Sarah Beeny has always followed her one golden rule in the property business - but was forced to break it after a tragedy. The popular presenter and property expert, who has been in the industry for three decades, has spent that time spreading her mantra of 'renovate don't relocate'.
The Beeny’s Restoration Nightmare host has advised us to spend a bit of money doing up our current home to suit our needs rather than going through the stress of buying somewhere new. However, Sarah was put in a difficult position and decided it was finally time to break her golden rule and move out of London after family heartbreak.
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Sadly, Sarah's father had a stroke in January 18 that left him in a frail state - and he also suffered from delirium which she described as a "terribly lonely illness for both sufferer and family".
"My husband had wanted to move out of London for years and I always resisted," she told The Mirror in April 2020.
"But my father had a stroke in 2018, and it made me realise that as he becomes frailer I need to be around.
"My mother-in-law moved to Somerset, and my brother – who I am very close to – also relocated. My brother is married to my husband's sister, so now we're all here."
Having spent years telling viewers to do up their own houses, Sarah admitted the "irony" of moving from London to the Somerset countryside was not lost on her.
Along with husband Graham Swift and their four sons, the family ditched their "cosy life in London" and filmed the experience for Channel 4 show Sarah Beeny's New Life In The Country.
"We've looked around stately homes all our lives and what we wanted to do is build a house that has a sense of grandeur of some of the big stately homes but is on a micro scale," explained Sarah.
Sarah and Graham took on a whopping 220-acre, semi-derelict former dairy farm, but they are no strangers to a rebuild as they bought Grade II-listed stately home, Rise Hall in Yorkshire in 2001.
The renovation of the crumbling mansion into a palatial wedding venue, which Sarah now admits was "a little bit crazy", was documented in the TV series Restoration Nightmares.
They enjoyed many happy years staying there but it never became their main family home and was sold along with their London home to buy their new dairy farm down in Somerset.
The couple planned to spend around £500,000 on their new home, which also includes 12 massive fields with a flock of 1,000 grazing sheep and a handful of outbuildings.
Graham, a professional artist, is said to have "spent years visualising his ambitions for the farm" and they wanted to convert the old dairy farm into a modern, carbon neutral, miniature manor house.
Alongside the ambitious building project, Sarah and Graham wanted to have bees, hens and plant 1,000 young trees to improve biodiversity as part of a rewilding project to support the farm’s biodiversity.
There were concerns that their four sons would not adapt to their new surroundings, but Sarah said she had been pleasantly surprised.
"Having four sons, I wanted them to have a mixed education and have more access to music, drama and sport," she told The Mirror.
"We came to see a school down here that was so perfect, it was the deciding factor.
"We have been so lucky with how well they’ve settled, I’m almost pinching myself. With four kids you’d expect one to be miserable.
"I was worried about my 15-year-old, he was such a London kid, then suddenly he’s in the middle of a farm in Somerset. But they’ve all really blossomed."
While Sarah fronts the show and has the TV experience, she has admitted that Graham is the real force behind the epic project.
"I do joke about divorce as it's funny, but there's no possibility I could've done anything I've done without Graham. I'm not the rock with him as the support – he's the rock while I'm floundering around," she previously said.
"We're very much partners in business, and in life. He is my best friend and it's fun being with somebody you get on with and know inside out."
Sarah is going through her own personal health issues and announced she has breast cancer.
The much-loved property guru started a course of chemotherapy last week and will also start a course of radiotherapy in the new year.
The star admitted she had "a little bit of a breakdown" after receiving the news in a hospital consultation room - and has vowed not to lie to her kids about her diagnosis.
Sarah, who lost her mother to cancer when she was 10-years-old, said her boys helped cut her hair, joking that they aren't going to be famous hairdressers.
"I'm lucky because I live in a family where we all talk," she told the Telegraph - and spoke about the conversation she had with her kids.
"They just said, 'You will be honest?' and I said, 'I promise you that I'm going to be around for a jolly long time yet. It's going to be a bit difficult. But I promise I won't lie.' And I think they were OK once I said that."
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