Tiny French pied à terre on the Côte d’Azur once owned by the ‘Maigret’ author Georges Simenon for sale for just £107,000; he described the property as his ‘house of happiness’
Whilst some of the supposed ‘bargain’ properties we’ve featured recently – such as this £15,000 Edwardian ‘fixer upper’ house in Buffalo, Kansas – are in obscure parts of America and might seem a little off-piste and quirky, an especially quaint £107,000 Côte d’Azur pied à terre will no doubt appeal to literary lovers.
Bought by the Maigret author Georges Simenon (1903 – 1989) in 1956 as a birthday present for his second wife, Denyse Ouimet, and featuring usable space extending to 272.2 square foot, the property includes a reception room, kitchen, bathroom and mezzanine sleeping area. A separate entrance leads to a second bedroom and bathroom.
Offered for sale last year for £161,000, this petite pad in Cagnes-sur-Mer has recently been reduced in price by 34% to £107,00. The selling agents are Emmanuelle Minassian International Real Estate – whose offices are situated directly next door.
The Numbers – 98 Montée de la Bourgade, Cagnes-sur-Mer, Haut-de-Cagnes, Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur (PACA), 06800, France
September 2020 – Reduced in price to £107,000 ($142,000, €120,000 or درهم522,000) through estate agents Emmanuelle Minassian International Real Estate. The cost to fix the roof has been estimated at £12,110 ($16,060, €13,550 or درهم58,975) by the selling agents.
November 2019 – Offered for sale for £161,000 ($213,000, €180,000 or درهم781,000) through estate agents Emmanuelle Minassian International Real Estate.
Pictured top: The former Cagnes-sur-Mer home of Georges Simeon – which he is said to have described as his “house of happiness” – and the acclaimed author himself. The Belgian born writer published over 500 novels and was capable of writing 60 to 80 pages per day. He had at least two dozen pseudonyms and around 550 million copies of his works have been printed.
Georges Simenon’s ‘House of Happiness’ – The reception room features an open fireplace and tiled flooring.Georges Simenon’s ‘House of Happiness’ – Georges Simeon somehow managed to live at 98 montée de la Bourgade with his third wife and their three children in the 1950s in spite of it being quite beyond tiny. His initial ‘S’ is still to be found on in the ironmongery on the external staircase railings of the building.Georges Simenon’s ‘House of Happiness’ – 98 Montée de la Bourgade is situated on a picture perfect side street in Cagnes-sur-Mer. Amongst attractions of the town are the Hippodrome de la Côte d’Azur, a well-known horse racing track, and a 2.5-mile long beach.
Detached Edwardian house in New York State for sale for just £744 or 8,400% less than it cost to build in 1906; it is in the place of Tom Cruise’s birth and was home to a famous German police dog in the 1920s
Whilst an alcoholic drink to fix a hangover is often known as a “hair of the dog,” a 2,061 square foot detached house on a plot of 3,600 square foot that is currently for sale is certainly something that is in need of a great deal of curing.
Situated in the Brighton area of Syracuse, NY, the two-storey house has 4 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms and last sold for £734 in 2015 is again offered for the same sum. Its asking price equates to a sum of just £2.80 per square foot – a true bargain compared to the £4,909 figure for a Chelsea Barracks, London apartment we featured in June.
Featured first on the Old Houses Under 50k blog as a “fixer upper” yesterday, 214 Colvin Street East was supposedly built by one C. R. Brown circa 1906 to 1908 and represents a “good investment opportunity” or is equally suitable for owner occupancy. It is offered by the Greater Syracuse Land Bank on the condition the condition that the buyer provides proof of funds of £63,200 to cover purchase and renovation.
According to the blog, the house’s best-known previous resident was a German police dog from the First World War. Of the animal, they state:
“In the 1920s, it was home to a dog known as Jack. Jack was born around 1910 (?) and served as a German police dog during World War I.”
“According to an article in the September 11th, 1921 issue of the Syracuse Herald, Jack was there when the German army withdrew from their position at the Hindenburg line in France in October 1918. The German army left behind a great number of dogs which had been used by them in their offensives.”
