Hitting the jackpot
Home close to EuroMillions couple’s mansion will make its owner feel like a winner
THERE is something hugely appealing about being able to say you share something with Scotland’s – and Britain’s – biggest lottery winners. After Chris and Colin Weir won £161 million in the EuroMillions in 2011, they spent £3 million of their fortune on the Frognal Estate in Troon, Ayrshire.
The grand house sports an impressive stone fireplace that bears the motto Via una, cor unum.
The same Latin phrase, which translates as ‘one way, one heart’, sits amid an identical fireplace in Treetops, an elegant mansion house on the other side of the woods in the town.
As you might suspect, there’s a love story behind it all.
Jack Hart was a member of a prosperous local family who lived at Frognal in the early years of the 20th Century.
He fell in love with a Miss Robertson, heiress to the eponymous jam-making family, and had Treetops built for them to move into as newly-weds in 1926.
The ‘one way, one heart’ legend is believed to be the Hart family motto.
For the past 30 years, Treetops has been home to Glasgow solicitor Bill Macreath and his wife, Beatrice. With more than four acres of lovely woodland and lawn surrounding them, they must have felt like lottery winners themselves living in a place such as this.
‘It’s been a beautiful home,’ says Mr Macreath, who is retiring to a hilltop property in the South of France with his wife.
‘The craftsmanship is first-class. There’s pitch pine all over the house, oak floors, oak panelling and Canadian pine on the front door.
‘It took a tradesman friend of ours 17 days to strip the storm doors and treat them again. He said he had never seen wood like it.
‘But Jack Hart and his wife built this to be a family home and people still remark how welcoming it is. It still makes me feel good inside.’
In total, Treetops has almost 5,000 square feet of luxury accommodation over three levels.
The ground floor consists of an entrance vestibule, the large reception hall with feature stone fireplace and French doors to the garden, drawing room, dining room, morning room and kitchen.
There are four double bedrooms plus a home office on the first floor. The French roll-top bath in one of the two family bathrooms is original and was refurbished in 1986.
A secondary staircase provides access to the second floor, which has been converted to form two further bedrooms with shower, WC and extensive storage.
As well as plentiful lawn and flower beds, the garden includes an all-weather tennis court with mesh fence enclosure.
There is a touching footnote to the story of Jack Hart and his bride, the first owners of Treetops.
Sadly, Mr Hart died at a young age in 1938, only 12 years after moving into the marital home.
His widow opened the doors of Treetops to child evacuees from Glasgow, who were sent to rural areas during the Second World War to escape Luftwaffe bombing raids.
Remarkably, Mrs Macreath managed to track down Mrs Hart’s surviving daughter, Elspeth, now in her eighties and living in England.
She sent the elderly lady photos of her childhood home, who replied she was ‘amazed’ it had changed so little over the years.
In return, Elspeth sent members of her own family to Troon to inspect the place for themselves.
By way of thanks, she gave the Macreaths a silver ashtray which Jack Hart had won at Royal Troon Golf Club when Elspeth was a girl.
It was a gift Mr Macreath, in particular, appreciated as he is a former captain of nearby Prestwick Golf Club.
Offers over £995,000 to Corum, Troon. Telephone 01292 310 010 or email troon@corumproperty.co.uk