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.

17 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think Mr.Cage needs a 12 step program for compulsive house buying. Considering the beating he is taking on what real estate he can off-load, and his apparent financial woes, he might be cured of his need to buy everything he sees. Rent Nic, rent, it's way less complicated!

StPaulSnowman said...

Yes....yes.......in a heart beat! Any links to interior shots would be much appreciated. Of all the Cages for sale, this is the one I would have struggled to hold on to.

Kellsboro Jack said...

Least it goes without mentioning that his Middletown, RI purchase of Gray Craig Manor and now on the market will result in a significant loss too. A deal to sell it a couple months ago near breakeven fell through.

Via his entity Hancock Park Real Estate Trust he bought the property in late July 2007 for $15.7 million.

It now is listed for $12,000,000.

Anonymous said...

For a country estate there's no land!

"Queen of England" - No such person exists!

Queen of Great Britain & Northern Ireland ... or

Queen of Canada/Australia/New Zealand/Jamaica etc etc ...

luke220 said...

The first link above provides a link to the listing brochure.

It is a beautiful property.

My word verification is "peentis"

Dorothy Arzner said...

he must have thought he was a much bigger star than anyone else did

Anonymous said...

He must really be hurting to be dumping all of these properties at once amidst the worst market for selling high end properties in a looong time.

Is anyone keeping score at home?
It seems like he must be down a good $10 Million by now. I can't imagine how much he must be spending on the upkeep of all these properties.

Anonymous said...

Interestingly the sales brochure states "The present owners,
who bought the Castle in 1961, incorporated the
Chapel into the garden as a picturesque ruin." ????????

Anonymous said...

He could have had a nice main mansion and a nice vacation mansion and he would have been fine.
Greed.

Anonymous said...

the nerve to let a chapel in the garden go to sh*t and call it a "picturesque ruin" is beyond me!!

Anonymous said...

What does it say that I read "trefoil shaped" and start dreaming about Girl Scout cookies?

Thanks for this post Mama and for the link to the sales brochure. This place is lovely.

Have you considered trying to contact Nic Cage and doing an interview about his real estate foibles? I'd bet any magazine would pay a pretty penny for that story!

Anonymous said...

The mystery is somewhat solved this morning, he is suing his business manager for at least $20-million for gross mismanagement of his finances and not paying his taxes...

Anonymous said...

I wonder what his neighbors think of him?

I live next to a flipper house that has been on the market for over a year. It is not FUN. The house was previously owned by a plant collector and is now very over grown. The fruit trees bring in the rats with the dropping fruit, and the abandon ponds are breeding areas for mosquitoes. I have had to call vector and weed control twice! The flipper owner cares very little about the neighbors, just his wallet!

I hope Cage keeps these huge estates up. The gardener bills must be insane!

Anonymous said...

8:40 am. Ah yes, "my manager is to blame." I wonder what kind of manager would buy all these strange properties without his client's approval. Doesn't figure.

Anonymous said...

Big news of today just posted at TMZ and Huffington....

I guess the estate walls are now truly falling down around him. He is now suing someone else for his greedy flipping habit.

Karma has sharp teeth!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/16/nicolas-cage-sues-busines_n_323690.html

Addison said...

Actor Nic Cage is suing his financial advisor for placing him in "numerous highly speculative and risky real estate investments, resulting in Cage suffering catastrophic losses."

yep, that sounds about right.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/dailydish/detail?blogid=7&entry_id=49748#ixzz0UKnDYCaT

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/dailydish/detail?blogid=7&entry_id=49748

Anonymous said...

can mr cage sue himself for mismanagement? hmmm, i wonder.