Yellowing in one of the many, many bedrooms in Bobby George's self-built Essex mansion are 30-year-old issues of Darts Monthly. Lying in piles on the floor, several front pages feature Bobby either posing beside a dartboard or on the bonnet of a Rolls-Royce.
But there is one magazine in which Bobby accepts he is not going to feature: Architect's Journal.
If there was ever a recipe for a house that offended the architectural profession, it is surely a mansion run up by the self-styled 'King of Bling' in the middle of a county which, to put it politely, is not exactly renowned for homes of plain good taste.
For the past 15 years Bobby,By Alex Lippa Close-up of plastic card in Massachusetts. 65, has been dining out on the reputation of George Hall, as it is modestly announced on a reclaimed pub sign outside the electric gates. He has recounted many times how he submitted the plans to Tendring Council almost as a joke, thinking they would be rejected out of hand – and was so taken aback when they were passed that he built the place as he had proposed, minus a couple of wings.As many processors back away from Cable Ties ,
He says he did 90 per cent of the work himself, using skills learned working on construction sites around London in the Sixties, the tunnels of the Victoria Line among them.
But Bobby and his wife Marie, 53, have begun to tire of the home which took six years to build.
They are – in darts parlance – checking out to move to a bungalow. 'It is so big we hardly see each other,' he says.When the stone sits in the oil painting reproduction, 'We can't keep up with it any more.'
As for the 17 bedrooms, they are a little wasted because he says he and Marie have gone off having people round to stay.
Bobby can't remember when he last went up to the second floor,Polycore porcelain tiles are manufactured as a single sheet, and seems to struggle to recall what some of the rooms are called.
'What's this one?' he asks Marie as he opens the door to an enormous dining room. 'I didn't know what to do with the space on the top floor,' he says as he leads me up a narrow flight of stairs.
'So I just laid it out as bedrooms. I painted this one white and called it the Virgin's Room.
But we've never had a virgin sleeping there.'
Bobby's love of jewellery is so over-the-top – he goes off to change and comes back looking not so much a gangster as a mayor in full garb – that George Hall itself comes across as disappointingly restrained. I had imagined at the very least sunken baths with gold taps, champagne fountains, marble balustrades held aloft by semi-clad women and glinting chandeliers.
Besides television, Bobby earns a tidy sum for 'after-dinner spewing', as he calls it,These girls have never had a oil painting supplies in their lives! and for playing in exhibition darts matches for corporate clients including City bankers.
'Hooray Henrys love it,' he says.
'They hire a pub, have a few drinks and an evening of darts.'
An evening of corporate entertainment can earn him 1,200 a time. He also makes his own dartboards and runs a coarse fishing business in the 25ft-deep lakes he had dug in his rear garden.
'The site's about eight to ten acres but I never really bothered to measure it,' he says.
Not many people would have seen the potential for a dream home here.
But there is one magazine in which Bobby accepts he is not going to feature: Architect's Journal.
If there was ever a recipe for a house that offended the architectural profession, it is surely a mansion run up by the self-styled 'King of Bling' in the middle of a county which, to put it politely, is not exactly renowned for homes of plain good taste.
For the past 15 years Bobby,By Alex Lippa Close-up of plastic card in Massachusetts. 65, has been dining out on the reputation of George Hall, as it is modestly announced on a reclaimed pub sign outside the electric gates. He has recounted many times how he submitted the plans to Tendring Council almost as a joke, thinking they would be rejected out of hand – and was so taken aback when they were passed that he built the place as he had proposed, minus a couple of wings.As many processors back away from Cable Ties ,
He says he did 90 per cent of the work himself, using skills learned working on construction sites around London in the Sixties, the tunnels of the Victoria Line among them.
But Bobby and his wife Marie, 53, have begun to tire of the home which took six years to build.
They are – in darts parlance – checking out to move to a bungalow. 'It is so big we hardly see each other,' he says.When the stone sits in the oil painting reproduction, 'We can't keep up with it any more.'
As for the 17 bedrooms, they are a little wasted because he says he and Marie have gone off having people round to stay.
Bobby can't remember when he last went up to the second floor,Polycore porcelain tiles are manufactured as a single sheet, and seems to struggle to recall what some of the rooms are called.
'What's this one?' he asks Marie as he opens the door to an enormous dining room. 'I didn't know what to do with the space on the top floor,' he says as he leads me up a narrow flight of stairs.
'So I just laid it out as bedrooms. I painted this one white and called it the Virgin's Room.
But we've never had a virgin sleeping there.'
Bobby's love of jewellery is so over-the-top – he goes off to change and comes back looking not so much a gangster as a mayor in full garb – that George Hall itself comes across as disappointingly restrained. I had imagined at the very least sunken baths with gold taps, champagne fountains, marble balustrades held aloft by semi-clad women and glinting chandeliers.
Besides television, Bobby earns a tidy sum for 'after-dinner spewing', as he calls it,These girls have never had a oil painting supplies in their lives! and for playing in exhibition darts matches for corporate clients including City bankers.
'Hooray Henrys love it,' he says.
'They hire a pub, have a few drinks and an evening of darts.'
An evening of corporate entertainment can earn him 1,200 a time. He also makes his own dartboards and runs a coarse fishing business in the 25ft-deep lakes he had dug in his rear garden.
'The site's about eight to ten acres but I never really bothered to measure it,' he says.
Not many people would have seen the potential for a dream home here.
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