Planning Pains, Hidden History and My Advice for Success with Property Developments
In the last issue of Blue Bricks Magazine, I detailed the history of Marske Hall, a 500-year-old Georgian manor house and my journey of converting its stables into luxury holiday lets.
In this issue, I want to finish Marske’s story by sharing the most challenging and ambitious part of transforming it; the conversion of Marske’s manor house, into ten holiday apartments.
Although the result is a thing of beauty and we’ve managed to save this gorgeous building from falling into ruin, the project didn’t come without its share of problems and surprises. Problems, like arguing with local residents (who accused us of all kinds of things) and surprises, like finding a building within a building!
This is part two of Marske’s story and I hope that by sharing it you get some inspiration. There have been highs and lows, and by detailing them honestly in this article, hopefully, you’ll be able to avoid the mistakes I made and have an easier journey, should you undertake a development opportunity.
After World War Two, the labour government came into power by surprise. It was this government that ended the aristocracy, breaking up the land owned by the super-wealthy and passing it on to farmers. During this process, many of the country's stately homes were demolished.
There was a man who lived near Marske called George Shaw, who had already pulled down plenty of stately homes and Marske was next on his list. However, when it came to demolition day, George couldn’t bring himself to do it. Marske has an allure to it and he decided that he’d rather buy it than tear it down.
The only way he could make the project work financially, was to convert the hall into ten apartments. However, it wasn’t the best development, as he forgot to install central heating, so Markse was home to ten very cold and unhappy tenants.
George’s daughter, Elizabeth Shaw, was raised in Marske as a little girl and became very rich. Elizabeth didn’t want Marske to be sold to just anybody and after she saw the work that we’d done in the stables and the care we’d shown, she decided to sell the manor to us on an option.
Marske Hall was on the market for £2.5 million, then dropped to £1.8 million. For the project to make financial sense, I could offer no more than £1.3 million. Thankfully, Elizabeth accepted and I had a year to get the planning permission and finances in place.
My original plan for Marske was to turn it into a wedding venue. It’s the perfect location for one, with plenty of spots for marquees. Guests could celebrate the ceremony in the sawmill, party in the hall and then stay overnight in the newly developed stables. I had the idea of a ‘wedding village’, where people could leave their cars and stay on site, celebrating with family and friends, without worrying about the trip home.
The problem was that the locals hated the idea. Before we’d even begun working on the hall, we were warring with them about planning permission, especially concerning the stables.
When I pitched my idea to the local committee, I expected a conversation. I assumed they’d tell me what they didn’t like about it, so I could change things and create a plan that would make everyone happy. I thought that my idea would drive more trade and interest to an otherwise quiet area.
However, the committee meeting was immediately hostile. If you want a funny example of just how hated I was, then you should have seen how the clerk spoke to me when she visited me on-site. The clerk said that she, “knew all about ‘us property developers’,” and she bet me that I’d never eaten beans on toast and said that, “‘I only cared about the money.’” Once again, this is a classic example of the stigma surrounding property developers, painting us as villains.
For the record, I like beans on toast. It was only ever my intention to save this beautiful site and create somewhere that people would love. It sounds cliché, but it’s not about the money for me and it never has been. I love property development and I love Marske Hall. Money has always been a result of following my passion, but never the fuel for it.
The countryside system of politics and planning gain is a little different to more urban parts of the country. A constituency votes for a local councillor. This councillor then goes to planning committee meetings, on the constituency's behalf and has a say in what does and doesn’t get passed.
The councillor I dealt with, who was voted in by a small number of people, had a lot of power. It was this person who dashed our idea of the wedding venue.
We were accused of some strange things during the committee meetings. One thing that stands out was that the Marske stables were being used to host orgies. We did a promotional video of a couple enjoying themselves in the stables, including them having a bottle of bubbly in the indoor jacuzzi. The residents saw this and accused us of having wild parties. They’d say anything to stop us.
We were accused of destroying heritage trees, saying that we also planned to destroy Markse Halls's interior features, which is a big no-no, considering it’s a listed building. Neither of these things were true, we had no plans to touch any trees and we fully intended to keep Marske’s beautiful interior architecture.
