Benifols/Benifold/Benifolds is on the market

[FuzzyPlum]

Benifolds is on the market. It looks fabulous now. I'm sure it wouldn't have looked that good back in the Fleetwood Mac days.
Interesting, the round window room (or one of them) is now a shower room.

Anybody got £4,000000 spare?

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/a...s-sale-4M.html


Property Dreams! Hampshire country mansion where Mick Fleetwood lived before supergroup stardom - and now boasts a tennis court, swimming pool and TEN bedrooms - goes on sale for £4million
Benifold House, the former home of Fleetwood Mac's founder, Mick Fleetwood, 73, is on the market
Estate agent Knight Frank is advertising the sprawling Hampshire pad, which boasts ten bedrooms, a pool house with sauna, tennis courts and seven acres of land for £4million
Mick Fleetwood lived in the house with his first wife, Jenny Boyd, and released four albums while living here
Latest owners have renovated the property, adding a swimming pool and a series of extra bathrooms
By JO TWEEDY FOR MAILONLINE



The former home of 70s pop legend Mick Fleetwood has gone up for sale for a heady £4million.
The beautiful Hampshire property, known as Benifold House, boasts ten bedrooms, a pool house with sauna, a woodland tennis court and seven acres of pastoral splendour.
Benifold can add a slice of pop music history to its selling potential too, for Fleetwood Mac's founder snapped up the property, in Headley, and lived here with his first wife, Jenny Boyd, before the bright lights of Hollywood - and global fame - came calling.
Dreams! Benifold House, the former home of Fleetwood Mac's founder, Mick Fleetwood, 73, on a quiet tree-lined road in East Hampshire is on the market with estate agent Knight Frank for £4million
The current owners of Benifold have carried out extensive works during their 20 years at the property including adding in a trendy island kitchen in the ten-bedroom house, which is located on a quiet tree-lined road in East Hampshire
Four of Fleetwood Mac's early albums - including Penguin and Mystery to Me - were released while Mick was living there. Pictured: Fleetwood Mac's early line-up, from left, Danny Kirwan, Mick Fleetwood, Jeremy Spencer, John McVie and Peter Green
They'll be cue-ing up! The house has plenty of leisure options including a pool house, snooker table and table tennis table
Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, in a stylish midnight blue, make the drawing room an impressive office space
Purchased for an unknown sum, the rock star - the band's drummer - lived here for four years from 1970 until 1974.
Indeed four of Fleetwood Mac's albums - including Penguin and Mystery to Me - were released while Mick was living there, and he references the spacious property in Play On, his 2015 autobiography.
Stevie Nicks, whose vocals would give the band's later music its distinctive sound, and Lindsey Buckingham joined when the band based itself in California.
The property, which lies on a quiet tree-lined road in East Hampshire, has been fully renovated, with a handful of extra bathrooms added to ensure full comfort when the house is full.
Despite the property's Victorian history, it's been spruced up to feel like a 21st century home, complete with trendy bedrooms, characterful bathrooms and open-plan living in the airy kitchen-diner. And there's a whopping 10,000 sq. ft of living space.
The rural Victorian home is made for large gatherings - when they're allowed - with ten bedrooms in total
Room to roam: A huge living room offers beautiful views of the surrounding countryside via large windows
The property's stone balcony, original to the Victorian period, offer unfettered views of the pastoral splendour that surrounds the home
Buyers can call this woodland tennis court their own too
The property's stone balcony, original to the Victorian period, offer unfettered views of the pastoral splendour that surrounds the home. Buyers can call a woodland tennis court, right, their own too
Granny flat? Benifold also comes with a self-contained annexe with its own kitchen and bathroom facilities
Grand entrance: Photos of Mick Fleetwood at Benifold in the 1970s show the windows around the front door are unchanged
Despite the property's Victorian history, it's been spruced up to look like a 21st century home,
A characterful shower room at Benifold
Modern touch: despite the property's Victorian history, it's been spruced up to look like a 21st century home, complete with trendy bedrooms and a characterful shower room
The house was built over a period of five years starting in the Victorian period and finishing in 1901.
There's also plenty to entertain perspective buyers, with a drawing room that does a good impression of a library with floor-to-ceiling book shelves, and a snooker room for those who fancying picking up a cue, with a full-size table tennis table set up.
Elsewhere, one can pick out a decent chablis in the wine room or pick logs for the property's woodburners from the fire; the open plan kitchen diner boasts a trendy in-built woodburning stove.
One of the many bathrooms in the property, this one, decorated in duck egg blue, perches a television set in view of the tub
Anyone for wiff-waff? A full-size table tennis table, and a darts board fill one of the downstairs' rooms
Light and airy: the open plan kitchen diner boasts an in-built woodburning stove, and a log room to ensure you have somewhere to store fuel.
Knight Frank describes the grounds, saying: 'There are large expanses of lawn, interspersed with mature trees, providing a park-like feel.'
Before its brush with a global pop star in the making, Benifold had equally interesting previous owners, being used as a Ecumenical House of prayer between 1963 and 1970, where 'people of all sorts and ages' were said to be welcome.
In a recent interview, Fleetwood admitted he 'forgot' two years of his life in the Seventies after battling a 'long, long' cocaine habit.
The 73-year-old confessed the group was 'well-equipped' with the drug in the 1970s and has no recollection of his past hiatus from work.
The drummer branded himself 'the party animal in the band' as he recalled when things 'got out of hand' after the success of the band's 1977 album Rumours, just three years after he departed Benifold for a new life in the US.

