Do you remember that “I liked it so much I bought the company” ad?  Not hugely romantic.  I think it had something to do with nasal hair clippers.  Given that he owned the company, Victor Kiam probably enjoyed a non-stop supply of this essential facial grooming product, and never had to pay for the privilege of having one ever-ready in his jacket pocket.

I’ve got the same passion for my own product (so to speak), so this week I decided to get one for myself.  No, I didn’t take it as a freebie.  I’ve just paid the full market price for one of the Nightingale Walk houses.

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By the by, whilst wandering around the web, I picked up on the following written by a guy called Mark Foster.  It serves as a kind of independent testimonial to many of the pleasures which impending residents of Nightingale Walk can expect to enjoy:

“The Lower Mill Estate boundary is just in front of you, and beyond it lies Swillbrook Lakes. This is an important nature conservation site run by the Wiltshire Wildlife Trust, supporting a wide range of wildlife.
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It was back in January that we started work on Nightingale Walk, (check back to this post for a description of the whole idea), an exclusive gated village of fifteen individual, architect-designed dwellings set right in the heart of a nature reserve.

By February 8th, three of the properties had been sold.  Now, a further six have been reserved.  The homes will be completed in 2009.  So, there are just six remaining, and there simply won’t be any more than fifteen, ever.  There’ll be no subsequent in-fill, no additions, no extensions, no sudden change in plans, no increase in density, no alteration to the surroundings.  There will be fifteen houses, placed in one incredible natural environment, and that will be it.
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News of another exciting initiative.  Professor Will Alsop is a Stirling Prize award-winning architect, and Richard Reid (whose practice has been responsible for many of the estate’s existing designs) is an internationally-acclaimed designer, academic and practitioner.  They’ve agreed to join me on a Lower Mill design panel which we’ve convened expressly to facilitate a new Eco Self-Build opportunity on the Estate.
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