AGATHA CHRISTIE HOTEL OWNER KILLS OFF £15M SALE
The owner of a historic hotel known for its association with Agatha Christie has abandoned plans for a £15m sale of the property.
The Grade II listed Burgh Island hotel, which sits on a private island near Plymouth, was previously placed on the market by owner Giles Fuchs.
However, Mr Fuchs has scrapped plans to sell the 25-room property after a proposed buyer pulled out on the day of completion.
Instead, Mr Fuchs now plans to invest in the hotel after refinancing £5.4m worth of loans and securing additional funding from Metro Bank.
He said: “It was on the market for a while, and we had lots and lots of interest. We had several offers, but no one who could prove their finance.
“A chap then popped up and made an offer that was acceptable, and showed us he had funds, and then we set off on the process of instructing lawyers to sell it.
“Unfortunately, the chap decided that on exchange, on the day of exchange, he decided he wasn’t going to buy it after all.”
The new bank loans will be put towards refurbishing the hotel and improving its infrastructure, said Mr Fuchs, including sea defences to prevent cliff erosion.
Company accounts for Burgh Island Hotel reveal revenues were flat at £6.1m in 2023, while pre-tax profits fell from £851,670 to £519,930. Mr Fuchs said this was because of spending £400,000 on a new sewage system.
After beginning its life as a prefabricated house in the 1890s, the art deco hotel that sits on Burgh Island today was constructed in the late 1920s by the filmmaker Archibald Nettlefold.
Its patrons included Agatha Christie, a friend of Mr Nettlefold, who at one point lived in a beach house on the island, wrote two novels there, and surfed the beaches nearby. As well as the beach house, the island has its own helipad.
Mr Fuchs said: “She came and she borrowed the beach house and wrote some of her novels in it. She would have graced the halls, the bars and the dance floor.”
The hotel itself is said to have served as inspiration for her novels Evil Under the Sun and And Then There Were None. A 2001 TV adaptation of Evil Under the Sun was even filmed there.
Its association with the novelist has turned it into a hotspot for fans of Agatha Christie.
It offers a number of murder mystery weekend breaks and events, while it is rumoured to have hosted Dwight D. Eisenhower and Winston Churchill in the run- up to D-Day.
However, staying at the hotel is not cheap.
Booking a room for one night can cost north of £500, while the entire island can be rented out for events – costing upwards of £48,000 in some cases.
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