Get away with the garden fairies

By Mark Anstead
Posted: 2010/04/21

MARK ANSTEAD meets a developer who has fairies at the bottom of his garden (honestly)

WHEN property developer Marcus Salter bought a six-acre plot of land in 2005 at St Fillans in Perthshire, Scotland, intending to build 18 new homes for sale, he didn't expect to receive any help from fairies.

However, just as he was preparing to move a large stone at the centre of the beauty spot on the shores of Loch Earn he was stopped in his tracks.

"A local man ran out from his house on the edge of the site screaming to us not to move the boulder because there were fairies living under it, " says Marcus, 34. "I thought he was joking but he was agitated and said it would kill the fairies if we moved it, so I didn't.

"The next day my office started receiving telephone complaints from other residents begging us not to move the stone."

When the local council called to say they had also received complaints and the planning officer told Marcus she was superstitious he decided the issue was too important to cause upset. He redesigned his scheme's layout at additional cost and submitted a new proposal.

In 2007 Marcus sold all ten homes in the first phase of three and four-bedroomed houses for between £400,000 and £500,000. The sales w ere made without much difficulty despite the credit crunch slowing the rest of the market to a standstill.

Now he has just started taking orders for eight larger four-bedroomed homes in a second phase and is preparing to start work building a third phase next year. The fairy stone, meanwhile, still stands at the centre of the development in its original location.

"The fairies have turned out to be very lucky for me, " says Marcus. "The only thing we did was tell our local paper about it but as soon as they published the story our phones went red hot. Within days we started getting fairy tourists to see the stone.

"We had 10 to 15 families a week coming. Now it's only a handful each month but we still get cards from children thanking us for saving the fairies and we often find sweets left out for them or money pushed into cracks in the stone."

Angus and Elaine Ross bought the house nearest the stone in 2006 having fallen in love with the sense of magic it bestows. The couple moved 40 miles from Milnathort, Kinross, downsizing from a large family house just as the last of their four children left home.

"I have a connection with this area because I used to come on holiday here as a child, " says Angus, a 60-year-old governor of Perth prison.

"Looking back I can see we were hunting for a sense of magic in our last permanent home but we didn't realise that at the time.

"When we saw this development we loved it. Marcus has built some very well designed homes. Buying a home is also an emotional decision and the story of the stone was the icing on the cake for us. We wanted to buy the nearest house to the stone so that we could guard it."

Marcus and his business partner Richard Riegels are now looking for more land and are open to plots with a quirky twist. Marcus adds: "I believe in spirits and ley lines and now I'm a property developer in search of the unusual."

MORE INFORMATION:
Anthony Houldsworth & Co: Eight homes for sale at £450,000.
Call 01764 685 346 or visit anthonyhouldsworth.co.uk