LOCATION: Compton Bassett, Wiltshire, U.K.
PRICE: £5,500,000
SIZE: 1,850 square meters, 9+ bedrooms, 13.5+ bathrooms
YOUR MAMAS NOTES: First came word in late May that increasingly out of the limelight British pop star Robbie Williams sold—and took an approximately half million dollar loss—on a multi-residence compound on L.A.'s famed Mulholland Drive that's complete with full-sized lighted soccer pitch. Now comes word down the international celebrity real estate gossip grapevine via the always helpful Florinda Flapjaw that the nearly forty year old former boy bander has recently re-listed Compton Bassett House, a substantial, landed gentry-type 18th century mega-mansion on 71.55 acres in Wiltshire, about 85 miles west of Central London and 25 miles north of Stonehenge.
So the stories go, Mister Williams was interested in the mystical Ley Lines that (allegedly) criss cross the hills and dales of Wiltshire and purchased the property in 2009 for £8.1 million. A few clicks and clacks on Your Mama's currency conversion contraption shows that amount equalled about $13.4 million in June 2009 and comes to exactly $12,714,600 at today's rates. He quickly caught a classic case of The Celebrity Real Estate Fickle and flipped the country spread back on the market in 2010 with a £7.5 million price tag. Alas, the property did not sell and was eventually taken off the market. It's returned in the last week or tow with a new and prodigiously lower listing price of £5.5 million ($8,633,35) that represents a pearl clutching £2.6 million ($4,081,220) loss for Mister Williams on the updated and upgraded estate, not counting carrying costs, upkeep and improvements.
A long, tree-shaded driveway snakes through the estate's verdant grounds to the front of the ivy-encrusted residence that looks to Your Mama like it might have once been a very fancy stables or carriage house. The driveway continues around to the rear of the residence where there's a small parking area and access to a pair of side-by-side two-car tandem garages.
In addition to a grandly proportioned 43-plus foot long main drawing room with (off-center) fireplace, high ceiling, and huge windows on three sides, the ground floor public and family spaces include a fairly small formal dining room, a spacious eat-in kitchen, and a cozy children's play room. In addition to the guest/family bedroom suites, the upper level also has an awkwardly shaped library and a super-sized upper landing that connects through to a nearly 38-foot long office suite with a (properly centered) fireplace flanked by built-in cabinetry and a bidet-equipped attached bathroom.
The lower floor leisure complex includes a long but quite narrow fitness room, a 73-plus foot long indoor swimming pool and spa encircled by a series of stout pillars, a steam room and separate dry sauna, and the aforementioned his and hers changing rooms. There's also a wine cellar, laundry room, the garages, and one of the two staff suites. (The second staff suite is on the ground floor behind the master bedroom with exterior access.)
There are two small(ish) guest/family bedrooms with private attached bathrooms on the ground floor opposite the kitchen/breakfast room and four more bedroom suites on the second floor, each with a private sitting room and walk-in closet. The master suite, probably larger than most middle class homes, occupies its own wing of the ground floor and is comprised of a private study with built-in desk, a sizable sitting room, and and even larger bedroom, dual master bathrooms, and a fitted dressing room with a secret stairway that climbs up to the second floor bedroom corridor.
The park-like estate also has detached one bedroom and one bathroom cottage with 732 square feet as well as a 2,346 square foot structure that contains a helicopter hangar and adjoining workshop conveniently outfitted with wee kitchenette and half bathroom. There are acres of mowed grass, a walled formal garden with pavilion, a hedged water feature/fountain, a grass tennis court that does double duty as a soccer pitch, paddocks for the livestock, and unspoiled woodlands.
We're not sure of Mister Williams entire residential real estate holdings but we do know that he still owns the nearly 11,000 square foot residence in the Mulholland Estates community in Los Angeles (CA) that he picked up in July 2002 for $5,450,000 from country music king Clint Black and his actress/singer wife Lisa Hartman Black. A few of Mister William's Showbizzy neighbors include Saul Hudson (aka Slash), Paris Hilton, Christina Aguilera, Charlie Sheen, and Vanna White.
listing photos and floor plan: Knight Frank
