A woman moved into a Grade II listed building in Wirral after 12 years in Dubai.
Danielle Nay, 55, was born in Liverpool but has since travelled across the world with her work as a creative producer, spending significant amounts of time in places like London and Dubai. In 2020, Danielle and her husband made the decision to move back home and start a new business, and so they soon set about finding a suitable place to live.
Danielle told the ECHO she and her husband were looking for a base of sorts from which they could travel from, and return to after a busy period at work. Soon, after pointers from an estate agent friend of hers, she had found their current Grade-II three-bedroom, two bathroom listed home on the Wirral.
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The ECHO's Where I Live series explores one home from across the region each week, asking its owner to tell us a little about the story behind what makes their house much more than just the four walls they live in.
Danielle and Adrian's "beautiful" apartment is one of nine in The Lydiate, a Victorian mansion on Birkenhead Road, Willaston once owned by the Bibby family. Danielle told the ECHO: "We were working in Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Italy, but we decided we wanted to work from the UK more and move back.
"We looked everywhere. We looked in Dorset, West Essex and Cheshire but my mum is here. I'm an only child and I said why don't we look [closer to home].
"We started looking all over the place. A friend of mine who was working with an estate agent on the Wirral was letting somewhere similar and helped me find it. I went to see it the next day after asking about it.
"I think my favourite thing about the place is just going out in the morning with the dog and playing animal bingo as there's so much wildlife.
"My husband, even after 22 years in Dubai, just loves it. Adrian loves the North West climate. He loves the scenery.
"It's only 20 minutes to Chester and 20 minutes to Liverpool as well.
"There's a limit to what we can do to it as it is a Grade II listed building. There's a service charge attached to the property because there are tennis courts and 12 acres attached.
"I missed how funny people were at home. I missed the wit and my friends."
Danielle also spoke about how the purchase was a bit of a gamble as the pair could not be certain their business would take off as hoped, which is one of the reasons they chose to buy an apartment. She said: "We didn't know how it would go. So you thought we would buy a little place. But then the new business took off really quickly."
Given the success of their event production business – called Blu Fire – Danielle and Adrian are now looking to move to a new home and have listed their apartment for sale with the help of Storeys of Cheshire and are open to offers above £425,000,
You can find the apartment on Rightmove.
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