Page 66 - David Burr Rooftops Magazine Winter 2017/2018

‘ gorgeous cottages in Lavenham: The Tryst, Mint Cottage and Penny Cottage - with the last two 5 star gold awarded while The Tryst is Grade I listed inside and out.
“Lavenham has applied for World Heritage status as England’s best preserved medieval village, and these are some fine examples of that architecture.
“These cottages have proved able to sustain a reasonable income paying for themselves in upkeep and maintenance/improvements, as well as being a place for owners to enjoy themselves and reap the capital investment.
“All the owners live abroad, so I set up a cottage manager system for each one to interface with my booking system. And one owner doesn’t even want to know when a booking comes in, he just gets sent a monthly statement and blocks the dates he wants in his 5 star cottage.
“These cottages would find it hard to be family houses because of their small size, or quirky nature and lack of storage, but as holiday cottages they work well. They are not as expensive to buy as roomier houses, but they can be the first to benefit from house price increases.” says Mark.
Call 01787 211115 for details wwwgrove-cottages.co.uk
Above: Live like Lovejoy, a lovely cottage on the Essex/Suffolk border.
Left: Deepwell another little hideaway
An early life in film
Before running his holiday cottages company Helped by this knowledge Mark worked more and shoot a really big commercial and then we
more abroad, even dipping into the exotic Bollywood film industry and working closely with Feroz Khan, who achieved god-like status in India as a massive superstar actor and director/ producer. He brought on many of today’s new wave of Indian acting stars.
“The budgets were generally bigger than they
are now in advertising, but you had big crews,
not one or two people and a camera. I shot a series of Michelin commercials in India and
the art department alone was 200 strong.
Every year we would go to Los Angeles to
Mark Scott was involved in the film
business. His apprenticeship started in Soho where he was a tea boy for the famous director Ridley Scott.
“I got into advertising in my early teens and progressed from working in the cutting room to becoming a supervising editor. I was working on adverts, children’s TV, and films for the government.
“By learning all the skills it gave you a very good appreciation of putting together a film on a budget, using all the best techniques available.”
would sell the location to the client back home asking for quotes on their scripts - the clients
just loved the idea of shooting in such a fabulous location at the same price as a European location because we had the crew and equipment already there. This resulted one year in us making an additional 40 commercials.”
This whole process of creating a special scene, or atmosphere, in film making gives Mark and his cottage owners an advantage when it comes to getting the very best results out of a holiday cottage venture.
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