Hotel and sculpture garden in private home plans

A hotel and sculpture garden could be turned into a private home if a planning application is approved.

An application has been submitted to North Devon Council to change the use of Broomhill Estate, near Barnstaple, Devon, which dates back to 1913.

Property experts quoted with the application said it had been difficult to sell the site.

The consultation period ends on 27 April.

The estate was put on the market in February 2025. It had a guide price of £1.15m but was reduced in August to £975,000 to encourage buyers.

Letters with the application from property experts Savills and Carter Jones spelled out how it had been tricky to sell the site.

They said offers on the property to run it as a commercial venture were "significantly below the guide price" due to the level of works required to reinstate the property into a condition in which it could trade.

An offer from a residential buyer was also well below the guide price, due to the risk around obtaining change of use from the planning authority.

The estate, which includes the hotel with seven art-house film-themed rooms, a sculpture garden which contained 300 works of art, and a fine dining 150-cover restaurant was previously owned by Americans Alex and Michele Kleiner.

They said not being granted government support during the Covid pandemic, because of their nationality, placed the estate under financial pressure and they closed the hotel before putting it on the market for £1.3m at the time, the Local Democracy Reporting Service said.

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