weeks. When all the kids were here, there was no spare room, so any guests would have to double up.

Downstairs there is a kitchen, dining room, lounge, a nice gym, my wife's study, a laundry room, the front hall, and the old ballroom, which is now my study. Elgar, I found out, used this room on occasions to debut his smaller chamber pieces, and there are pictures of him fishing in the ponds outside, as he was friends of a family who once owned it.

At its peak, there would have been 11 people permanently looking after the property. The 500 acres of surrounding green-belt land once belonged to the estate. But we have just 30, complete with a tennis court, a swimming pool and several outhouses. It's a wonderful environment. No matter the weather, when you open the curtains in the morning, you are met with a vision of natural beauty.

Jeff Wayne composed the musical of HG Wells's War of the Worlds, which celebrates its 30th anniversary this year. He has four children, two of whom live with him and his wife at their home in Hertfordshire. Pre-sale of tickets for the 2009 tour of The War of The Worlds opens 30 September (http://tickets.thewaroftheworlds.com )