A couple have transformed a £85k rotting 19th century church into £1.5M luxury home.
Sean, 61, and Debs Kennedy-Tallis, 54, bought the run down St Paul’s Church in Denholme, Yorkshire, UK in 2017 for a knock-down price at auction.
The couple got to work straight away spending £420,000 converting the damaged and roof-less 161-year-old building into into a four-bed family home.
They have now listed it for sale for £1.5 million.
Sean, 61, and Debs Kennedy-Tallis, 54, bought the run down St Paul’s Church in Denholme, Yorkshire, UK in 2017 for a knock-down price at auction.
The couple got to work straight away spending £420,000 converting the damaged and roof-less 161-year-old building into into a four-bed family home.
They have now listed it for sale for £1.5 million.
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FunTranscript
00:00So Deb's business was advertising on local radio and they were playing that one in the office and the advert came on for the church being for sale by auction and Deb's gave me a ring and said do you want to take on a church as we were looking for a house for ourselves when we got married.
00:25And I thought yeah, she told me where it was and I thought I know this church but it's going to be a big project. But all the same we came along and had a look and fell in love with the place even though it was really really in a sad state. But I thought it was something we could take on.
00:45We weren't allowed to view the building were we internally. It was structurally unsafe. It was knee deep in pigeon debris, pigeons, plaster, stone. It was just a mess. It had been empty for 20 plus years and being explored by urban explorers and all sorts.
01:05They tried to burn the place down at some point. But I think we saw through all that and thought actually the building is beautiful and needs saving.
01:16And I think that was our first thought was we can do something here to save this building. Scary at first.
01:23That's when we got told off by kids and kids.
01:25Yeah, we didn't tell anyone we were actually buying the building. And when we did say we've actually bought the building, yeah, what have you done that for? You really have no idea what you're taking on.
01:36It was one of those things that we knew we could tackle. And the leading thought was it's a beautiful building. We can make this a lovely home and also save the building.
01:46But then the reality sinks in of how much is this going to cost. Well, yeah, the building was really on its knees and about to fall down.
01:54So the first thing was to take the roof off in itself was a mammoth task. And because the church had closed due to dry rot, it was structurally unsafe.
02:03So we had to make it structurally safe and make it weatherproof. Just tackled one bit at a time in trying to make the building stable first.
02:11We had a few issues and we had to change a few things. But generally speaking, it's been like an adventure.
02:20And the building, even though it's a difficult building to work with, has seemed to work with us.
02:26And we never once did we ever say, yeah, what have we done? I regret this. Never, ever once.
02:33Yeah, now we've finished it and we love it. We absolutely love the building. We've had some wonderful social events here. And we've also brought part of the community in here.
02:45We do have open days and it makes the place come alive.
02:50Because I'm used to it.
02:51But that's it. Now our family are growing up and disbanding. It's something we need now with somebody with new imagination, new family, to come in here and make it come back to life again.
03:03It's just one of those things to pass the baton on and let somebody take it now to the next level.