Lateral Thought & Lighthouses
Tower For Sale in June/July 2012 (c) 2012 Russ McLean
With such a busy year on the lighthouse front here at the Bulletin – the most prolific in 25 years living at lighthouses – it is an opportune time to review recent events, and also look at some incredibly tasty morsels that are coming down the line.
When they do, you can say that you read it here first.
Better than that, our hope is that you, our reader might bid on one or two of these fantastic projects and have as much fun as we have.
So now we start…
The Golden Beam. The rarest of things.
Please note the first photo at the top of this page is of a lighthouse tower that IS coming up for sale this summer – 2012. The former lighthouse keepers’ houses pictured to the left are NOT for sale, having been sold off some time ago. Once we have the proper notification that the lighthouse tower in the first photo on this page has been formally placed for sale we will feature it on the Unique Property Bulletin website. If you want to make sure of being notified, please register on our Email Subscriber Service on the right hand column of this page.
As for actual lighthouse tower structures. Up until recently there were no more than a handful of these, such as Belle Tout…..
Belle Tout Lighthouse -Not For Sale Just Now (c) 2012 Christine Matthews.
With regard to lighthouse towers, this is the lateral thought part of this feature. It applies to many other such unique buildings to suit your personal taste. Not just lighthouse towers, but coastguard stations, air control towers, castles, barns, the whole list as featured in the Unique Property Manual.
Just distil the thought process to suit. We can doubly prove this works as we accidentally tested the principle earlier today and got a huge shock to learn via lateral thought application that one of our old buildings that we owned ten years ago, but without the tower, is now likely to have that tower come up for sale. More of that at the end of this web page.
For now, what do we mean by lateral thought in relation to unique property?
Obscurely we first caught this process in buying ships. Lateral thinking, or sometimes termed “sideways thinking” was created by renowned Maltese doctor Edward De Bono….
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_de_Bono
When we were looking through the standard ship sale and purchase publications, the sideways, or lateral thought idea grew. Instead of looking for a ship in the normal way in the pages of the ship broking press, we decided to look for keel laying and newbuilds as well. This might seem odd, but for example, one of the major ship owners in the UK is Caledonian MacBrayne (CalMac). Now CMAL ….
http://www.shipsofcalmac.co.uk/ships_timeline.asp
In the year 1999 we studied the newbuild and keel laying process and gained two things.
The first was a very good heads-up that with a new ship on order for this huge shipping company and as a result, the likely event that an old ship, being declared surplus, would in time come up for sale. That, for us, was the old MV Lochmor which we bought in 2001 …..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MV_Lochmor
The second very useful benefit was a significant saving on a drydock prior to ship offer and purchase. We simply asked the owners if we could take our Chief Engineer along to their scheduled annual drydocking of the MV Lochmor. CalMac were very helpful and kindly obliged. Any reader who thinks a car MoT can be costly please email, and we can remove any worry you might ever have about a car test. How? Just try drydocking a Class IIa Ferry with all the ancillary costs for out-of-water hull inspection etc. Very deep pockets are needed. Anyway that is a whole other story.
Back to lighthouses. Applying a similar lateral thought process, we simply looked up “lighthouse” “lens” “removal” and also tried Admiralty Chart Lighthouse Decommissioning plus a few other advance protocol searches.
Up popped the details of an historic lens removal from the lighthouse at the top of this page. This meant the lighthouse tower was being decommissioned.
From there it was just a matter of time until a sale would come about. Indeed we have had over a year advance notice from the owner that this tower IS coming up for disposal to some very lucky person. Maybe you !
A similar sort of lateral thought applies to any building (not just lighthouses) that might catch your attention, but unfortunately are NOT currently for sale.
Another process: It is a very useful idea to drop the owner of a particular unique property that might catch your eye a Christmas Card or brief letter of enquiry asking if they would be so kind as to get in touch with you if they ever decided to sell their building. DON’T stalk them ! A gentle letter maybe once a year is more than enough.
Again we have bought unique property via that very method. It really does work.
Hopefully the above narrative illustrates how various lateral thought processes can be applied to unique property. Any questions or ideas, please pop us a note on the Contact Page/ .
Now onto the middle of this feature. Lighthouse that have been or are still for sale. Plus at the end of this article, the likely additional lighthouse tower that PROBABLY will be coming up for sale is illustrated.
Current Lighthouse Sale List Status ….
Hartland Point Lighthouse (c) 2012 Nicholas Muton.
Hartland Point Lighthouse has now been sold. Is the lucky buyer reading this? Please consider contacting us as we have a television company keen for a mutual introduction to be made.
Corsewall Lighthouse (c) 2012 David Baird.
Corsewall is one of the most beautiful lighthouse complexes in the country and is currently for sale.
Maughold Lighthouse Complex, Isle of Man (c) 2012 Chris Gunns.
Maughold above, a fine island lighthouse complex is currently for sale.
Talacre Lighthouse Tower (c) 2012 Dave Green.
Some lucky person has just purchased this picture postcard gem, pictured above. No longer for sale at this time.
Llaneillian Lighthouse (c) 2012 Williams & Goodwin.
This atmospheric unique icon at llaneillian on the island of Anglesey is currently for sale.
The Old Lighthouse at St Ann’s Head (c) 2012 FBM with Fine & Country Estates.
The wonderful views abound at this tower located by Dale, Haverfordwest. Fully for sale at the time of writing (May 2012).
Last but not least ….
Strathy Point Lighthouse Complex (c) 2012 Russ McLean
Strathy Point Lighthouse Tower. Why might it be for sale ….
http://www.northern-times.co.uk/News/Residents-anger-as-lighthouse-goes-dark-7713973.htm
Watch this space, or for safety and not miss out on the heads-up, we repeat our suggestion – join our email alert subscriber news list on the right hand margin.
For the past three decades with lighthouse tower automation, the old lighthouse keepers have been gradually pensioned off, and the houses that went with the jobs came onto the market in a steady flow.
However the towers are something else.
So rare is the actual lighthouse tower that we featured the one at the top of this page on the front cover of our Unique Property Manual book.
Simply take an intuitive crack at locating the lighthouse tower at the top of this feature yourself, or if you want advance notice to get your due diligence and finances etc., sorted out, you can buy our Unique Property Manual/ . That is part of the enjoyment. Sleuthing about and around for fine, indeed wonderful unique structures.
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Unique Future Features….
Article features for past, present and future editions:-
Castles In The Air (November 2011); Buy A Bank – Not On The Banks Of Loch Lomond (December 2011); Two Summers & No Winters (January 2012); Inspired By Islands (February 2012); Charmed By Churches (March 2012); Olympic and Large Ship Secrets (April 2012); Lateral Thought & Lighthouses (May 2012); Old Nick (June 2012); Sore Point (July 2012); Infinite Space – Stunningly Special (September 2012); National Assets – National Treasures (October 2012); Leasehold On Life – Freehold & Feuhold (November 2012); Railways, Beeching, Betjeman & Hyslop (December 2012); Coast, A Picture Of Britain & Truffles (January 2013); Take It To The Bridge (February 2013); Going Underground – London Style (March 2013); On Your Doorstep (April 2013); Adventures Afar (May 2013); Coastguard Stations (June 2013); Saved By A Screensaver (July 2013) Labour Of Love (August 2013); Unique People (September 2013), and much, much more.
