Britain’s first underground mansion has been given the go-ahead this month. Expected to cost around £2 million ($3.3 million), the subterranean property is already becoming the focus of an ownership battle. The location is an upmarket neighbourhood in the English county of Cheshire. Wealthy residents have complained for many years now about the tacky mansion houses being built to accommodate sports stars.
The area is a popular location for Premiership soccer stars to set up home, Cheshire being a pretty location between the major footballing cities of Liverpool, Manchester and Birmingham. It’s therefore no surprise, that popular soccer stars, idolised by English football fans, want a private underground mansion all of their own.
The underground property is to be located beneath the landscaped gardens of an old Victorian apartment block located in the exclusive area of Devisdale. Despite the hidden quality to the underground mansion house, local residents still lodged complaints to the local authorities. Most cited the fact that the beautiful gardens will have to be dug up in order for the underground home to be constructed.
‘A lot of trees will be removed and the whole point of the conservation area is that the larger houses have lots of trees’, said one local. ‘Any new building in the area needs to be tasteful so they don’t lose the character of the area and going around digging houses in gardens definitely changes that.’
The Earth House, as the underground mansion is to be named, will consist of two-storeys and include three bedrooms and a swimming pool. Owners of the mansion will access the property via a front door disguised as a 2.6m-high garden folly. A spiral staircase will then lead to a main hallway and living quarters on the lower ground floor.
Natural light will enter the underground property through a large dome window behind the front door. As one might note from the artist’s impressions pictured above and below, the rooms are largely wedge-shaped so as to surround a central atrium.
On the same level as the living quarters, are a man reception area, kitchen and a master bedroom suite. Below this level, there are two more bedrooms, a gym plus a swimming pool and jacuzzi.
The developer of the property, Chris Oakes of Huntsmere, also highlights the eco-friendly aspect of the subterranean property, especially regarding insulation. An underfloor heating system will heat the underground home whilst hot water will be provided by a large-scale ground source heat pump. The latter of which uses specialist heat exchange technology to gather warmth in the ground to heat the house.
It’s estimated that these and the state-of-the-art ventilation system that will be fitted will reduce fossil fuel usage by 75% compared to a regular family home of the same size.
‘There are some very sensible and practical reasons for developing down as opposed to upwards. The property has very little impact on the surrounding environment’, said Mr Oakes. ‘It is easy to heat in winter and to keep cool in summer; and by incorporating the highest standards in renewable design solutions the energy demands of the building can be cut to almost zero’.
H/T: UK Daily Mail.
{ 1 trackback }
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Absolutely fascinating post! What will they think of next. I now have a thousand questions–the obvious — what do they do for views… and the legal considerations like how will title to the property vest as I believe the owner of the surface holds fee title to a certain depth, so will the underground mansion owner actually only have a leasehold? I can only imagine a whole new body of case law emerging…if the common law holds no precedent perhaps we can consult the animal kingdom… as in weasels, moles and gofers–I’m sure they have worked it out in a very civilized manner!
~Jermaine~
Precedent in Britain is that you own down to 28 feet down. There may be exceptions for mineral rights etc in your deeds though.
sorry, that’s 2800 feet.