First impressions will really count for potential buyers of this £3million property thanks to its garden pond – which looks just like Monet’s famous ‘Water Lilles’ landscape.
Easterlands is an eight bedroom house built in the 19th century and sitting in more than 44 acres of gardens and land.
At the centre is a beautiful pond and Japanese bridge which could be right out of a garden in the French village Giverny, Claude Monet’s famous home.
The artist moved to the village in 1883 and had a beautiful lily pond which he would regularly sit and paint.
Both Monet’s pond and the one at Easterlands, which pre-dates the artist’s, have the same bridge and beautiful trees hanging over the water.
The Frenchman, who died in 1926 aged 86, painted approximately 250 pieces around the pond and bridge with works in galleries across the world.
But while one of Monet’s water lily paintings sold for £41 million in 2008, Easterlands is on the market for less than a tenth, with the owners asking for £3.1 million.
The stunning home, in Sampford Arundel, Somerset, has a reception hall, study, drawing room, dining room, garden room and billiards room.
On top of the eight bedrooms there is a coach house with stables and barns as well as a tennis court, covered swimming pool, a two-bed cottage and three-bed lodge.
It is on the market with Savills, with the agents describing it is “one of the area’s most important homes”.
Richard Addington, from Savills in Exeter, said: “Set in about 44 acres of its own parkland, the property sits among the rolling countryside on the Devon/Somerset border at the foot of the Blackdown Hills.
“Although built in the 19th Century, the style of the property harks back to the Georgian era.
“With five bedroom suites and three further bedrooms, a separate coach house, guest cottage, lodge and covered swimming pool, Easterlands has the ultimate accommodation for entertaining.
“The gardens and grounds are nothing short of glorious. The bridge over the pond bears a striking resemblance to that featured in Monet’s paintings of Giverny and offers quite a bonus for purchasers.”
The reception rooms boast high ceilings and have elegant detailing including substantial fireplaces and panelling.
There is also a conservatory and billiards room while the bedrooms are nearly all arranged with en suite access to a bathroom and the cellars beneath the house offer plenty of usable accommodation.
In the mid-1920s, the house was lived in by the Fox family, which were behind Fox Brothers and Co, the textiles business now run by Dragons’ Den star Deborah Meaden.
The current owners have lived in the property for around 35 years and, while they have carried out a lot of work, it could do with some updating.