We’d already spent £1.5 million on the hall, to modernise and repair it, so a lot of money was on the line while these arguments were going on. It got to the point where things became ridiculous and we decided to give up on our plans altogether, renovating and modernising the existing ten apartments, rather than continue trying to get planning permission.
When renovating the existing apartments, we decided to maintain the building's architectural features, but we did introduce new infrastructure, like heated water, underfloor heating and electricity. We then added a high-end finish, installing beautiful kitchens, bathrooms and furniture.
When we started renovating the hall, we found all kinds of secrets. At one stage, we had to rip up the flooring to put the installation in. While doing this, we found these huge oak beams, which we soon realised were part of a structure. As we started to expose the internal stone walls, we found some of the original Elizabethan windows. We even found an old staircase under the floorboards!
I spoke to some historians about our findings and it turns out that what they used to do was take the cladding off Elizabethan buildings, leave the structure and rebuild a Georgian façade on the front. Basically, the Elizabethan building is still inside the Georgian building. It’s a manor inside a manor!
What the original owner did to modernise the hall, was to place plywood over the old architecture. We began removing this, exposing the original design. In one room, we carefully removed the 1970s plywood, to expose original Georgian features, just as we had in the rest of the hall. But as we ripped a small piece away, we spotted a lovely remnant of marble. We continued to rip away the wood to see what this was. It turned out that a huge, gorgeous Georgian fireplace had been boarded over and hidden.
From the outset, Marske Hall will take your breath away and it’s the dream project for many developers. But I’d be lying if I told you that this was easy. It’s pushed me to my mental limits and has been the biggest challenge of my life. Living on-site for the last few years, dealing with personal issues and handling the various problems that have cropped up, has been no easy task.
There’s a lot of stress with commercial conversions. Stresses that people don’t understand. There are countless parts involved in taking a project from a run-down shell to something liveable. You’re constantly facing new hurdles and you have to overcome them fast if you don’t want to lose money.
The mistake I made, was that I tried to do everything myself. Admittedly, it’s a rookie error, but I figured I had enough experience to do it. What I didn’t take into account was the mental strain that comes with being your own quantity surveyor, project manager and designer.
As a result of the challenges detailed above, I would suggest that it’s better to go into developments with a team or as part of a joint venture. Going alone will put you to the test mentally and physically, especially if you’re still new to the game.
On that note, if you are new to development and you lack skills or experience, then joint venture with someone who has these in place, so that you can ‘level up’. That being said, you need to offer some value in the transaction. You can also take this approach if you have a good history in developments but want to move on to something bigger.
I always say that if you’re new to property development, start small. Even if small means converting a commercial building into one apartment. It’s the same process to convert ten apartments as it is one, you just have to repeat the process ten times.
Due diligence is key. Use as many experts as you can, to discover what could go wrong with the project before you commence work. It all comes down to planning and I recommend having no less than two exit strategies. That way, if things go wrong, like the market dips, you have another exit to release your own and your investor's capital.
Time is money. Things go wrong on developments, it’s just part of the job. But how long it takes you to fix problems, dictates how much money you’ll use. If you don’t know how to fix a problem quickly, then make sure you have access to someone who does, at the other end of the phone.
Finally, when you’re hiring contractors, ensure that you agree to a fixed price. This will stop your build costs from rising unexpectedly.
The Figures:
Purchase Price: £1,300,000
Development Costs to Develop the ten apartments: £1,500,000
Gross Development Value (GDV) of The Hall (10x apartments combined): £5,200,000
In addition to this, we have planning in place for ‘The Dog House’ (valued at £500,000) and ‘The Butlers House’ (valued at £600,000). These are for sale and available for investors to develop themselves.
The entire Marske Hall Country Estate is available as one entity for £11 million, as it stands.
Marske Hall is my magnum opus, after years of development. It’s my way of going out in a blaze of glory, by finishing on a once-in-a-lifetime project.
Now, I want to help others who want to get started with developments. If this is something you’re interested in and if there is anything I can do to help, then get in touch using the details below.
Email: ian@marskehall.com
Website: https://www.marskehall.com/