“Dr. Scott R. Fisher, a Syracuse resident, was at Hindenurg [sic] working with the Red Cross to care for Americans. When Jack spotted Dr. Fisher, he stuck to him and refused to leave his side – ensuring he found a way to be with Fisher his entire way back to base. Dr. Fisher told the paper that, ‘such devotion deserves reward,’ and decided to take Jack back home with him.”
“According to the article: ‘Jack was stowed away in an overcrowded ship which was bringing American soldiers home and where each man was allowed only a certain poundage of baggage. Dr. Fisher shared his own rations with Jack because dog food was not available in the ship’s stores.” When they arrived back in America, the pair settled here on Syracuse’s Southside.’”
The Numbers – 214 Colvin Street East, Brighton, Southside, Syracuse, New York State, NY 13205, United States of America
September 2020 – For sale for £744 ($1,000, €835 or درهم1,354) on the condition the buyer showing proof of funds of £63,200 ($85,000, €71,000 or درهم115,100) to cover the purchase and renovation.
2017 – 2019 – Assessed for tax for the sum of £14,900 ($20,000, €16,700 or درهم27,100) each year.
February 2015 – Sold for £734 ($1,000, €835 or درهم1,354).
Circa 1906 – 1908 – Built at a cost of £2,600 ($3,500, €2,900 or درهم12,900), the equivalent of £68,100 ($91,600, €76,400 or درهم336,400) today.
The entrance to the house is framed by two Doric columns.A reception room with an especially manky looking door.Another room features two sash windows and a ceiling complete with a gaping hole.The entrance hallway and original staircase (minus a few spindles).The landing ceiling shows further sign of collapses.A bedroom plainly previously inhabited by someone named Minnie.Another room with children’s drawings on the walls (and a buckled floor).A bathroom where one would most certainly not like to bathe.The house stands on a street where those that neighbour it are perfectly well presented.Syracuse is situated to the north of New York and the east of Rochester. Its metropolitan area had a population of 662,000 as of 2010 and has transitioned from a manufacturing area to one primarily focused on higher education, research and healthcare. The city is also well known for its jazz and contemporary music scene.
Charming detached Edwardian house in Buffalo, Kansas – the birthplace of the first man to beat Mach 3 – for sale for just £15,000; it comes with 0.5 acres of land, a barn and is in reasonable condition
In England, £15,000 will just about buy you a Ford Fiesta hatchback, but in Buffalo, Kansas, you could get a detached Edwardian house on a plot of 0.44 acres.
Featured on the blog Old Houses Under $50k, 309 North Church Street comprises of a 3-bedroom, 1-bathroom house extending to 2,197 square foot and it comes with a small barn also. It is a “fixer-upper” but it appears surprisingly not in the very worst of states.
Built in 1910, the house comes in at a price of just £6.89 per square foot – which seems a true bargain compared to the £4,909 per square foot Chelsea Barracks, London one bedroom we featured in June – and is described as “very cute” and the “perfect [place] for raising your own chickens.”
Milburn G. ‘Mel’ Apt (9th April 1924 – 27th September 1956) was born in Buffalo, Kansas and graduated from Buffalo High School in 1942. He was killed after separating from the Bell X-2 in his escape capsule during the record-setting flight that exceeded Mach 3.
Buffalo, Wilson County itself was founded in 1867 if you believe Wikipedia. It was “named after the American bison, commonly known as the buffalo.” It grew to be incorporated as a city in 1898 due to the Missouri Pacific Railroad passing through it, but as of 2010 had a population of just 232 people. Mel Apt (1924 – 1956), the first man to attain speeds faster than Mach 3, was born there.
