A dream house for ‘The Wind In The Willows’ character Ratty; Devon boathouse for sale for £2.5 million
A Devon house that could be perfect for anyone sharing Kenneth Grahame’s character Rat’s view that “there is nothing — absolutely nothing — half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats” has gone on sale for £2.5 million ($3.5 million, €2.9 million or درهم12.9 million).
The Boathouse at Kingswear features “unrivalled views of the River Dart and open sea” beyond and is described by selling agents Savills a “iconic.” It incorporates 2,456 square of internal accommodation over five floors and is built from oak, slate and stone.
Aside from 4 bedrooms, the property also features a 32’ by 19’5” open plan kitchen-dining-reception space and a 24’2” by 23’8” garden room. For the sailor, there is a boat store, private slipway, a DHA licenced running mooring and direct access to the foreshore whilst those simply want to relax, could just idle away the hours in the property’s gardens and on its terraces.
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Spectacular hacienda near Seville for sale for £3 million
Anyone who has watched the somewhat cringeworthy television programme A Place In The Sun expects a Spanish holiday home to be somewhat beyond vulgar, but in The Palacio, near Seville, a buyer could purchase something truly spectacular.
Restored over the last five years, this traditional hacienda or small estate stands on nine acres of Andalusian olive groves and centres around a 12,900 square foot traditional house with seven large bedroom suites. It is approached by a tree-lined avenue, has two swimming pools and is situated in a part of Spain that “enjoys over 300 sunny days a year and mild, frost-free night-time temperatures.”
Aylesford International seek £3 million ($4.3 million, €3.5 million or درهم15.9 million) for the property and advise buyers to factor in a further 10% to 15% for “additional fees and taxes.”
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Britain’s weirdest home for sale for a sum 61% lower than the £13 million sum asked for it in 2016; it has been repossessed and comes with a 69-foot long indoor beach
In October 2016, The Steeple Times featured what could quite possibly be Britain’s weirdest home. Offered then for £10 million, The Chalet at East Molesey in Surrey has now been repossessed and is being marketed for just £5 million – or a sum 61% lower than its initial asking price of £13 million in August 2016.
Now marketed by Savills on behalf of LPA Receivers, the Grade II listed chalet was imported from Switzerland in 1882. It includes an indoor 69-foot man-made beach filled with 40 tonnes of sand, a dining room with an especially vulgar 18-seat Swarovski crystal table and a kitchen with just what any budding Mary Berry couldn’t live without – five Gaggenau fridges.
Extending to 5,478 square foot in total, The Chalet also comes with a number of private moorings on the River Thames.
The Chalet, Hampton Court Road, East Molesey, Surrey, KT8 9BP – The Numbers
March 2018 – £5 million ($6.9 million, €5.6 million or درهم25.3 million).
October 2016 – £10 million ($13.8 million, €11.2 million or درهم50.7 million).
August 2016 – £13 million ($17.9 million, €14.6 million or درهم65.9 million).
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Quirky 1995 Rolls-Royce estate car for sale for just shy of £100,000; it’s perfect for picnics and conveying posh pooches
A 1995 special edition Rolls-Royce Flying Spur converted to an estate car in recent years from a Silver Spur III with just 25,000 miles on the clock is currently for sale for £99,000 ($138,000, €112,000 or درهم508,000).
Redesigned by West Coast Customs for an American music company executive circa 2011 for use in California, the vehicle offered features a “raked roof-line” and is finished in British Racing Green with light green over. It has just 25,000 miles on the clock, a tan leather interior and a boot with acres of space for dogs, picnics and goodness knows what else.
The 6.8-litre, turbocharged V8 engine, automatic, right-hand drive car – one of just 134 Silver Spur III’s – is offered by Desmond J. Smail of Olney, Buckinghamshire, England.
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San Francisco condominium with a plaque that falsely claims Sir Arthur Conan Doyle lived there for sale for £2.6m; it was actually home to a whackjob doctor who believed he could cure any disease
Offered last for £1.779 million ($2.495 million, €2.010 million or درهم9.163 million) in 2012, 2151 Sacramento Street in San Francisco’s Pacific Heights has just been brought to the market by the well-known and often eccentrically dressed realtor Joel Goodrich for £2.637 million ($3.698 million, €2.979 million or درهم13.581 million).
