Finance
Windmill takes real estate dreams to new heights: It can be yours for $825,000
House hunters now have the chance to live in a unique three-bedroom home after one of Britain’s biggest windmills went on the market for £650,000 — or roughly $826,000.
The Maud Foster Windmill is over 200 years old — and dominates the skyline over the Lincolnshire market town of Boston in the U.K.
Standing over 80 feet tall, the seven-story, five-sail windmill is one of the largest operational windmills in the country, according to SWNS, the British news service.
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The quirky property has gone on the market for less than the average price of a London home, according to U.K.-based real-estate companies.
The historic building sports three roomy bedrooms and two large bathrooms, making it “an ideal family home” nestled on the river banks of the Maud Foster, said SWNS.
Two of the building’s seven stories are currently home to a shop and a flour business, with a former café located on the first floor.
The windmill was built in 1819 for Isaac and Thomas Reckitt, who ran it until 1833.
In that year, it was forced to close due to several years of poor harvests.
It still boasts its original floor beams and mill machinery from 1819.
In 1987, James Waterfield and his family bought the mill — and restored it to full working order and turned it into the “most productive windmill in England,” said SWNS.
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It still boasts its original floor beams and mill machinery from 1819 and retains its Yorkshire sash windows and red and gault brick features.
Estate agents Bruce Mather are offering the property for sale for £650,000 for just the mill — or for £998,800, or over $1.2 million, with the five-bedroom mill next door included.
A spokesperson said that this is “a rare and unique opportunity to buy one of Boston’s most iconic landmarks — the Maud Foster Windmill.”
The spokesperson went on, “The Maud Foster is one of the largest operating windmills in England, being 80 feet tall to the cap ball, still working and grinding flour to this day.”
It’s still open to the public as of right now on Wednesdays and Saturdays.
“To the back of the building,” added the spokesperson, as SWNS reported, “there is a staircase, which winds up several floors with bedrooms off it to an incredible loft style penthouse — which is fabulously decorated and [has] some wonderful features, bragging character throughout, currently arranged with three bedrooms.”
There are also reportedly two workshops downstairs, as well a garden to the back and “ample parking” to the front.
The spokesperson also said, “This much-loved working building requires a new caretaker to take it through the next few decades of its history.”
The existing shop sells “stoneground flour, porridge oats, local history books and a variety of good quality souvenirs,” according to the windmill’s website.
“We know what you’re thinking: Can you actually live in a windmill?” says the U.K.’s Timeout site about the property. “Well, the answer, it turns out, is yes.”
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