A Mach 3 Fixer Upper – An internal shot of 309 North Church Street, Buffalo indicates that it might be in basic condition, but it is far from a wreck.A Mach 3 Fixer Upper – Further empty rooms in the property include character features such as sash windows and wooden floors.A Mach 3 Fixer Upper – The house a kitchen where you can currently cook on a stove or barbecue and sit on a plastic chair or a fold-up one.A Mach 3 Fixer Upper – The kitchen cabinets definitely need replacing.A Mach 3 Fixer Upper – A Google Maps image of the house and barn shows that they were both previously painted red. The plot is open and flat.
Eaton Square apartment for sale for £22.5 million in spite of needing complete renovation; it is listed at a price 25% cheaper than it was five years earlier in identical condition
80 Eaton Square in Belgravia is an address where two well-known names have both lived (albeit it very briefly). Ex-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher (1925 – 2013) “temporarily” resided in a “Greek shipowner’s flat” there after leaving office whilst the American financier and philanthropist George Peabody (1795 – 1869) stayed and died in the home of the Anglo-American fur merchant Sir Curtis Lampson (1806 – 1885).
Grade II* listed and featuring a Greater London Council blue plaque commemorating Peabody, the stucco fronted building on the square’s northern terrace featured in The Steeple Times in September 2015. At that time, part of its ground and basement floors were placed for sale for the not too shabby sum of £30 million ($37 million, €33.4 million or درهم135.9 million) in spite of being a “complete wreck.”
Now, five years later and most surprisingly in no better condition, the very same apartment has been relisted for just £22.5 million ($27.8 million, €25 million or درهم102 million) through agents Chestertons.
Extending in total to 6,173 square foot, the duplex was previously promoted with a fancy design scheme by David Collins Studio but now is simply listed as a “5 bedroom maisonette” with “potential to create one of the finest homes in Eaton Square.” It comes with a private garden to the rear and access to the communal spaces of the square also.
Pictured top: Baroness Thatcher, the entrance to 80 Eaton Square and a statue of George Peabody.
Eaton Square’s ‘Famous Faces’
Considered one of the best addresses in London and built for and still mostly owned by the Grosvenor family, Eaton Square features six adjoining, tree-planted gardens dissected by a four lane highway between Victoria and Sloane Square.
Amongst the well-known people who have variously lived in the square are:
Quaint Edwardian cottage with 22 acres of land in Wellington, Maine for sale for the same price as a brand new Land Rover Discovery
Named for Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, the town of Wellington in Piscataquis County, Maine is pretty small. With a population of just 260 in 2010 across 39.93 square miles, this is a place where “there are really are more cows than people.”
Known for an over-the-top annual Christmas light display that “brings tears of joy to the eyes” (supposedly) courtesy of a woodsman named Blaine Henderson, someone with just £48,300 ($59,900, €54,900 or درهم220,000) spare could now join this typically apple pie American, Hicksville community and become what locals call a “Mainiac.”
Counting the actress Liv Tyler and the author Stephen King amongst those born there, the state of Maine is best known for agriculture, fishing and shipbuilding and has a humid continental climate. It is the northern-most state in the north-east of America and for those “yearning for a home with acreage,” an Edwardian cottage at 14 Smith Hill Road could make for an ideal holiday home.
Standing on a plot of 21.58 acres, the 640 square foot cedar shingle clad house has been “updated” (to a degree) and has one bedroom and one bathroom currently. There is “lots of potential for expansion” and of the smallholding, realtors Berkshire Hathaway announce: “Come enjoy!”
Ruined Moroccan fortress fit for the most lavish of bashes for sale for £5.3 million; it may be “spectacular” but it most certainly doesn’t have Wi-Fi
Billionaires like Morocco. The late Malcolm Forbes (1919 – 1990) lavished the equivalent of £4.1 million today ($5.1 million, €4.7 million or درهم18.7 million today) holding his 70th birthday at his property, Palais Mendoub, there in 1989. Guests – many of whom arrived by Concorde even – numbered Gianni Agnelli, Mario Buatta, Betsy Bloomingdale, King Constantine of Greece, Walter Cronkite, Diane von Furstenberg, Sir James Goldsmith, Calvin Klein, Dr Henry Kissinger, John and Patricia Kluge, Robert and Dr Betty Maxwell, Lucky Roosevelt, Elizabeth Taylor and Barbara Walters and boy did the food and drink flow. Of the fat bash, the New York Social Diary gushed: “It was a party festooning in ballyhoo, in glitter and glamour and illusion, comparable to Truman Capote’s Black and White Ball twenty-three years before in New York.”
