Midford Castle
BY PETER CONRADI
The London Times
The Hollywood actor Nicolas Cage fell in love with Bath’s Georgian heritage so deeply that he bought three homes in the area at the top of the property bubble. Sadly for him, the American tax authorities are on his tail and he is downsizing at a loss of more than £2m.
The Oscar winner bought Midford Castle, a grade I-listed folly near Bath, in July 2007 for £4.75m. He never slept there but began an ambitious restoration programme, putting in a new roof and seeking planning permission to knock down internal walls and reinstate exposed stonework in the vaults.
American actor Nicholas Cage
Now faced with a tax bill of at least £4m, Cage has accepted an offer to sell the castle for just £3m, property market sources revealed last week.
The castle was the third property the actor bought in the area in just over a year. In May 2007 he spent £3.8m on an elegant townhouse in the Circus, Bath’s famous Georgian crescent. Cage sold it last March for a loss of £300,000.
The 45-year-old actor still owns Tilham Barn, a more modest modern house in Baltonsborough, near Glastonbury, which he acquired in June 2006 for £875,000.
His son, Kal-El, 4, is believed to have his name down for a prep school which is not far from the village.
“He has told me he loves it here,” said Frankie Lederman, who sold the house to Cage and lives in neighbouring Tilham House. “He values the peace, tranquillity and privacy.”
Cage is said to be fascinated by the ley lines running through the area and by its links with the ancient site of Camelot, thought to have been nearby. He has praised Bath’s architecture and the freedom he enjoys to walk its streets untroubled by the locals.
AN ADVENTUROUS TIME
“When I’m in Bath I feel like I’m walking around a snow globe,” he said after buying his house in the Circus. “I’m always excited to meet people and say, ‘Are you a Bathonion?’ The architecture is magnificent and I feel like I’m in touch with the past. I feel like I’m time travelling.”
View of restored Midford Castle
Last Friday Cage visited the city’s Royal United hospital to help with fundraising efforts for a new neo-natal unit.
“We’ve been very happy here,” he said. “I very much hope we will stay in this city, with the marvellous education the area has to provide, and just to enjoy the historical city. We have no plans to move.”
He has also agreed to turn on Bath’s Christmas lights next month.
Midford Castle was built in 1775 by Henry Disney Roebuck, a colourful figure who made his fortune at the gaming tables of London society. Its unusual three-sided design is said by local legend to have been inspired by the ace of clubs — the card with which Roebuck had most luck.
When Isabel Colegate, the novelist, and her husband Michael Briggs put it on the market in 2007, Cage snapped it up, personally telephoning the estate agent, from California, to place his offer. Colegate said Cage assured them he wanted to restore the house to its former glory.
“There is a bit of fantasy about the castle, but what appealed to him is the rather romantic landscape in a beautiful valley with its own woods,” she said. “He walked all the way around the estate when he came to look at it and decided it was the place for him.”
Cage has spent tens of thousands of pounds putting on a new lead roof in a first step towards making the house weatherproof. He had intended to do much more: a planning application submitted in August called for the removal of walls on the ground, first and second floors, the stripping out of tanking from the vaults and repointing of the north and northeast elevations.
“The property has been empty for two years and is in poor condition and uninhabitable,” the application said.
“Over the past 40 years it has suffered from a lack of maintenance and, although essentially sound, it requires repair work.”
Robert Sutcliffe, a council conservation officer, said the actor had been fascinated by the castle and its history. “He wanted a good-quality old building which was slightly wacky. Midford fitted the bill perfectly,” he said.
“A magnificent job was being done restoring Midford to its original condition and work has been going on since the spring to make it secure and watertight. It has been drying out all summer and when it’s finished it will be a dream.”
The sale of Midford is part of the disposal of a property empire that stretches from Bel Air to Bavaria. Cage, who won an Oscar for Leaving Las Vegas, has spent at least £30m over the past decade buying homes in America and Europe.
They include a mock-Tudor mansion in Bel Air, once owned by Dean Martin, which Cage bought for just under £4m in 1998, and Schloss Neidstein, a dilapidated 10-bedroom castle in Etzelwang, Bavaria, which he acquired in 2006 for £1.59m.
Over the past year Cage has started to put the properties on the market, in several cases at a loss: the Bel Air home is on sale for £5.5m, while the Bavarian castle was sold earlier this year for £1.52m.
The actor is also trying to sell two houses in New Orleans. LaLaurie mansion, described as “the most haunted house in the United States”, which he bought in 2007 for £2.1m, is now reportedly on offer for £2.04m. Cage is also selling the former home of Anne Rice, the novelist, purchased in 2005 for £2.1m, which went on the market two weeks ago at the same price.
Both properties are subject to liens placed by the US tax authorities.
The star’s property deals
— Midford Castle, Somerset. An 18th-century, grade I-listed gothic castle bought in 2007 for £4.75m. Now on sale for £3.5m.
— No 7, the Circus, Bath. Regency house bought in 2007 for £3.8m, sold last March for £3.5m.
— Tilham Barn. Newbuild property near Glastonbury, Somerset. Bought in 2006 for £875,000.
— Schloss Neidstein. An 11th-century castle in Etzelwang, Bavaria, bought in 2006 for £1.59m. Sold this year for £1.5m.
— Eight properties in America, including Dean Martin’s former mansion in Bel Air, California, on sale for £5.5m.
WHATEVER IT TAKES
Simon Trump and John Harlow contributed to this report.
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