A Polish builder who arrived in this country with just £1,000 has put his Surrey pad on the market for a whopping £20million. Andrew Holeshowski bought their mansion for less than £500,000 in 1993 and has completed extensive renovation work on the property but the result is a home fit for a King. He and his wife had to buy out the neighbours at first as the house was divided into three. In 2005 he tried to sell his part of the house for £3million but had no offers. As a result their neighbours then decided to sell their parts to him and so in 2007 he and his wife owned the whole house.
The house was set in more than three acres, which included a three bedroom cottage, and once they had bought the house in its entirety did he set about turning the modest house near Oxshott into a superb mansion. The house dates from 1880 and Andrew wanted to turn the house into something very special but halfway through its extensive renovation the recession hit. Banks refused to lend any more money to complete the work and so in 2009 with just the shell completed he enlisted the help of his business partner to complete the rest.
With the capital being invested from his business partner they decided to set up a company specialising in deluxe builds and refurbishments. Pinewoods, the name given to the mansion, was their first completion to go on the market. They also have a six bedroom house in Beaconsfield in Buckinghamshire which is nearly completed and another in St George’s Hill in Weybridge, Surrey.
Pinewoods has been used as a film set due to its luxurious deco. They excavated 20ft for a 6,000 sq ft car park and staff quarters with an indoor swimming pool and Art Deco cinema, there is also a helipad on the lawn. Andrew will save thousands on capital gains tax as Pinewoods is classed as his home. It is 29,000 sq ft in size but if you include the roof terrace it increases to 32,000 sq ft. John Terry is his neighbour and the house has panoramic views which stretch as far as Canary Wharf and Wembley. If the house sells for its asking price then it will break new records. Houses in the area usually sell for around the £3million mark but few are this size.
The house, although modern, still has grand period features such as plaster fresco showing scenes from Milton’s Paradise Lost and a banqueting hall, complete with chandelier, overlooks the helipad. There is also an outdoor swimming pool and the new extension which houses the indoor one also has a bar, gym and spa treatment rooms. £500.000 has been spent on the electrics with 80 hidden loudspeakers and through motion sensors in the floor which allow the lights to come on automatically. There is a state of the art Bulthaup kitchen and Andrew says that he spent £10million on the rebuild. There are nine bedrooms upstairs which houses the cinema with leather reclining chairs.
The house will probably be bought by a Russian oligarch or an oil sheik needing a UK bolthole. They are probably the only ones who could afford it.