Cost of building a 'statley home' such as 'Cumberland Lodge' outside London?

Question

A possible location is either Hertfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Berkshire and Oxfordshire. The size of the property will be either the same as Cumberland Lodge or bigger. What would be the estimated cost of building it including all materials. Plus, are there any estimates on what the maintanence cost will be?

Any help with this will be appreciated but if possible, please explain a little as i am new to this. Im really looking for an estiamted price but if there is a wesite that can explain these aspects of the property, it will be very helpful.

Answer 1

How long is a piece of expensive string? I'm inclined to say if you need to know the price, then you can't afford it.

There is very little reliable data for this kind of thing as they are so unique. Most are private residences and accordingly the cost is confidential. Few people specialise in traditional country house design (Quinlan Terry is one) and construction techniques vary so much that it would be hard to put a price on it.

Getting a site is also a problem. Unhappily the days are gone when you could sweep away an inconvenient village (a la Blenheim) and replace it with your house, in many cases the best plots have gone. In the case of Cumberland Lodge, sites like this are in the Metropolitan Green Belt so you wouldn't be able to build anyway.

The other thing is you usually have to go the whole hog and have every last bell and whistle and gadget - you could be talking millions on that alone.

Running them is a nightmare and as many owners of traditional properties found after the agricultural depression it was more economic to demolish them (in the 1950's they came down at the rate of one house every sixty hours, believe it or not). Taking on an old house (in the manner of a 1960's pop star) is probably still the most realistic way of getting into the stately home business, but bringing these up to scratch costs a fortune.

Answer 2

Nobody can tell you, until you have plans drawn up,architect. project manager, depends what you want or would be allowed to build it in, how good your builder is what the windows  doors are made of how much is bespoke.........the list is endless but I can tell you, the land required wouldn't be cheap!