Adorned with a plaque that reads: “This house, built in 1881, was once occupied by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle,” the apartment offered is one of four within a Beaux-Arts building that replaced the original structure in the 1920s. It extends to 2,528 square foot and includes 2 reception rooms, 4 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms, 3 parking spaces and a south facing roof deck.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859 – 1930) and the plaque to him at 2151 Sacramento Street; he actually stayed at The Clift Hotel during his brief visitDr Albert Abrams (1863 – 1924) was facinated with curing vibrations and came up with radionics and the theory of spondylotherapy; here he is pictured with his pointless invention
Just as in Britain with Elizabeth I – a woman who, it seems, slept in virtually every bed in the land – the truth about Conan Doyle’s association is much more mundane. The author and creator of Sherlock Holmes did visit the then owner of the property, one Dr Albert Abrams, whilst on a short visit to San Francisco in 1923 but actually only for a few hours.
Conan Doyle is noted for having supported Abrams, a controversial professor of pathology at Stanford University and the inventor of a whackjob device named a dynamizer, when others turned there backs on him. His claim to fame was that his contraption could analyse a single drop of blood and then transmit a cure back by radio waves. As with many others of that time, this hocus-pocus was eventually discounted as utterly outrageous and Abrams was in turn branded: “The dean of twentieth century charlatans.”
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Offered to benefit The Opportunity Network, a non-profit which counts not only Daniel Craig on its board but also Rachel Weisz as well, the customised left-hand, automatic car has a top speed of 183 mph. It features an interior personally crafted by Marek Reichman, Aston Martin’s creative officer, that was guided by “Daniel Craig’s preference of denim and dark colours.”
Of selling the 6.0-litre V12 vehicle, Daniel Craig commented:
“This Aston Martin Vanquish is a tour-de-force of automobile engineering and a distinct pleasure to drive. While I will miss it, I am keen to further the very important work of The Opportunity Network with its sale.”
Christie’s will sell the left-hand drive, midnight blue with deep blue interior car on 20th April at their ‘Exceptional Sale’ and offer it with an estimate of £285,000 to £428,000 ($400,000 to $600,000, €322,000 to €483,000 or درهم1.5 million to درهم2.2 million). As a bonus, the winning bidder will also get an opportunity to visit the Aston Martin headquarters in Gaydon, Warwickshire, England for a behind-the-scenes tour with Marek Reichman.
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Ultimate bachelor pad for sale for £6 million in South Kensington; it has garaging for five cars
Originally a mews that was home to Rothmans’ Shire horses, a £6 million ($8.5 million, €6.8 million or درهم31.1 million) property in Elvaston Mews, South Kensington has been transformed into a perfect bachelor pad.
Sold in July 2006 for £1.95 million ($2.75 million, €2.21 million or درهم10.11 million), 7 Elvaston Mews extends to 2,552 square foot and is primarily made up of a 53-foot long state-of-the-art garage on the ground level with an internal office and cloakroom.
Situated in the heart of an area known as the ‘Queen’s Gate Grid’, this petrolhead’s paradise also comes with an “immaculately presented” two double bedroom apartment above. It features a large reception room, a dining kitchen, two shower rooms and two terraces.
Featuring a completely removable hood frame, doors with drop down windows and such features a rear step to allow ease of access for female passengers, the car is being marketed as the “ultimate utility vehicle.”
Designed for “family fun on the Promenade de la Croisette, a somewhat punchy sum of £97,500 ($137,000, €111,000 or درهم504,000) is sought for this somewhat bonkers car.
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The main deck on the boat7,174 square foot Ivy House in Corsham, Wiltshire could be yours for the same price as the ‘Flagship’
Described as “comparable to a high end property on land” by selling agents Knight Frank, 108-foot long ‘Flagship’ was built at the Van der Windt shipyard in Holland in 1915. She was used as to ferry general dry cargo until 1940 and refitted as a residence for an unnamed “leading restaurateur” in London in 1980.
