A couple who paid £300 for two derelict cottages in east London is selling them as a combined dream home for £1.9million.
Jane Alexander and her husband Gus won the right to bid for the Georgian dwellings in Whitechapel as part of the Greater London Council Lottery in 1977.
The properties were just two of hundreds deemed too expensive to repair by the local authority, with locals given the chance to enter a prize draw.
Those named winner in a draw were then offered each dwelling for a knock-down price of £150; cash Jane and Gus were more than happy to stump up.
More than 44 years later, the knocked-through property is on the market for £1,899,950.
The couple have ploughed just £30,000 into the two-year restoration project – which included installing plumbing and replacing the electrics in the run-down property.
A couple who paid £300 for two derelict cottages in east London and completely renovated them over 40 years is selling them as a combined dream home for £1.9million
Jane Alexander and her husband Gus won the right to bid for the Georgian dwellings in Whitechapel as part of the Greater London Council Lottery in 1977 (pictured at the time)
The couple have ploughed just £30,000 into the two-year restoration project – which included installing plumbing and replacing the electrics in the run-down property
The Grade II-listed house boasts four bedrooms, two bathrooms, and large open-plan kitchen and reception room (shown left and right) which leads onto a big garden
The bedrooms are a far cry from the state they were in when the couple first bought the house in 1977 – they are now light and airy following a restoration project which kicked off two years ago
The properties (shown derelict in 1977) were just two of hundreds deemed too expensive to repair by the local authority, with locals given the chance to enter a prize draw
If the lofty ceilings, solid wooden floors and large windows aren’t enough for the new owner, it also comes with planning permission to build an additional 600sqft which would create a huge office space or a studio flat
Mother-of-two Jane said: ‘We were on honeymoon in Ireland when we found out that we had won.
‘We got a letter saying that we had to pay £300 – £150 for each house – and the condition was that we had to turn these two houses into one.
‘I had married an architect, and everyone who took up the offer was artistic. Some people [had] refused [the prize] because of the cost and scale of the work that needed to be done.
‘The area now is completely different to when we won the lottery in 1977, it has been through amazing changes.
‘We made the mezzanine level with big windows, allowing someone to work at the top and feel like they are in the garden, even in winter.’
The homes became vacant after they were mysteriously abandoned by their Jewish refugee inhabitants in 1967.
Jane and Gus paid the equivalent of £2,000 in today’s money to take on ownership of the two cottages, which had become a tangle of weeds with no roof.
The Grade II-listed house boasts four bedrooms, two bathrooms, a large open plan mezzanine level kitchen reception room which leads onto a big garden.
And if the lofty ceilings, solid wooden floors and large windows aren’t enough for the new owner, it also comes with planning permission to build an additional 600sqft which would create a huge office space or a studio flat.
Jane and Gus (shown left) paid the equivalent of £2,000 in today’s money to take on ownership of the two cottages (right), which had become a tangle of weeds with no roof
The homes (shown from the rear garden) became vacant after they were mysteriously abandoned by their Jewish refugee inhabitants in 1967
Shown left is one of the bedrooms, while right is the backdoor to the property’s rear garden, which is connected to the house via a front room with a lofted ceiling
The properties were just two of hundreds deemed too expensive to repair by the local authority back in 1977, with locals given the chance to enter a prize draw