Homes sold with all the contents included are often of the bland, beige variety that passes for “international hotel chic”, appealing to unimaginative but wealthy buyers who have homes around the world. Gardener’s Cottage, a five-bedroom house in a tiny Somerset village that is on sale for £2.5m, is a different story: the decor is eclectic, from a light, airy Gustavian panelled dining room to a bedroom where the walls are decorated with patterned vellum that began life as hangings in North African nomads’ tents.
Everywhere, there are antiques that catch the eye: a 1920s marble table top resting on a carved elephant’s head; a Swedish wardrobe built in the 18th century; a 1930s Bakelite pencil case in the shape of a dachshund. And every last piece is for sale, down to the collection of carved whalebone walking sticks in the hall.
“You could move in and have Christmas here,” says Ken Bolan, who owns the 19th-century cottage in Maperton, near Wincanton. He has been in the antiques trade for 40 years — and, although he has bought and sold more than 100,000 pieces, he has a story to tell about every item in his house.
He can remember the provenance of the floorboards in his kitchen (17th-century oak, salvaged from a convent in France); the mid-19th-century Swedish bed that he sold to the sculptor Elisabeth Frink, then bought back from her estate after her death in 1993 (valued at £1,500); the early-19th-century Swedish day bed (£9,000) that has been in his home since 1982; and the blue-painted, slightly wonky panelling in the entrance hall, which came from the former home of Lord Londonderry in East Orchard, Dorset.
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Bolan started buying and selling vintage cars at 19, then moved to Switzerland in his twenties and opened his first shop selling English antiques in 1972. “It was very fashionable — James Bond stuff, all leather and mahogany.”
It was there that he met his Swiss wife, Yolanda, and the couple moved back to Britain 10 years later. “I didn’t want to be in London,” Bolan says. “It was down at heel, and I wanted to give the children [now 27 and 31] a good upbringing in the country.”
He found a disused brewery in Gillingham, Dorset, and in 1982 opened his firm, Talisman. His eye for antique, quirky and midcentury modern has made it a mecca for designers and celebrities, including Sting, Madonna, Gwyneth Paltrow and Kate Moss. “We caught the cusp of the change in the market from traditional to much more adventurous and more decorative.”
In the 1980s, it was easy to pick up a country pile in the area for a relative song, but Bolan wanted something cosier. The couple found this cottage, built for the head gardener at nearby Maperton House, where the singer Georgie Fame once lived. It cost £80,000 in 1982, although hundreds of thousands of pounds have been lavished on it since.
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“It had been done in the 1960s and 1970s, with some bad work,” Bolan recalls. “My wife said, ‘We can’t possibly buy this.’ I told her, ‘Forget the house, look at the surroundings. We have no neighbours and we have the potential to create a garden.’”
Ever energetic and ambitious — this is a 65-year-old who spent last winter trying to break the European snowboarding speed record — he turned 2½ acres of fields into an impressive garden around a medieval stew pond; much like indoors, it’s now a series of styles and spaces, from a walled rose garden to giant bamboo plants, smuggled back as seedlings from a trip to Bali in 1990.
Inside, he knocked together three bedrooms to create a double-height master suite, putting in 17th-century- style long windows to let light stream through to the bed — he doesn’t hold with curtains — and lining the bathroom wall with a 19th-century oak cupboard and drawers acquired from nearby Redlynch House.
Although it looks much like the original Victorian cottage when you arrive, the place is deceptively large, with 4,400 sq ft of living space — Bolan added a rear extension with four bedrooms and a large family room. Yet he was keen that the house shouldn’t lose its genius loci: “If I had gone on a different scale, it would have become bombastic.”
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Yolanda died of cancer two years ago, aged 61. With Talisman now based in London (in Fulham, with another branch in Belgravia), Bolan wants to expand his business, which will take him away from home even more, so it is time to sell up.
How can he bear to part with everything that he has collected? “It was a hard decision, but if I chose to keep one piece, I would keep it all,” he says. “They are in my memory and I have documented everything. I was very much in love with Yolie, so this doesn’t mean anything to me any more. My apartment in London is full and I won’t buy or build another house for a year or two.” He is hoping to find 50 acres of coastline in Europe and put up a “sculptural” house. “I’m not sure where yet, but when I find the right spot, that’s it, I’ll go.”
Bolan says he has priced things fairly, rather than with his “dealer’s hat on”; valuations range from £20 to £10,000. Of course, any new owner might not share his wide-ranging taste, and may want to stamp their own style or buy only some of the furniture. In that case, he will offer the rest to friends and clients — the two often merge.
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There will be one extra thrown in that won’t be part of the inventory: “I was saying to my daughter the other day that if anyone buys the house, we should offer them the cat. She has been here all her life.”
Gardener’s Cottage is for sale for £2.5m (contents extra) through Knight Frank; 020 7861 1528, knightfrank.co.uk
Everything must go
Only about 5%-10% of house sales include the furniture and fittings, according to Rupert Sweeting, head of country-house sales at Knight Frank estate agency. “Sometimes the seller has walked out with just their photographs and personal effects.”
These types of sales tend to be in London and the home counties, where there are more owners who move house often or are based overseas, with properties around the world, and who aren’t emotionally attached to the contents.
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Who buys these “turnkey” properties? It’s usually the same kind of person, someone who doesn’t want the hassle of buying everything anew. Many have no time, or lack confidence in their taste: if they like what they see, they might as well take the whole lot.
Removal costs for a 6,000 sq ft house are between £5,000 and £15,000, so if you’re a buyer, bear in mind that it may be less hassle for the vendor to throw in the contents than to take everything with them. Bargain accordingly: the inventory might have been priced at insurance values, rather than what something might get at auction (less). If necessary, get your own valuation.
When furniture and fittings are included, they can be listed separately, which may bring down stamp duty on the house sale. Make sure everything has been valued or has a receipt, in case HMRC calls. Be realistic; if you quote a daft amount, the tax man will sniff around.
Even if the seller doesn’t want to throw in everything, they may be happy to include the curtains made for a certain window, or a ride-on mower. Sweeting advises sorting this out after contracts have been exchanged, so negotiations don’t get bogged down in the details: “We have had deals fall apart over a dishwasher.”
Finally, beware of all-in deals when a show home is being sold. That counterpane in the master bedroom may be silk, but underneath it there’s a cheap foam mattress: it was only there to look good and entice you to buy, not to actually lie on.