Areas such as Alderley Edge, Hale and Prestbury have had their Edwardian and 1920s suburban houses demolished in recent years to make way for modern mansions. During the boom years these houses were bought for their plot of land, flattened and replaced with high-tech, open-plan houses throughout Cheshire. Locals screamed as they witnessed perfectly good houses being bulldozed, they felt the mansions were too big for the plot of land. Hale has a mix of these houses along its elegant residential streets, but one house stands out from the crowd. A Hale resident for twenty years, Rittu Kumar, has built a spectacular home that is not only furnished but also stocked with bedding. She feels that the boom years of developers buying land for £1m, spending £1m building it and then selling for £3m are now gone. These developers have now gone out of business; she has taken a different approach with her turnkey homes. Anyone interested in one of her properties has only to turn the key in the lock.
His first project was a house in Carrwood in Hale Barns, the house was valued at £5.5 million. The house was three levels and 9,200 square feet in size. She bought the one-acre lot in 2007 and demolished the 1960s house that stood on the lot. He built a classic house taking full advantage of the slope of the land to create two floors at the front and three floors at the back of the house. Together with his business partner, an interior designer, he left his distinctive mark on the interior of the house. She uses bold colors, hardwoods, and glass, something the average developer wouldn’t do. She uses textured leather on the walls or purple and red fabrics and there is no cream or magnolia in all of her houses. She hopes to bring the high-end turnkey houses to Cheshire that the Candy brothers create in London. Her next project is two apartments in Mayfair and a villa in Cannes. She makes sure every room has at least one striking feature and the Cheshire house has a £100,000 cinema set up that comes equipped with twelve leather chairs.
The house has been on the open market since October, but she expects it to sell in the spring, but she has already been offered a £25,000 rent for the house. However, she feels that a wealthy businessman will buy the house and not the expected rich footballers from the region. The real estate market in Hale is doing well, so she might finally get a buyer.