The Bungalow.
Firstly a brief personal biography.
I was born into a wealthy family, I have one younger sister, and no brothers. Both my parents also came from wealthy backgrounds, our family had what is commonly termed 'old money'.
When I was twenty-seven my parents were both killed while out joy riding in a helicopter, so I suddenly found myself in possession of a very large country house and all that went with it. My sister had already married, against our parent's advice and had subsequently been disowned.
Even after paying all the appropriate taxes, and making a substantial allowance to my sister, with whom I was on very good terms with, I was a wealthy man. I had been married, briefly, but that had ended in an amicable way eighteen months after it started, we had both realised that we were too young and had made a mistake.
For a few years I did nothing, became the proverbial playboy, but I eventually got very bored and looked around for something to occupy myself with.
That's when I discovered old houses, abandoned cottages, old farm houses. I bought one, refurbished it, and sold it on. I was hooked.
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Back to the present, and after five years of renovating houses I have become fairly well known in the industry. I am very choosy about the properties I work with, they must be reasonably old, fairly substantial, and in desirable settings.
After living for a year in the huge house in which I grew up, I had sold it and moved into an apartment, but I was now wishing for something a bit more substantial, preferably with some garden space, which I had missed.
For as long as I could remember, we, as a family had used a rather nice hotel in a small cornish seaside village for purposes of rest and relaxation, a get away from it all sort of place. I had continued this practice.
A mile or so outside the village I regularly drove past a set of large wrought iron gates, firmly closed and wrapped around in chains. In all the years I'd been driving past, I'd never seen those gates open, and I knew that no other roads around the area had any similar gateways, which I would have expected should the property actually have another entrance.
I was puzzled, and quite fascinated by the place, so decided to make enquiries. Non of the local agencies seemed to know anything about the place, but realising that they were probably too recent in the business I resolved to widen my enquiries. But first, I wanted to take a look at what was hidden behind those gates.
The Google Earth satellite view didn't give a lot of detail, it showed me that there were several buildings about a third of the way down the plot, with what appeared to be a swimming pool next to the largest, and that there was a substantial amount of woodland at the bottom of the plot but not much else. One thing it did show was that the plot was large, much larger than it appeared from the road. I decided to go take a look.
I wasn't exactly inexperienced at finding my way into closed properties, and had come up with a strategy that usually worked. First I borrowed a dog, a rather energetic little spaniel, belonging to the hotel owner, then I took it for a walk in the country! I walked the mile or so up to the property gates and started exploring. We followed the edge of the property line, which was bordered by a high wall, until it turned at right angles, and then followed that. The going was very tough in places, there was no proper footpath and the still continuing wall was often hidden behind thick undergrowth and trees. After about three hundred yards I found what I was looking for, a narrow arched doorway. The door was obviously closed and locked, but had seen better days, it wouldn't take much to get through it.
We continued as far as the small river I had seen online and seeing no way to cross it, made our way back to the closed doorway.
It was even easier than I expected, one good kick and a good portion of the door gave way, leaving a gap easily large enough for the dog to get through.
Having chased him through the gap, I crawled through after him. We entered into what had obviously once been a well tended orchard, now overgrown and left to go wild. Making our way through it we came out into open grass, and a few hundred yards away, I could make out the buildings.
With the dog running off ahead I made my way over to the buildings. The dog was my excuse, if I was discovered and challenged, I was merely trying to catch my runaway!
I needn't have worried, the place was totally deserted. I walked around the main building.
It was a cottage, or large bungalow. Single storied, but much larger than any I had previously seen. All the doors and windows had steel shutters fastened across them, except for one window around the side, where the shutter was hanging by its fastenings. The window behind it was broken. On examining the window I discovered that not only was it broken, part of it had been removed to allow easy access. I availed myself of the opportunity.
The evidence of use since the place was closed up was all around. Empty beer and spirits bottles, a few syringes, and some condoms. I wandered around.
The place was remarkably clean all things considered, I was used to finding these properties in a dreadful state, but in spite of having been broken into this was very good. I counted six bedrooms, although other rooms could have also once been used as such. A huge living room, an equally large dining room, another large reception room, kitchen, pantries, several other rooms that had no defined use, and four bathrooms.
How had I identified some of the rooms? They were still furnished, some of the furnishings were still covered by dust sheets while others had been uncovered. The items I could see were of good quality, I was surprised that they were still there. A discarded newspaper I found alongside some beer cans was dated forty years ago, but the house must have been locked up some time before that, I decided to definitely do some more research.
Something about the place struck at me. I could live here, I liked the house, I liked the grounds, I liked the location. If I could get this place, I wouldn't be selling it on, I would have it as my own.
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It was surprisingly easy to locate the property's owner, using a few contacts gained during my years as a renovator I was able to find that the property was owned by a Lady Avotelli, with an address in Knightsbridge, London. Being very careful, I had my solicitor contact lady Avotelli's solicitor. One thing I had learned in this business was, people like Lady Avotelli didn't like property developers. I made sure to make plain that I was interested in the property as a future home for myself, not as a land grab for building multiple houses or similar.
A week later I received an invite to meet the lady in question at the property.
As I drove up to the gates I found for the first time that they were wide open. There was a long winding drive up to the house, and parked outside it was a Rolls Royce. The next thing I noticed was that the steel shutter had been removed from the front door.
As I got out of my car I saw a tall immensely elegant lady walk from the side of the building. She stopped as I approached and we introduced ourselves.
This was Lady Avotelli, about five feet ten inches tall, shoulder length blonde hair, and dressed in immaculate country style clothing. I had great difficulty in guessing her age, somewhere between fifty and sixty I guessed, it was impossible to be more accurate. Even at her age, she was a beauty.
She explained that she had done some slight research into my background and that was the reason why she had agreed to meet with me.