Now completely redesigned and providing 3,405 square foot of internal space, ‘Flagship’ includes a vast open planning reception room, a ‘sky lounge’ and 4 double bedroom suites. It also comes with several terraces, air cooling, a Sonos multi-room audio system, a service lift and a fully fitted kitchen.
Mooring and maintenance costs associated with the vessel – which comes with a new 50 year leisure licence to remain at Cadogan Pier – amount to an additional £27,900 per year ($37,300, €31,600 or درهم137,000 per annum).
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Neglected Georgian mansion that has been home to Sir Dirk Bogarde, Basil Dearden, Sharon and Ozzy Osbourne, Matt Aitken and Robert Kilroy-Silk for sale for 39% less than it sold for in 2014
A dilapidated Grade II* listed country house whose extensive roster of owners numbers aristocrats, rock and film stars and politicians is on sale for £3.95 million or 39% less from the £6.5 million sum it sold for in 2014.
Built for the Duke of Buckingham in the 1600s and extending to 10,743 square foot, Beel House in Little Chalfont, near Amersham in Buckinghamshire stands in 13.5 acres of land. It comprises of a 7 reception room, 8 bedroom, 6 bathroom main house and also comes with an indoor swimming pool complex, a tennis court and garaging for 5 cars.
Home to The Hon. Lady Caroline Cavendish in the 1830s and Colonel Abram ‘Arthur’ Lyle of the Tate & Lyle dynasty from 1909 to 1920, Beel House was bought by the actor Sir Dirk Bogarde in a “dilapidated state” in 1954. Of discovering it, Bogarde, who had been renting a cottage in the close vicinity on the Bendrose Estate, stated:
“[The actress Kay Kendall and I] walked across muddy fields from my rented home to look at Beel House. It was a horror. Bleak and empty, few of its twenty-six rooms caught the sun, and the garden surrounding it was a tangle of overgrown rosebeds. Inside it seemed a labyrinth of corridors and stone passages. It was painted throughout in dejected yellow and brown and each room had a rusty gas fire in it.”
Bogarde made significant changes to the building and pulled down a wing of 11 rooms. In their place, he built a swimming pool and a 30-foot long conservatory in the grounds – which Kay Kendall later described as looking like “an out patients’ department” – and it seems he spent several happy years there. He moved to another property nearby named Drummer’s Yard in 1960 and sold Beel House to Basil Dearden, the director of The Assassination Bureau, Khartoum and The Man Who Haunted Himself.
An aerial photo of Beel House, Little Chalfont, Amersham, Buckinghamshire, HP7 9QP, United KingdomImages of the exterior of Beel House in the 1950sActor Anthony Forwood, Sir Dirk Bogarde’s eventual “life partner,” at Beel House with his dogs Sinuhe and Bogie; Sir Dirk Bogarde in his study at the houseSir Dirk Bogarde outside Beel House with one of many Rolls-Royces he owned and inside on the house’s main staircaseFilm director Basil Dearden, owner of Beel House between 1960 and 1966, worked with Sir Dirk Bogarde on the controversial film ‘Victim’ in 1961; it was the first English language film to use the word “homosexual” and of it one Italian critic remarked: “At last the British have stopped being hypocrites”
Dearden sold up in 1966 and the next famous owners were Sharon and Ozzy Osbourne in the early 1980s. It was whilst here that Mr Osbourne “decided to murder his wife” and of the ensuing incident on 3rd September 1989, the Amersham Museum’s website reports:
“Ozzy Osbourne put the house up for sale after he had been arrested for the attempted murder of his wife whilst living at Beel House. After taking a cocktail of drugs and drinking heavily during a family meal at the Chinese restaurant at Nightingales Corner he attacked his wife and was subsequently arrested. He had no memory of the attack but the conditions of his bail were that he entered a rehab centre, did not contact his wife and did not return to Beel House.”
