Sold at last (with a £7m discount), mansion that became a white elephant
WHEN it went on the market at £8million, the luxury mansion in the grounds of Gleneagles Hotel and Golf Resort was hailed as Scotland’s most expensive home.
But it seems the hype and the asking price were hopelessly unrealistic – for The Whitehouse has now sold for less than £1million.
Prospective buyers were told it was a bargain, despite the massive asking price when it went on sale three years ago.
Set in the exclusive gated community of Queen’s Crescent, where 14 plots were sold off by the hotel for £1million each, it was described as a ‘Great Gatsby-style’ mansion with a blend of Georgian and Art Deco styles.
The 13,000sq ft property was billed as coming complete with its own swimming pool, orangery, soundproofed cinema, three- car garage and more than half an acre of garden.
The luxury home was marketed to rich foreign golf fans but, after it failed to find a buyer, development work on it stalled.
Eventually The Whitehouse was repossessed by a bank in 2013.
Now property records reveal that it has been sold to a local businessman for a knockdown price of £861,888, barely a tenth of the original asking price.
Moreover, the price paid includes free membership of the Gleneagles resort for two years.
The house was expected to be ready for occupation ahead of the 2014 staging of the Ryder Cup match between Europe and the USA at Gleneagles.
But it was never completed and l ast year estate agent Savills slashed the price to offers over £750,000 – one of the biggest price reductions in Scottish property history. When The Whitehouse was first advertised, John Coleman, a partner with selling agent Smiths Gore, insisted that, despite the property’s daunting price tag, there should be no problem in attracting plenty of wealthy potential buyers from all corners of the globe.
He said: ‘Not only is it architecturally stunning, with state-of-theart finishes, and is a golf lover’s dream, but at £500 per square foot it is a relative bargain, compared to other luxury properties worldwide which go for ten times that.
‘In Hong Kong, the average price of luxury property is almost £7,000 per sq ft and in Mayfair in London sales are now achieving £5,500 per sq ft.
‘We are looking at people who want to buy something special at a golf hotel resort.
‘There are all sorts of choices in America, Japan, Hong Kong and South Africa, and what we are saying is that if we want to compete with these guys, then we have to build the very best.’
‘And that is what we are doing here. Everything will be top spec.
‘This is about buying the very best of what Scotland has to offer on the very best golf resort.
‘We think, in world terms, this is good value for money.’