The listing photo shows the enormous 16,000-square-foot, six-bedroom main house, which wraps a courtyard; a separate two-bedroom guesthouse; a pool and a gym; and a five-car heated garage.
Photo: Sotheby’s International Realty
Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi heavily renovated a $20 million estate in the Cotswolds and lived there for an entire month before realizing that it lacked an essential ingredient to their happiness, per The Wall Street Journal. Horses. “When we decided to live here full time, we knew that Portia couldn’t live without her horses,” DeGeneres told the paper. “We needed a home that had a horse facility and pastures for them.”
The couple have apparently moved to a “larger, more contemporary estate nearby” that “looks like it belongs ‘in Malibu,’” per a real-estate agent quoted in the piece.
This heated five-car garage shown in the listing could clearly not have been renovated to become what it probably once was, a horse barn.
Photo: Sotheby’s International Realty
Because how could they have known there was no “horse facility” on the 43-acre estate when they paid around $20 million for it just last year? But maybe they were distracted by the other stuff: a main house made of stone and wide timber that dates to the 1700s and wraps around “several structures, some of which are connected through enclosed glass walkways,” per the Journal. That space is 16,000 square feet with six bedrooms, and then there’s the two-bedroom guesthouse, an outbuilding with a pool and a gym, a “heated five-car garage,” and a “party barn with a pub.”
A listing photo shows the pool is in great shape. Maybe because it was only used for one month.
Photo: Sotheby’s International Realty
Some of this is original, and some is the result of what the Journal says was “an extensive renovation,” which was expected to last 18 months, before the couple “brought in about 70 workers and did it in about 4.5 months.” (One hopes Ellen treated them nicely.)
It may be an easy sale. The agent who spoke to the Journal said the polish of the place was hard to find in the Cotswolds. But it also looks like the process of renovating it put DeGeneres into a Barbara Pym novel. The Daily Mail reported that “three parish councillors … feared that it could disturb Roman remains, which prompted them to contact local planning enforcement officers.” Minutes from a town meeting showed “concern was expressed” over a fence that “could increase flood risk in the village” if trash washed against it. (Fair, but weird.) A spokesperson for the celeb couple offered a completely clear explanation: “Although the extension technically breached permitted development rights, it was considered acceptable in planning terms. As the works were completed to a high standard with no impact on surrounding amenities or other planning concerns, no further enforcement action was necessary, and the case has been closed.”
Perhaps things are still feeling slightly chilly with the neighbors. Or maybe it really was the horses.