Marketed for £1.75 million in 1991, unsurprisingly Sharon Osbourne, herself, did not have much positive to say about her time at Beel House either. In her 2006 autobiography, Extreme, she remarked:
“I decided I wanted to go back to England. By this time we had already sold Beel House. I had enough bad memories not to be too sorry to see it go. Also it had reached what the builder called the domino point: mending one thing only triggered something else that needed to be done.”
Ozzy Osbourne, photographed by Conrad Rickenbacker, sitting on his four poster bed at Beel House in the 1980sImages of Beel House during the ownership of Sharon and Ozzy Osbourne (photographs by Conrad Rickenbacker)Robert Kilroy-Silk at Beel House prior to his appearance on ‘I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here’ in November 2008The house as furnished by Robert Kilroy-Silk and his wife Jan Beech, circa 2014
Matt Aitken, the composer of chart toppers for Kylie Minogue, Jason Donovan, Rick Astley and Bananarama, supposedly lived at Beel House for a period subsequently and in the 1990s, the property was sold to the “exotically handsome man, with a very un-English facial glow and ice blue eyes” Robert Kilroy-Silk and his wife, Jan Beech.
Controversial television personality Mr Kilroy-Silk, an MP from 1974 to 1986 and an MEP from 2004 to 2009, brought with him a herd of fallow deer as well as Vietnamese pheasants and bantams to Beel House. He lived between there and his home in Spain and then sold up for the staggering sum of £6.5 million in 2014 to an “international buyer” who, according to Country Life’s Penny Churchill, immediately found “it ‘surplus to requirements’ and put it straight back on the market” through Savills.
Of the estate, which by then had been for sale for three years, in October 2017, then selling agent Hugh Maconochie told the Bucks Free Press:
“In many respects Beel House is the archetypal country residence: a Grade II* listed home in the heart of the Chilterns, beautiful grounds and easy access to London by both rail and road. Yet, while it was completely refurbished in the 1980s – new garaging, games block and swimming pool complex included – its current state necessitates a complete restoration project.”
“For those seeking a country residence to move straight into, Beel House is not the home for them. Instead it would appeal to a buyer looking to restore and revive a Georgian gem. A reduction in price over the years reflects the refurbishment that’s required.”
Empty and plainly somewhat neglected, Edward Welton of Knight Frank’s Baker Street office is now marketing the property. His firm describes Beel House as: “An exciting opportunity for a full restoration project, giving someone the chance to create their own style on a private estate, so close to London.”
Beel House – The Names and Numbers
November 2017 – Further reduced to just £3.95 million ($5.29 million, €4.47 million or درهم19.44 million) through Knight Frank.
January 2017 – Reduced to £4.95 million ($6.63 million, €5.61 million or درهم24.37 million) through Savills.
November 2015 – For sale again for £6.5 million ($8.7 million, €7.4 million or درهم32 million) through Savills.
2014 – Sold to “an international buyer” by Robert Kilroy-Silk for “close to” the £6.5 million ($8.7 million, €7.4 million or درهم32 million) asking price.
June 1991 – For sale for £1.75 million (the equivalent of £3.45 million, $4.62 million, €3.91 million or درهم16.98 million today).
October 1989 – Placed for sale by media personalities Sharon and Ozzy Osbourne.
1966 – Placed on the market by Basil Dearden for £66,000 (the equivalent of £1.1 million, $1.5 million, €1.2 million or درهم5.4 million today).
Circa 1960 – Sold to film director Basil Dearden (1911 – 1971).
January 1954 – Sold to actor Sir Dirk Bogarde (1921 – 1999) for £4,000 (the equivalent of £101,000, $135,000, €114,000 or درهم497,000 today).
1836 to 1954 – Part of the estate of the Lowndes family, largescale landowners in the Chesham, Buckinghamshire area. During this time tenants included The Hon. Lady Caroline Cavendish and from 1909 to 1920 by Colonel Abram Lyle (of the Tate & Lyle dynasty).
1730 – Valued at £500 (the equivalent of £99,000, $133,000, €112,000 or درهم487,000 today) by Sun Insurance whilst home to Thomas White of Middle Temple.
1672 to 1682 – Home to Mary Pennington, the mother-in-law of the Quaker founder of the State of Pennsylvania, William Penn.
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