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A family has opened up about living in the only bungalow nestled between two huge mansions on a millionaire’s row street.
On this millionaire’s row in Surrey, luxury is a given. Multi-million pound manors tower up on both sides and often boast a few supercars parked in the driveway.
The lawns are pristine, three golf courses surround the estate, and many of the homes hold memberships to a top-of-the-range security firm that patrols day and night with guard dogs.
This is a life that is reserved for the mega wealthy – sheikhs, footballers, and fatcat executives.
But amongst these posh Surrey manors sits the peculiar bungalow that David and Jo Willsher, both 77, live in.
The pensioners have lived in the area for 25 years and told the Mail the only way they would leave their bungalow was by ‘men in the white coats or in a wooden overcoat’.
There are no supercars on the driveway of their – by comparison – small bungalow nestled between two mansions and it cost them less than £1million to buy — a bargain compared to their neighbours.
On one side is a mock Tudor manor with a swimming pool and a balcony looking out over one of the finest 18-hole parkland golf courses in Britain.
On the other side is a huge mansion believed to be being built by a former Premier League footballer.
Speaking to the Daily Mail, David said: ‘There’s quite a lot of variations in the style of the buildings, because every one’s been pretty much bespoked for an individual.
‘The identikit ones are the gin palaces.’
Opposite their house, one of the luxury pads has four supercars on its driveway – a Bentley Continental, a Ferrari Purosangue, a Porsche Cayenne and a Rolls-Royce Spectre.
The cars have a net value of £1.1million — meaning they’re worth more than the Willshers’ bungalow. Each of the cars also comes with personalised number plates worth an additional £33,000.
That’s before you even get to the front door. The five-bedroom mansion is completed with a Romeo and Juliet balcony, a large garden and an indoor swimming pool.
David added: ‘[We’re] the poorest, smallest house in the road.
‘It’s unusual. To try and find something else like this in the area [now] is almost impossible.
‘When we moved in here, there was another bungalow next door.
‘The newbuild next door, two and a half years ago, that was a bungalow.
‘If you go further down, the next two, which are quite futuristic, [with] strange roofs, that was also a bungalow, but a builder bought that and put two gin palaces in 11 or 12 years ago.
Defying the pressure to sell up, he said: ‘It suits us. It’s a nice location. There’s only two ways we’re leaving, either with men in the white coats or in a wooden overcoat.
‘All the time we’re fit and able, we’ll be here. It’s worked out very well and the social side has not been an issue.’
However, dealing with the almost constant building works is a struggle.
He said: ‘In the 25 years we’ve been here, there’s never been a time when there hasn’t been a knock-down and rebuild going on.
‘It does cause aggravation while it’s happening, but it’s inevitable.
‘The property values have gone through the roof. So what tends to happen is that as these folks pass away or they go into care, the place comes on the market or is an inheritance situation.’
A security guard who patrols the luxury pads and ‘constantly’ dreams of owning one told the Mail: ‘[The constant building] is a nightmare. The road is awful.
‘Whenever an old house comes up for sale, it gets knocked down and a nice big one gets put in its place.’
She added: ‘[The homeowners are] rich and famous. The estate is burgled all the time, the same as any high-net-worth estate.’
David said he ‘religiously’ sets his bungalow alarm in a bid to prevent thieves, although he admitted ‘there’s probably much richer pickings close by’.
The retired motoring specialist said: ‘The character of the area has changed. The prospect of any fresh development is almost nil. The locals are very well organised. The residents here are articulate and well heeled, so they’re in a good place to resist development.
‘There will be some names around here, but people keep themselves to themselves for obvious reasons.
‘I’m a man of a certain age, as is my missus. I’m at a point in my life now where, frankly, I couldn’t give a stuff.’
David said he and his wife got on well with their immediate neighbours.
The owner of the newbuild mansion to their right is a former Premier League midfielder who played in the Champions League, according to builders working on the site.
David said the owner ‘introduced himself to us and was very collaborative, very much understood the fact there’s going to be quite a lot of disturbance for us while the building work is going on, and did his best to minimise it.’
He added: ‘On the other side, the neighbours [were] here long before we were and we’re on good terms with them.
‘It’s a very quiet area. It’s very pleasant. [The] names that live around here don’t cause us any issues.’
Another of the security guards protecting the luxury pads said: ‘It’s never a dull day. The people here are lovely.
‘When we’re driving around the estate, we get a ”hello” and whatnot. It’s a nice community. They’re so polite.’
There are a few places where bungalows are plentiful — in East Lindsey, Lincolnshire, for example, almost 24,000 of the 71,280 homes are bungalows — but in most locations they are becoming increasingly rare as developers snap them up, send in the bulldozers and build larger properties in their place.
Just 1,833 bungalows were built in the UK in 2019/20, equating to only 1 per cent of the total number of homes constructed.
The reason for this is most builders want to maximise profits from a plot of land by building a large house or block of flats.
However, bungalows are once again increasing in popularity as young buyers often see them as cheaper alternatives for family homes.
Research by Confused.com Mortgages shows the proportion of internet searches for single-storey properties has soared by 53 per cent in 20 years, while DIY-ers are taking to social media to show off their modern twists on the traditional bungalow.
There are more than 100 million TikTok views for videos about refurbished bungalows and 129,000 Instagram reels and posts tagged #bungalowrenovation.
Read more
- Why are bungalows experiencing a renaissance in Britain’s property market?
- Is the UK’s house market failing older homeowners with its scarce supply of coveted bungalows?
- Can Britain’s most expensive bungalow transform into a hobbit-inspired eco-paradise?
- Is the shortage of bungalows stopping over-55s from downsizing like never before, with many feeling stuck in homes that don’t work for them?
- Is Britain’s aging population stuck without downsizing options as bungalow availability plummets to historic lows?
