(Bloomberg) -- British musician Kate Bush’s former home and recording studio in Berkshire, where she wrote and recorded her albums Aerial and 50 Words for Snow, has hit the market with Strutt & Parker.
Bush owned the house known as Shenfield Mill on the River Kennet from the mid-1990s until 2011, when it was bought by the founder of Fulmar Colour Printing, Mike Taylor, for around £2.4 million ($3 million), according to Taylor. He had recently retired and wanted a home where he could while away the hours fishing.
“I was literally just looking for a house on a river. I found a few, they were expensive and didn’t do it for me. But when finally this one came up, it was perfect,” says Taylor. He says he had to wait nearly three weeks to view the property, he suspects as a result of privacy concerns from the famous owner. But even before he could see it in person, he fell in love with the house just by looking at the location on Google Earth. When he viewed it in person, it more than lived up to his expectations.
“I was sat in the living room with my wife, and I asked her if she could be happy here, the landscape was just spectacular,” Taylor recalls.
Thirteen years later, he says he’s moving to be closer to his children and grandchildren in Kent, so he’s listed the home for £11.5 million. For that, a buyer gets 23 acres of lush riverside grounds, a four-bedroom Georgian main house, Bush’s standalone dance and recording studio that’s been converted into a guesthouse with three additional bedrooms, and a separate cottage with two additional bedrooms.
Crucially, a buyer will also get a green home, as Taylor hired engineering consultancy Renewables First to make the property generate its own power.
They installed an Archimedes screw turbine (a fish-friendly hydroelectric device) with a 3-meter diameter in the river that generates 40 kilowatts of power an hour from the water constantly running through it. It generates more power than the property uses, making the running costs of the home near zero, Taylor says. The turbine delivers power for hot water, air conditioning, underfloor heating and an electric-vehicle charging point.
“We’re actually net-negative because the energy generated that we don’t use goes back into the national grid,” says Taylor.
As to the house’s previous occupant, he says he remembered when Bush burst onto the music scene with her 1978 debut single, Wuthering Heights. “Kate Bush being the previous owner is a fun fact for us to tell people,” he says. But while living at Shenfield Mill, he was excited to discover another famous occupant.
“Charles de Gaulle spent time here during the war,” says Taylor, who says he’s seen proof of historical letters from de Gaulle that mention the house, which wasn’t far from a wartime airbase from which pilots flew to occupied France.
Inside the House
The main 7,000-square-foot house is a two-story red-brick Georgian that dates to the early 19th century. When Taylor bought it, he embarked on a renovation that brought the number of bedrooms from seven to four and made them all en suites. The bedrooms are all upstairs, the ground floor has a main kitchen and a secondary kitchen with a breakfast space, a library, study and additional living spaces like drawing and sitting rooms.
“The building wasn’t quite looked after before Bush bought it,” says Taylor. “She did a lot of work, but I wanted to go much further than that.” He says he wanted to upgrade the house into the modern day—he added air conditioning and underfloor heating—and also added additional spaces to entertain, such as a glass sunroom connected to the main house. The Taylors also added an arched 75-foot steel-and-tile footbridge that spans the river and connects both halves of their property.
“The company manufacturing the bridge went broke halfway through the process, so we had to get someone else to pick it up and finish it, but it’s a lovely design and can be seen from the road,” Taylor says. “We get lots of people walking past us on the weekend and stopping and staring at the bridge, it’s become quite a local attraction.”
Other work included partnering with the environmental agencies to make sure the turbine didn’t disturb wildlife in the river and strengthening the banks of the river itself to avoid flooding risks.
Taylor declined to say what he spent on the extensive renovation works or the turbine but says it was “significantly more” than what he paid for the home.
His favorite part of the house is the sunroom, where the family gathers for holidays and Sunday lunch, and it has the best views in the house, he says. The windows slide fully open, letting the outside in.
The Property
Shenfield Mill sits on the edge of the village of Theale, about 5 miles from Reading and 30 miles from London’s Heathrow Airport. The main house and two outbuildings sit alongside the river, and the property is intersected by private waterways. The two separate dwellings, both the studio-turned-guesthouse and the cottage, are a short walk from the main house, just across one of those private waterways. Taylor says his housekeeper used to live in the cottage.
Also on the parcel of land are the ruins of a historic mill with water wheels, which burned down in the 1890s. The estate agents say the mill used to employ about 100 people.
Much of the land around the house is fenced agricultural fields, where Taylor’s herd of sheep roam, keeping him busy in lambing season. He also enjoys watching kingfishers flying above the gardens and occasionally spots otters.
“The house has a magic all its own, it’s quite enthralling,” he says. “During the pandemic, we didn’t feel sorry for ourselves living here as it didn’t matter being locked down in 23 wonderful acres with all the fishing I could want to do.”
Taylor has come to terms with leaving it all behind to be closer to family. “We’re looking for a property to move into now, and there’s nothing like this, on the banks of a river, with the hydro and the size of the grounds,” he says. “We wanted a wonderful place to live, and that’s exactly what we created.”
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