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包括他的农场和音乐工作室, 只卖三百万英磅, 大家快踊跃购买!
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/main.jhtml?xml=/property/2007/09/22/pbream122.xml
 Julian Bream's farmhouse for sale
Last Updated: 12:01am BST 22/09/2007
Thetimeless magnificence of Julian Bream's country house will strike achord among housebuyers who value style and substance, says Anna Tyzack
A gentleman's farmhouse in Wiltshire seems an odd place for a southLondon musician to set up a studio. But for world-famous classicalguitarist Julian Bream, Broad Oak House, near Semley, made perfectsense. "Music is just the perfect backdrop to a lovely house," he says."A number of my friends said: 'Old Julian won't stay there long. Howcan he manage an international career from Semley?' But I've been inthis corner of Wiltshire for 45 years."
 | | House music: theWiltshire homebought by JulianBream for £14,500; right, with Jango, his dog |
Hismove to Semley took place in two phases. First he bought a smallcottage and returned to his bijou coach house in Chiswick everyweekend. "London is a civilised place at the weekends," he says. Butbefore long he found that life in Wiltshire was even more civilised anddecided to decamp there permanently in 1966. "When you fall forsomething, you have a different attitude to it," he says.
BroadOak House was sold to him via the grapevine: "I was working in thegarden of my cottage one day and a passing neighbour told me about alovely house for sale up the hill. I hurried there only to be informedby the owner, a delightful old general, that it had sold. My wife and Ihad a quick look around and decided it was a little on the large sideanyway. But there was still something beautiful and special about theplace."
A couple of months later, Bream wastoiling in the garden once again, when he learnt from the sameneighbour that the Broad Oak sale had fallen through. "I asked a localestate agent what the lowest price was that I could offer the Generalwithout being insulting, and was advised to propose £14,000," he says."I was a bit nervous about it but he just said: 'Add £500 to that andit's yours'." When the subsequent sales of the Chiswick coach house andtiny cottage came to exactly £14,500, Bream couldn't believe his luck.
Althougha Londoner by birth, he already had a strong idea about English countryhouses and the way they should look. "In my late teens I met a man whomade musical instruments and he built one or two for me," he says. "Hewas very well connected and used to go to grand houses for weekends andI would accompany him, often playing to the family."
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Bream, a child prodigy whose guitar career wasofficially launched when he was just 13, visited the Duke ofWellington's Stratfield Saye among others - and was determined torecreate some of their elegance and grandeur at Broad Oak. "It wasn'tin a bad state, but people from the Armed Forces don't necessarily knowhow to make a home; they move about so much," he says.
Heredecorated every room and rebuilt the two-bedroom annexe. In thedrawing room he added an elegantly moulded wood and marble fireplace,and a large bay window: "It was a mean little fireplace before and theroom was smaller, with no view of the garden."
BroadOak's garden soon began to determine Bream's concert and recordingschedule. "I worked abroad from October to March but would take summersoff. The vegetable garden is so wonderful that it was depressing not tobe here." His sound engineer and producer would come down to Broad Oakfor several weeks and they would make recordings at an 18th-centurychapel two miles away. Bream had already won many international awardsby this stage and in 1979 RCA presented him with a platinum disc tomark record sales of half a million in Britain alone.
 | | | No need to fret: the house from the outside; right, the study and, the sitting room |
Whenhe first arrived at Broad Oak, there were mature trees and a formal boxparterre but the rest of the garden was given over to vegetables. "Isuppose the maid, cook, and gardener would all have been fed from it,"he says. With no maid or cook to worry about, he grassed over thevegetable beds, and added stone walls, climbers, a rose garden andnumerous specimen trees (weeping pear, tulip, silver birch). He pulleddown an unsightly concrete farmyard and replaced it with a smaller,walled, vegetable garden. "I've spent time here knocking things down,not putting up new buildings," he says.
Except astone summer house with wonderful acoustics - perfect for practisingguitar surrounded by roses and sweeping lawns. "I developed my careerfrom here. I've spent such a long time at Broad Oak that it has becomepart of me - I love it all the time."
Fewcountry houses are as intact as Broad Oak: the house, annexe, stables(with traditional partitions), tack room and potting shed are all underone roof, surrounded by an old cobbled path. Built of local greensandstone, it dates from the late 18th and late 19th century, andbrings together stoic Georgian proportions with Victorian romanticfeatures such as the small stained glass windows in the porch.
Gradually,Bream has bought back the parkland, woods and farmland that oncebelonged to the estate (around 30 acres). "It would have been a propergentleman's farmhouse with just enough land for a few cows and horsesand a rough shoot," he says.
The house has twowings: the former dairy (Bream's studio/sitting room) is in the easternwing - the oldest part of the house - with low ceilings and oak beams,while the drawing room and dining room have shuttered sash windows withwindow seats and high ceilings with ornate cornicing. Bream has addedbathrooms to the upstairs bedrooms, most of which have attractiveVictorian fireplaces. The improvement scheme, which began in 1966 whenhe first moved to Broad Oak, was finally completed less than 10 yearsago. "In the end you realise you do a house up for someone else," hesays, a little sadly.
And this someone else willno doubt embark on their own improvement scheme. They may want toreplace the 1970s farmhouse kitchen with pink and white patternedtiles, change the carpets and spruce up the bathrooms. The floralwallpaper that appears in various colours and patterns throughout thehouse won't be to everyone's taste and the studio above the stable(with its sprung dancefloor) is ripe for conversion.
Butthese are all superficial alterations: the pink roses framing thewindows, the uncentralised Victorian floor plan ("I wanted every roomto have a different view"), the formal gardens and the classic turningcircle with statue in the drive give Broad Oak a timeless magnificence.
Bream's guitar case is open in the studio,evidence that he still plays despite retiring officially in 2002, aged70. In the study upstairs, he is in the process of writing two books,accompanied by Jango, a boisterous, flat-coated black retriever. "WhenI'm practising or writing, he lies quietly next to me," he says - hardto believe as Jango hares around the rose garden.
Jango,who he treasures more than any guitar, will be the only thing thatmakes leaving Broad Oak vaguely tolerable. From this classic countryhouse, Bream has become one of the world's most important ambassadorsfor the classical guitar.
But at least he willbe leaving in style; in the garage (with hand-crafted Gothic-stylewindows) are two beautifully kept Morris Minors, one green, one white."They're still in full working order," he says. "Cars just aren't whatthey were - these days the designs are far less romantic." And as hedrives away from Broad Oak, he can rest assured that he left it just asthings used to be -romantically designed and in full working order.
| Broad Oak House is for sale for £3 million through Savills (01722 426820). |
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发表于 2007-9-25 02:33:07