Gone are the days of lavish bashes on the scale given by Malcolm Forbes (and gone are all those pictured) – Malcolm Forbes with his ‘date’ Elizabeth Taylor and the since exposed for what he truly was ‘media monster’ (and father of the equally repugnant paedophile procurer Ghislaine Maxwell), ‘Bouncing Bob’ Robert Maxwell and his long-suffering wife Dr Betty Maxwell.The Concorde used to transport guests to Tangier has also passed on – a technological step backwards if ever there was.
Now, someone looking to throw an equivalently extravagant party once lockdown is over (and once they’ve lavished a small fortune renovating it) in Morocco, could acquire a 32,292 square foot space in what agents Kensington Properties call a “high up… striking position overlooking the River Nfis.”
Going further of the £5.3 million ($6.5 million, €6 million or درهم23.8 million) fortress, they add of Kasbah Tagountaft: “[It] is considered one of the most memorable sites of historical significance in Morocco” and was “once the home of the powerful Caid of the Goundafa tribe who vied for control of the Atlas Mountains at the end of the 19th century.”
Whilst little else is described in the marketing material for this “absolutely stunning property, full of potential,” one thing’s for sure: Anyone with a requirement for working Wi-Fi when they arrive on site, need not apply.
Derelict Uncle Monty-esque farmhouse in the countryside of the Lake District National Park World Heritage Site for sale for a staggering sum
Described as “one of the most stunning sites in the Lake District National Park” by selling agents Michael C. L. Hodgson, the Hard Crag farmstead above High Brow Edge at Backbarrow in Cumbria has gone on sale for £795,000 ($1 million, €889,000 or درهم3.8 million) in spite of being nothing but an utter wreck.
Unusual in that it was built high on a hillside rather than in a valley in the 17th century and unoccupied since 1954, this ‘yeoman style farmhouse’ with a barn and outbuildings is Grade II listed and on the National Park Authority’s register of Listed Buildings at Risk.
Offered with planning permission for redevelopment, designs for Hard Crag envision the creation of a parlour, snug, dining kitchen, utility room and guest bedroom suite with wet room to the ground floor and a sitting room with a raised platform and a master bedroom suite with a dressing room and bathroom to the first floor.
Surrounded by 36 acres of land that includes pasture, grazing, meadows, a tarn and rocky outcrop features, what sets this property apart are its views to Consiston, Scafell and the Langdales.
Though presently akin to Uncle Monty’s cottage in the cult film Withnail & I in its present condition, Hard Crag will most certainly once again soon be a truly fine home.
Derelict 18th century Oxfordshire mansion with 125 acres of land for sale for £10 million
A 125-acre Oxfordshire estate with Humphrey Repton landscaped grounds has gone on sale for £10 million ($13.2 million, €11.3 million or درهم48.7 million) in spite of being described as being “in poor order.”
The Coombe Park Estate at Whitchurch-on-Thames is situated at the end of a ¾ of a mile long private drive just 49 miles from Central London. Constructed in 1865, the original mansion was later demolished and what now remains consists of a 13,368 square foot house created from the original servants’ quarters, a coach house and an extension built in 1982.
Featuring 4 main reception rooms, an indoor swimming pool, 6 bedrooms and 5 bathrooms, Coombe Park itself “has been unoccupied a number of years” but now presents an opportunity for a buyer to unleash its “enormous potential” according to selling agents Strutt & Parker.
In addition to the main residence, there are three additional houses, an orangery, a coach house, offices, a sports pavilion, an indoor tennis court, stabling and a boat house included in the sale.
According to a blog from 2008, the estate – which was used by the American military as a rest and recuperation ‘flak house’ during the Second World War – has been in the ownership of an individual from Rotterdam since 1982. He is described as having now “sadly lost his fortune.”
