Thursday, October 15, 2009

More Nic Cage Property News Whether You Want It Or Not

This morning Your Mama awoke still boozy and bleary eyed to a flood of urgent and breathy emails from across the pond. It seems that everyone but the damn Queen of England was all kinds of eager to make Your Mama aware of a report in the Daily News about the financially strapped American actor Nic Cage selling his club shaped, 18th century castle located in Somerset, on the outskirts of Bath and about 118 miles from London.

Mister Cage purchased the 58.6 acre estate in Somerset back in the spring/summer of 2007 when he was still snatching up high priced properties like they were candy bars. It was widely rumored and reported that Mister Cage paid close to the £5,000,000 asking price, a figure our currency conversion contraption reveals is $7,980,400 at today's rates but would have been closer to $8,280,000 back in July of 2007.

Although Your Mama was completely unaware that the architecturally eccentric castle was for sale–in fact, we'd heard or read somewhere that Mister Cage and his former waitress wife Alice Kim were planning on making the castle their primary home and enrolling baby Cage in school locally–The Daily News reports that a buyer has offered Mister Cage an amount of money close to the £3,500,000 guide price, which would be an asking price of approximately $5,586,280 in Americanese at today's rates. A few flicks of the well worn beads on our bejeweled abacus reveals that, if the report is accurate, Mister Cage could lose as much as $2,700,000 on the purchase and subsequent sale of the scenic and historic property. Your Mama imagines that Mister Cage and his tax people might like to show a net loss on next years tax forms, but even still, a two and some million dollar hit to the pocketbook has to hurt none the less.

In addition to a the trefoil shaped castle, the 58.6 acre estate includes a Gothic orangery, a former priory, a couple of cottages, chapel ruins and additional out buildings. According to the sales brochure graciously and generously provided by a couple of Your Mama's lovely limey children, the 4-floor castle includes 7 bedrooms, a drawing room, dining room, library, eat-in kitchen and laundry facilities. By Your Mama's count–all together and including the former staff accommodations on the lower ground floor–the idiosyncratic castle contains 26 rooms spread over 11,009 square feet with 4 hexagonal inner halls, 8 fireplaces and 3.5 poopers, plus a myriad of additional terlit and wash closets.

Mister Cage recently sold an approximately 9,000 square foot Georgian style townhouse in the famous 18th century Circus in nearby Bath. That 5- floor stunner has 5 bedrooms, 6 poopers, a 30-foot long kitchen, a large back garden and an indoor swimming pool in the basement. It was reported at the time that the townhouse was sold off to assist in paying for a restoration of Midford Castle. Apparently, whatever proceeds where realized from that sale were not enough to pay off Mister Cage's considerable debts, leins and back taxes and pay for any desired renovation work on the castle.

Of course, Mister Cage has about 49,000 other luxury properties on the market including what was once considered his primary residence in Bel Air, CA. As every man, woman and child surely knows by now, that Copa de Ora Road residence was originally listed with a teeth chattering price tag of $35,000,000. After many price chops and a failed sealed bid thingamajig in September of 2009, the house was hoisted back on the market with an asking price of $17,500,000. It appears–and had been widely reported including by Your Mama–that the property has finally gone under contract. It remains to be seen whether the transaction will close, at what price and to whom the 7 bedroom and 9 pooper mansion will next belong.

P.S. Your Mama would sincerely like to thank all the many folks who sent emails and forwarded links to stories regarding this matter. There were simply too many of y'all to thank individually but special shout outs must go to our finely feathered friend Flora and our British compatriot The London House Hound who went the extra mile and sent along the original sales brochure from when the property was listed for sale in 2007.

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