FUTURISTIC HOMES:OPULENCE MAY be going out of fashion but at least one British builder is confident there's a market for a house that seems to have everything. AB Homes is selling a 10-bedroom house about an hour's drive from London which attempts to cover all bases: its features include a 15-berth nuclear shelter/panic room and a 34-seat cinema.
The 2,044sq m (22,000sq ft) house on 11 acres is for sale for £7.5 million (€8.5m) through agent Morris Dibben. It reports huge interest in Goldenhill, still under construction in the small market town of Romsey, Hampshire. AB Homes has already received at least one definite offer at the asking price from a foreign buyer.
Accommodation in the house includes a 139sq m (1,500sq ft) main bedroom suite, 17 bathrooms and seven kitchens. There is also a double-height ballroom with a vaulted ceiling and terrace overlooking the grounds, a billiard room and a 52ft long swimming pool, with a sauna, steam room and spa.
There are private tennis courts in the grounds and water features a little bigger than the standard goldfish pond: they include a 100m long lake and a waterfall, and an aquarium with views of the aquatic life of the lake in the basement of the two-bedroom summer house.
The panic room in the basement, which also serves as a 15-berth nuclear shelter, will appeal to the especially safety conscious. However, it wasn’t built with a particularly paranoid buyer in mind: there was space left over in the basement to build an 88sq m (947sq ft) room – and one of AB’s directors is a fan of Jodie Foster’s movie Panic Room.
Underground there is also a garage with space for 10 cars, and a two-bedroom staff apartment on top of the garage. It is AB Homes’s most expensive ever listing: until now the firm has catered to a more moderate luxury market, with prices in the £1million-£2million range. However, it is not Goldenhill’s more unusual features that the company is proudest of.
AB’s Steven Bernardes says the way in which the house was designed to fit into the landscape, with glazing on the south-facing exposed end, is among its most attractive features.
www.aandbhomes.com
www.morrisdibben.co.uk
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