I received an e-mail from Alex Pearson the other day. He’s the intense young director I backed who shot a (slightly disturbing) shortfilm for the festivals called “Bait” on location at Lower Mill Estate (plus some underwater shots with Mike Valentine of Titanic and Bond fame).

He tells me that Bait was one of just 75 short films selected to be exhibited at the Miami Short Film Festival, alongside a truly international programme including work from Mexico, Canada, Greece, Australia, Singapore, Belgium, India, France, South Korea, Venezuela, Sierra Leone, Brazil, Cuba and Puerto Rico. Films were selected by a prestigious judging panel, including David Frankel, director of The Devil Wears Prada.

Congratulations to Alex – and good to see that Lower Mill has been exposed to the gaze of an international audience and starting to be recognised as a patron of the arts.

The Landmark Houses project started with the selection of 23 of the World’s most exciting and talented designers and launched at the V&A in 2005. The first house to be commissioned and built was the Somerford Villa. There are Eight more designs that have received detailed planning permission from Cotswolds District Council and are currently awaiting commission. There is every likelihood that work will commence on the next in the series - Orchid House - at some point in 2008.

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The entire team at Lower Mill Estate has worked away for over a decade to drive forward a new vision of vacation living: vacation living based in a sensitively managed environment expressly designed to create a harmonious balance between people and best practice in ecology and architecture. The experience has been an incredible learning curve, and the experiment has been highly successful.
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