Scottish castle on sale for just £130,000; it comes without a roof and is located near the Trump International Golf Links in Aberdeenshire
A castle in Aberdeenshire, Scotland is for sale for £130,000 ($168,000, €143,000 or درهم616,000) in spite of being nothing other than a roofless shell.
Reduced in price from £150,000 ($193,000, €165,000 or درهم710,000) and dating to 1565, Knockhall Castle in the coastal village of Newburgh, near Aberdeen is described as “having been in the current owner’s family for hundreds of years” and was accidentally burnt to the ground by Jamie Fleming, “a servant fool” of then owners the Udny of that Ilk family, in 1734.
Presented in “stabilised” condition, the B-listed building stands on a small plot accessed by a private road. It is close to the Trump International Golf Links course at Balmedie and Forvie Sands, a designated nature conservation area populated by seals.
Savills have the listing and market the structure as “a blank canvas for someone to develop the building’s full potential as a spectacular family home or business.”
Of this fixer-upper, in which James VI is reported to have stayed in July 1589, Historic Scotland add:
“Knockhall Castle, in the parish of Foveran, is situated near the mouth of the river Ythan and was probably built in 1565 as an L plan towerhouse of three stories and an attic with a projecting staircase tower on its northside. The tower does not have a parapet and the gables have skews rather than crowsteps. To the south of the castle there was an enclosed courtyard, but all that now remains of this is a fragmentary round tower at the south east angle of the enclosure which incorporated a dovecot on its upper level. The tower has undergone significant alteration, probably in the second quarter of the 17th century.”
“The tower is lit by large rectangular windows in the south and east walls. These are arranged more or less symmetrically and their raised margins suggest they are insertions dating to the mid 17th century. The earlier windows which have survived have a typical roll moulding of mid 16th century type, and some appear to have had gunloops in their sills. The basement is pierced by a number of wide-mouthed gunloops but also has some fairly large windows which have the raised margins of the 17th century windows.”
“The entrance is in the re-entrant angle and the lintel of the door is inscribed with the date 1565. Above this are two empty heraldic panels and at eaves level there is a projecting stone shelf which appears to have been intended to shed water away from the entrance doorway. The doorway gives access to a corridor running the length of the building and leads to the main stair. Entered off the corridor, on the left, is the kitchen, complete with fireplace, sink and drain. The main block contains a large cellar also with a sink and drain. Both spaces are vaulted although that over the kitchen has collapsed.”
“The circular stair is wide and provides access both to the principal upper floors in the main block and to those in the wing. The tower is externally complete and in there is often sufficient evidence for a tower to be restored for modern occupation without detracting from its historic significance.”
“The planning of this tower, with a large stair serving the two wings, and with ample light through the large rectangular windows, would also make its adaptive re-use possible.”
“It should be noted that there is significant potential for associated archaeology surrounding the tower. In schemes of adaptive re-use, archaeology is an important issue to be addressed.”
Belgravia flat offered for £4.95 million in spite of featuring collapsed ceilings, ripped out light fittings and holes in the walls
Before putting a property on the market and having it photographed for a sales brochure, most would clean up and make the space look appealing. In Belgravia, however, the owners of a £4.95 million ($6.16 million, €5.84 million or درهم22.64 million) lateral flat in a Grade II listed building in Eaton Place plainly didn’t bother.
In spite of showing evidence of attempts of a renovation, pictures of a 1,810 square foot third floor flat show electrical wires hanging from collapsed ceilings, rubbish on the floor and holes in the walls.
Knight Frank offer the “totally unmodernised” 3-bedroom, 3-bathroom property on a long lease with 94 years remaining. They describe it as “offering buyers a chance to create a spectacular apartment”. The late Roy Brooks, an honest estate agent and author of Brothel in Pimlico, would have had a field day and no doubt advertised the flat instead as: “Bashed in Belgravia: Those with a dislike for dust need not cross the threshold”.
