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Beautiful Homes Summer 2008
Above:
Above: Owners: Mike and Carol Clare
Above: A swanky modern bar area and kitchenette in the ‘Odeon’ cinema room
Above: Neutral shades in the living room are complemented by touches of pink from scatter cushions and the central rug
ONE of the major advantages of buying a house from a builder before it’s built is that you can usually make changes to the layout to suit yourself.
It’s almost as good as commissioning an architect and creating your own place from a blank sheet of A3 on the drawing board.
Mike and Carol Clare stepped in early in the construction phase when they bought a 10,000 sq ft house being built in Beaconsfield in 2002 on a three quarters of an acre plot.
The founders of the multi-million pound Dreams bed superstores empire weren’t short of a few good ideas about how they wanted the future family home for themselves and their two sons and two daughters to be mapped out.
In most of the essentials – plenty of living space and five en suite bedrooms – it was already ideal. The main change was to create a guest suite by converting a couple of the garages on the architect’s plan into a potential self-contained annexe for grown-up children, staff or elderly parents.
Carol explains, ‘There were four garages on the original plan but we never put our cars away. Never have.’ One of the cars parked in the drive is unmistakably theirs. Who else has a number plate with ZZZ.
She and Mike thought a separate suite would be a definite asset. They wanted her elderly parents to come and stay for longer spells. ‘We thought it would be good for them to have their own space so we changed two of the garages into a bedroom and an entrance lobby with built-in wardrobes. We also incorporated a shower room that was orignally intended to have been an en suite for the ground floor gym but we thought nobody would use that, it would be much more useful in the guest suite.’
The Clares are used to making executive decisions. They started their super successful business with a single shop in Hillingdon in 1985 when Mike had just turned 30. At that time they were one of the first companies to sell sofa beds.
Mike points out, ‘Sofa beds were already big sellers in the States but over here we had the studio couch up until that time. A couple of years later we looked at the future direction of the company and we decided to widen the range with beds. Within six months it had taken off. Sales just went whoosh. We were selling far more beds than we’d ever sold sofa beds.’
The entrepreneur who made a fortune by promising his customers a good night’s sleep is a self-made millionaire. He started his education at Davenies School in Beaconsfield, moved on to Chalfonts School and then took a course in business studies at High Wycombe College before embarking on a career in sales.
At 53 he is president of a company which has more than 175 superstores nationwide backed by a manufacturing base in the Midlands and a strong contracts division. To put the crowning seal on their success, Dreams is a three-time winner of the industry’s Furniture Retailer of the Year title...
READ THE FULL ARTICLE IN THE SUMMER 2008 EDITION OF BUCKINGHAMSHIRE LIFE - OUT NOW!
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