[HomerMcvie]

Looks impressive. It's hard to imagine loser Mick ever being able to afford something like that.

[Villavic]

Mick spell it Benifols.

As soon as we got back from Europe, things got really hectic. We embarked on a British tour that December and, the lease on Kiln House having expired, bought a nearby country house called Benifols.

...

So, for twenty-one thousand pounds we purchased Benifols, a secluded mansion on a hill, just past the Devil's Punch Bowl near Haslemere, in Hampshire.

Who exactly would be "we"?

[HomerMcvie]

Originally Posted by Villavic

Mick spell it Benifols.

As soon as we got back from Europe, things got really hectic. We embarked on a British tour that December and, the lease on Kiln House having expired, bought a nearby country house called Benifols.

...

So, for twenty-one thousand pounds we purchased Benifols, a secluded mansion on a hill, just past the Devil's Punch Bowl near Haslemere, in Hampshire.

Who exactly would be "we"?

I always thought THE BAND owned it.

[Penguin Emeritus]

Originally Posted by HomerMcvie

I always thought THE BAND owned it.

I thought it was mick and john? not sure about jeremy. i know in some old interview chris was telling john in about 1972 that everything he'd worked for over the last 7 years was 'tied up in this house'.

--Lis

[HomerMcvie]

Originally Posted by Penguin Emeritus

I thought it was mick and john? not sure about jeremy. i know in some old interview chris was telling john in about 1972 that everything he'd worked for over the last 7 years was 'tied up in this house'.

--Lis

It's been at least 15 years since I've read Mick's first book. Things are fuzzy...

[FuzzyPlum]

Well….the owners over the years have obviously done a good job and somebody is likely to see a healthy profit.
£21,000 adjusted for inflation is around £342,000 today.
So if they can get £4m then that’s a very tidy sum.
I’d assumed it was the whole FM band that had a stake in the house, including Bob Welch who had joined by that time. But maybe not.

[SteveMacD]

IIRC, Bob only stayed there when they were making albums or rehearsing, otherwise, he lived in Los Angeles.

[Villavic]

Originally Posted by SteveMacD

IIRC, Bob only stayed there when they were making albums or rehearsing, otherwise, he lived in Los Angeles.

Yes, and though the obvious meaning of "we" was the band, it's hard to think they all agreed to buy a house. From Mick's book I understand they bought the house circa december 1970. Christine has just joined the band, but since she was a wife's member, yes she could have agreed. The rest of the band was John, Mick, Jeremy and Danny (Bob joined in april 71).

Did the four members agree unanimously to buy the house? Jeremy left the band in feb. 71. Was he mentally fine in december 70? How was Danny? He left them in aug. 72. How was the finnancial status of each one?