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Back in 1986, William and Ann Brennan spotted a small advert in a newspaper announcing the sale of Gissing Hall, a stately but dilapidated Grade-II listed manor house with five acres in south Norfolk.
On a whim they viewed the property - up for sale at £150,000, this cut-price stately home was too tempting not to investigate - and bought it.
The 16,000sq ft house, in the village of Gissing, with 44 rooms, 23 of them bedrooms, turned out to be a money pit, albeit an elegant one. It gobbled up the Brennans' earnings, savings, any money they had inherited and anything they could borrow.
Gissing game: The 44-room hall in south Norfolk bought for £150,000
They estimate that it cost between £300,000 and £400,000 to refurbish the bulk of the property and took more than six years to complete. The Brennans set up the house as a holiday-home business - comedian Rowan Atkinson once stayed - then turned it into a hotel, then a wedding venue, but nothing made enough.
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ShareIn desperation they wrote to Ruth Watson, the no-nonsense presenter of Channel 4's Country House Rescue, initially asking her to provide them with paid consultancy but in the end agreeing to be on her programme, which was broadcast last month.
During the show they admitted they were losing £40,000 a year and often employing more hotel staff than there were paying guests. The strain of living with the financial uncertainty for so long was most visible in William, who seemed defeated.
Stately: One of the refurbished bedrooms complete with four-poster bed
Watson advised the Brennans to concentrate on weddings - and to burn the old-fashioned curtains in the ballroom while they were at it. By the end of the programme it all looked hopeful: there were new curtains, a new manager and the bookings were rolling in. It looked as if the couple's luck was changing and they were about to make some serious money.
The programme's final credit dropped a bombshell, however: the Brennans had decided to put Gissing Hall on the market. Indeed, Chesterton Humberts is now selling the property - along with a separate, modern four-bedroom home, within sight of the main house, where the Brennans now live - for £1.5 million.
What on earth happened? 'Basically, we want to retire. We're nearly 70 and we don't want the worry of the hotel any more,' says William, who is 68, sipping tea in the garden beside Ann, 69, an artist.
Proud: The hall's owners William and Ann Brennan
The reason for the sale isn't that Ruth Watson's suggestions didn't help. On the contrary, in the 18 months between filming and broadcast, business has improved, and the Brennans have made an impressive £100,000 profit in the past 12 months. It's a very good return indeed, and a real achievement for the couple who started the business from scratch with no knowledge of the industry.
'We do feel proud for having got this far,' says William. 'It's taken far longer than we expected, but finally the business is doing well, and it feels as if we're getting something back after all the hard work and worry.
'If we had the energy, we would build on this and make a nice life for ourselves, but at our time of life, it's just too demanding.'
Visiting the property in the end-of-summer sunshine, you can see why the Brennans threw caution to the wind 25 years ago. Gissing Hall is a thing of beauty: red-bricked and elegant, there are roses climbing the walls, and above it all a Legoland of chimneys and stepped gables.
The house was built in Tudor times, burned down during the Civil War then rebuilt in Georgian times, and has since been extended. The reception rooms on the ground floor are grand, with high ceilings and light pouring in through large windows. Upstairs is a rabbit warren, much of it in need of modernisation.
There is a complex network of rooms, some beautiful - the bridal suite is grand enough for an Austen heroine - but others odd. You have to bend double to get into one room (the underside of a staircase slashes obliquely across the doorframe). The staircases elsewhere are seriously narrow. The roof apparently needs checking out - it's hard to imagine how much that will cost.
As Tim Stephens, the manager of the Norwich branch of Chesterton Humberts and the agent handling the sale, points out, the property has been refurbished in stages over the years, so you're left with some rooms that are modern and impressive, while others are in need of work.
He estimates that upgrading it to become a top-flight hotel will cost as much as £500,000. And it's an expensive house to run: the utilities alone cost £20,000 a year, and on a bad year the Brennans have had to pay £30,000 in building maintenance.
'So far we've had ten serious enquiries on the back of the programme, and the majority are interested in running it as a hotel and events business,' Stephens says. 'Ruth Watson summed it up: it needs someone young with enthusiasm to give it a boost of energy.'
It is possible that a buyer will want to convert the main house back into a home, however. Gissing Hall has planning permission for business purposes only but an application has been lodged to test whether it can get permission to become residential. The Brennans now plan to buy a more modest home in Gissing village. 'We did come across as a bit dopey on the TV programme, but Ruth knows her stuff and painted an accurate picture,' says Ann cheerfully.
'We were foolish as we bought Gissing Hall without a plan. If we had our time again we would have asked for advice from people in the industry earlier. But we've had a very interesting life here and it's finally come good. We've taken the house this far - now it's time for someone else to take it to the next stage.'
Chesterton Humberts, 01603 661199; chestertonhumberts.com
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