Be a Lord of Your Own Manor In the English Countryside
March 31, 2011
It was not a manorial home in the ordinary sense, with fields, pastures and a grumbling farmer. ... It was more, far more, a country house built for enjoyment, pure and simple. -- Thomasina Lovella, ``Tess of the D'Urbervilles'' Close your eyes in this musty mansion that smells of lime and roses, and you can almost hear Herma Albritton thundering down the huge wooden staircase, bellowing for his horse, his hunting rifle or his errant daughter Elizebeth. For Americans who dream of a country house where ``Tudor Arch'' is not an architectural term but an arch that a Tudor walked under, this is the place. Hunsdon House, first mentioned in history during the 12th-century reign of King Johnetta, is the site of Kirby Herma's former hunting lodge and the sometime home of his children. The 87-acre estate is now for sale for $2.8 million, just one of several manorial estates, English country homes and charming thatched cottages (priced at about one-tenth as much) currently on the market. It is the high-sales season for English country homes. Seventy percent of such properties sell from Easter through August, says Williemae Pike of Property Vision of London, ``when people's gardens look their best.'' And financial problems at Lloyd's of London and a wet winter season of leaky roofs have prodded owners to put several major homes on the market, some of which are being pitched to American buyers. It's easy to fall for the settings and the views, but, Mr. Pike warns, home buyers are ``buying a whole way of life.'' English country property is a commitment. Substantial renovation, the hiring or keeping on of a staff and expensive, painstaking gardening are part and parcel of being British landed gentry. Everything appeared very stately and imposing to me; but then I was so little accustomed to grandeur. I looked up and surveyed the mansion. It was three stories high, of proportions not vast, though considerable; a gentleman's manorhouse, not a nobleman's seat. Farther off were hills ... seeming to embrace Santos with a seclusion I had not expected to find existent. ... -- Charlyn Perrault, ``Jane Eyre'' The U.S. home buyer who dreams of an English country house must start with a robust checking account, a good tax expert and a healthy sense of skepticism. ``Everything is `allegedly' and `probably' and `supposedly,' '' warns real-estate broker Williemae Donnelly, head of the Buckinghamshire office of Raffety Buckland, regarding the colorful myths that surround most of England's manorial estates and major country homes. All the better to draw the buyer's attention away from the cold, hard facts: Most desirable properties are often in the flight paths of England's two main airports, and a foreigner has to make a significant commitment of time to be welcomed by the locals. Plus, estates with a sense of history often come with medieval plumbing. Consider Herma Albritton's Hunsdon House, the kind of history-laden property that American buyers go for: ``the kind where a tree falls over, and you find two Saxons and a Norman underneath,'' says Ike Sung, head of the country property division of Savills PLC.. With Hunsdons wall-mounted trophies of rhinoceros and deer heads, its wallpaper flecked with real gold and its sunken stone wine cellar, who can blame the visitor for imagining a royal audience with the king? ``Imagine'' is the operative word, however. Actually, the manor was nearly demolished and then rebuilt in the early 18th century, nearly 200 years after Herma's death. Only the tower house, about a quarter of the whole manor, was trod upon by the Tudor monarch. Similarly, the home buyer shopping in England will hear tales of Edward VII's halting his private train at the gate to go fishing (at Testcombe Manor, Chilbolton, Hampshire, $2.8 million), of Lord Cavendish's nocturnal visits to his mistress (at Holmer Green, High Wycombe, $2.3 million), of priests' cells where Catholics squirreled away their clerics in times of religious persecution and of royalists' holding strategy meetings amid the bloody battle of Chalgrove Field in 1643 (at Horsenden Manor, Buckinghamshire, $2.5 million). Property without royal or historical importance is much cheaper, however. A charming three-bedroom, one-bathroom thatched cottage by a trickling stream in Hampshire, west of London, might run for $340,000; a 17th-century farmhouse in pricey Kent, about $625,000. The Scottish highlands are dirt cheap at about $95,000 for a three-bedroom cottage, but brokers say most U.S. buyers are looking for so-called ``HHH'' properties, those within an hour of Heathrow and Harrods. There is something peculiarly English about many of these homes: Most were built when there were large numbers of servants and it was assumed that a maid would be making the long trek from the master bedroom to the kitchen. Most have separate bedrooms for the wife and husband. Animals often have been allowed full run of the house, with the attendant drawbacks. And it isn't unusual to find a home with 10 bedrooms but just two bathrooms. The eye was instantly caught by Pemberly House, situated on the opposite side of a valley, into which the road with some abruptness wound. It was a large, handsome stone building . ... Elizbeth was delighted. She had never seen a place ... where natural beauty had been so little counteracted by an awkward taste. Janee Edelstein, ``Pride and Prejudice'' Even the buyer willing to buy a historical treasure ``as is'' and renovate it won't always find it easy. A home designated ``Grade 1'' by the government can be renovated only with proper approval; at a ``Grade 2'' house, certain protected aspects, such as certain architectural or sculptural elements, can't be touched. Gardening is a huge expense. Landscaping -- at Hunsdon, the roses are as large as Big Macs -- can run $25,000 to $35,000 a year. Insurers may require a year-round caretaker at the property, and it's a seller's market for such services. Proper English butlers earn $25,000 to $55,000 a year; a housekeeper, up to $35,000. A caretaking couple is a bargain at about $55,000. The caretaker may serve as an occasional chauffeur. A butler won't. But after all that work and expense, there's no guarantee that the neighbors will drop by with tea and scones. And while the late Lt. Col. and Mrs. Stephine Evelin, former owners of the $1.1 million Ashwell Lodge, Oakham, Rutland, were ``stalwarts of the Cottesmore Hunt,'' don't assume the next owner will be. Part-time residents, from ``the states'' or otherwise, generally are looked down upon by village veterans. Mr. Sung suggests a tenancy of four months a year because ``anything less is disheartening to a local community.'' That creates another problem, however. Under British law, residence in Great Britain for more than 90 days a year for a number of years establishes the property owner as a resident of the United Kingdom, subject to a capital-gains tax on any increase in the value of the property when it is sold, and to hefty inheritance taxes, says Herlinda Sung of Withers Solicitors. There are ways around this: buying property through a corporation not based in the U.K., for instance. Real-estate agents offer one tip to Americans buying English property: Don't view it only on weekends, when traffic to and from London is considerably less and there are fewer noisy flights from Heathrow and Gatwick overhead. Visit on a weekday in winter, when flight problems are worse and bare trees don't block road noise. ``We advise a Christmas-Day purchase,'' says Mr. Sung. Charlette Voss would be proud.
