Widow who bought dream home for £8,000 in 1949 refuses to sell it - despite £8MILLION price tag

Published 10th Mar 2008

A pensioner who paid £8,000 for her seaside home has seen it shoot up in value to a staggering £8million.

Lalage Bailey, 81, and her late husband Frank bought the beachfront property on Sandbanks, Dorset, in 1949 for the four-figure sum.

Since then, the sandy peninsula in Poole Harbour has become a magnet for multi-millionaires, turning it into one of the world's hottest property spots.

Lalage Bailey bought her house for £8,000 in 1949. It's now worth £8m. As a result, Mrs Bailey's detached home is now worth 1,000 times more than she paid for it - an increase of 100,000 per cent.

Despite the lucrative sum, which would earn the grandmother a profit of £7,992,000, she has no plans to cash in.

Grandmother Mrs Bailey said: "I am not going to sell my house to anyone, no matter how much they offer me for it.

"When I die, it will be left to my four children and it is up to them what they do but I would rather it stayed in the family.

"I have had many estate agents round offering me more money than sense but I just don't want to move. "It's a wonderful house and I am very lucky to have it."

The three-storey property was built in 1918 and once belonged to Mrs Bailey's father-in-law, camping tycoon Oswald Bailey. When she married his son Frank in 1949, Oswald sold it to the happy couple for £8,000.

Boasting stunning views of Poole Harbour and Brownsea Island, the property was set out as three flats but, over time, the Baileys converted it back to a house.

Mrs Bailey said: "We were very fortunate to get it. It cost a lot of money in those days. "Because we were just married, we lived in the ground-floor flat and rented out the two flats above, which helped with the mortgage repayments."

After the birth of their first two children, the couple took up the flat above and, by the time they had four, they converted the building back into one large house. They fitted a new pale blue kitchen and light green bathroom suite in the 1950s which still remain today while the rest of the house is in its original condition.

The family used to have their own private beach until they had to build a sea wall in the 1960s due to rising water levels.

Although Sandbanks became built up with homes in the 1960s, it has only been over the past ten years that it has turned into a millionaire's playground.

In 2001, a survey showed it was the fourth most expensive place in the world to buy real estate, behind Hong Kong, Tokyo and London's Belgravia. Older homes have given way to new harbourside mansions which cost anything up to £10million.

Mrs Bailey's eight-bed home, called Casa, is now worth about £5million, although a brand new property on the same plot would sell for £8million.

The widow said: "Sandbanks has obviously changed a lot and there are lots of modern houses around here now. "But that doesn't worry me at all, I have a nice long drive and don't see much of them. "I am aware there has been a lot of publicity about the area and that people are happy to pay millions to live here. "I don't blame them - on a nice day, the views are just wonderful. "No amount of money will change my mind about selling, I am staying here."

Mr Bailey, a former managing director of Oswald Bailey, died three years ago. The couple's second daughter Alison, 55, has now returned home to care for her mother.

Although she said it was very important to her that the property is handed on to her four children when she dies, she would not mind if they then decided to sell it on.

But Tom Doyle, of Sandbanks estate agent Lloyds, reckoned Mrs Bailey should cash in now. He said: "There are three words that sum up the property market in Sandbanks and they aren't location, location, location, they are win, win, win.
"It's win for the vendor, win for the developer and win for the estate agent. "Mrs Bailey's home is in a fantastic place. It looks straight out to Brownsea Island and it is away from the road so you don't get the holiday traffic there. "It would be worth about £5million today - that is the value of the land. "A new property on the same site would go for about £8million "It may pay for Mrs Bailey to sell now as the family may have an issue with inheritance tax in years to come."

Sandbanks, which was featured on a recent ITV documentary presented by Piers Morgan, is home to Premiership soccer boss Harry Redknapp and computer magnate Sir Peter Ogden.

Source: ' The Mail '

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