Beverly Hills, Berkshire: Locals hate this £10m banana-shaped mansion - but its owner is keen to do it all again

By Lin Jenkins
Last updated at 11:23 AM on 19th April 2010

High on a chalk escarpment overlooking two Thames-side villages is a vast, new £10million country house built to attract the super-rich.

From its commanding position it surveys the homes of Streatley on the west bank of the river and Goring on the opposite side, where the population totals just under 5,000.

Highwood is the brainchild of Darryl Boulton, who bought the 23-acre plot in 2003 for £1.3million, intending to build a house for his family, although work only started in 2008. 

High life: Locals have dubbed Highwood an 'alien spacecraft' and 'the eyesore on the hill' - but its luxuries promise to attract a super-rich buyer

'I had every intention to keep it for myself. But over the past six months I have decided I want to embark on another project  -  something similar to this, but abroad,' says Darryl, 46, for whom Highwood was his first property development.

When Darryl  -  an actuary who sold his share of a crisis-management company after doing well out of the pensions mis-selling review in the Nineties  -  invited architects to come up with suggestions for the plot, he was anxious that every part of the house should take advantage of the spectacular site. 

'Michael Fowler was the clear winner. He came up with a design based on two banana shapes reversed as the best way to exploit the view. At night, when you look down at the lights in the village, it's like being in an aeroplane.'

Those looking up think somewhat differently  -  one villager said she thought it looked as if an 'alien spacecraft' had landed, and others have dubbed the house 'the eyesore on the hill'.

Enlarge  

Panoramic outlook: Highwood boasts spectacular views over two villages

But for all the furore about how planners allowed a vast house to be built in such a sensitive spot, they did nothing to halt its rapid progress from building site to completion.

The concave banana shape makes up the lower ground floor with a pool complex, gym, cinema, underground garage with a lift to the main house, wine cellar, staff flat, and a huge glass-fronted open-plan room with attached kitchen that opens on to the terrace.

The convex banana shape forms the ground floor with entrance hall, four main reception rooms, a kitchen/ breakfast room, utility room and finally the first floor, where all six bedrooms face the panoramic outlook. All have en suite bathrooms, while the master suite, in a rotunda with glass panels in the ceiling, has his and hers bathrooms.

Luxuries: The mansion boasts all the latest security gadgets, plus an indoor pool

As befits a top-of-the-range LA-style mansion, sprawled across 13,000sq ft, Highwood is packed with gadgets. Naturally, there is a sophisticated security system  -  infra-red CCTV, an intruder alarm and secure garage, among other features, to keep the riff-raff out.

Underfloor heating, lighting and door and window locks can also be controlled from a touch pad and adjusted from a computer anywhere in the world.

Inside, the pink brick house is furnished with Portuguese limestone floors, white walls, victorian-style slipper baths and dark wood, giving the feel of a boutique hotel.

Experience: Darryl Boulton plans to build something similar abroad

Outside, six bore holes sunk 300ft deep support the ground-source heat pump providing more than 50 per cent of the heating, and a 12,000-litre tank takes rainwater from the building and provides water for the 28 hosepipe points in the garden.

To protect the newly sown lawns, a deer fence has been erected around the perimeter of the garden, although not the whole 23 acres of the beechwood hillside site.

Despite the acreage, there is no room for horse paddocks since it is all on such a steep incline, although there would be room to carve out some flat ground for a tennis court.

'My eldest son is keen to move in,' says Darryl, married to Aurora with  two sons, James, 16, and Darryl, five. 'But apart from our desire to move on, it is too big for four people.'

Indeed it is too big for many living in its vista. Since completion, Goring resident Dornie Olins has called on the council to knock down the 'horrendous palace' but to no avail.

The council has done nothing because all procedures have been complied with.

Some residents should be grateful that the two pre-existing consents for the site were not built  -  one previous owner was granted permission for an even larger dwelling that looked more like a tower block.

Darryl had set out with the intention of building a house worth about £14 million, although since the recession and his desire to move on has got the best of him, he has slashed the price by £4million. Having the best plot in Berkshire made it worth going for broke, he says.

But despite the uproar from locals, the house has generated a lot of positive interest and Harry Sheppard, of Strutt & Parker, is confident it will sell soon.

'We showed some people around when it was being built but those who buy a house like this need to see door knobs shining and the CCTV up and running,' he says.