Since it was first featured on Channel 4's Grand Designs back in 2019, Chesil Cliff House has been dubbed as the "saddest ever build", but owner Edward Short is not planning to give up yet.
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The Devonshire property left Short in millions of pounds of debt and it even affected his marriage, but now in 2024 he plans to borrow another £2 million to add fixtures to the house, Short told The Sun.
Some of the additions to the property include re-engineering its clifftop driveway, which leads to a second smaller property on the plot.
"It's been passed on to the receivers but that means you lose control of how it's sold, and if they sell for their listed price of £5.25m I will have lost an awful lot of money," he told the publication.
Kevin McCloud in Grand Designs Channel 4
If the right fixtures are added to the property, Short anticipates putting the property back on the market for £10 million.
"I'm still trying to avoid a complete disaster for us as a family and the current situation would end up as exactly that," he continued.
"Whereas doing something about the problems, I believe, would leave me in a position to be able to pay back the most money, and that's the bottom line."
Back in November 2023, the property was on sale for £6.5 million, as per Knight Frank, which was £3.5 million down from its original asking price, with Grand Designs host Kevin McCloud previously giving an update on Short's plans for the property.
"Ed and I still communicate by email now and again," he told Metro.
"It's not always the case you keep in contact with people, but in his case, it was such a special project and we had a lot of shared interests in common and we share a mutual friend."
Katelyn Mensah is the Entertainment and Factual Writer for Radio Times, covering all major entertainment programmes, reality TV shows and the latest hard-hitting documentaries. She previously worked at The Tab, with a focus on reality TV and showbiz news and has obtained a BA (Hons) in Journalism.
