US actor's dream to own ancestral home is in ruins

A US actor's dream of restoring his ancestral home to its former glory has been left in ruins after the council that owns the 15th century manor house pulled out of the deal.

Hopwood DePree swapped Los Angeles for Rochdale in 2017 after discovering Grade II-listed Hopwood Hall in Middleton had been in his family for about 400 years.

But the 54-year-old, who said he had spent about £580,000 renovating the dilapidated 60-room country pile, claimed Rochdale Borough Council had now "pulled the rug from under him" by ending its agreement to sell it to him.

The council said Mr DePree did not have a "viable" plan for the future of the building.

Mr DePree, who is originally from Michigan, said he had been told stories about Hopwood Hall by his grandfather when he was a boy.

He had assumed the stories about the house - where Guy Fawkes and Lord Byron are reported to have stayed and which remained in the Hopwood family until World War One - were just fairy tales.

But when he found out about the family connection he decided to try to buy the building and turn it into an arts and events centre.

Rochdale Council gave him a "limited licence to occupy" and the option to buy the building.

About £1.7m in grants from the council and heritage bodies like Historic England have been invested in repairs and renovations since 2017.

Planning permission for Mr DePree's scheme was granted in 2022, the same year he wrote Downton Shabby, which chronicled his efforts to revive the manor.

He said he believed he had viable plans for the future of the building, and had been talking to hotel and restaurant firms about his idea of running hospitality skills training there.

But he was shocked to discover that, at a meeting held behind closed doors last week, the council had decided to back out of the arrangement.

Mr DePree said under the council's ownership the building had been derelict for years.

He said: "The council took the hall over in the 1990s and in these last 20-plus years, it has fallen into complete dereliction, so for us to reverse that and restore the building to its former glory was an incredible challenge."

Mr DePree, who directed and starred in the 1999 comedy The Last Big Attraction, said the council had told him that because the hall is completely surrounded by Hopwood Hall college's grounds, it needed its own independent access road.

He said he had been looking into how to build that when the council decided it no longer wanted to go ahead with the deal.

Mr DePree, who believed the deal to be legally binding, said he wanted details of the reason for the council's decision before deciding on his next move.

Rochdale Borough Council said it had agreed to sell the building to Mr DePree for a "nominal fee" if he could come up with a viable business plan, and had renewed and extended the agreement several times.

But this week the cabinet had decided not to renew it again after consultants it commissioned said Mr DePree's plans were "unlikely to be able to secure future public or private funding".

A council spokesman said Mr DePree "had not been able to produce a viable proposal, despite having had seven years to do so, and having been given advice and support from the council and Rochdale Development Agency throughout that period".

The spokesman said that meant the council "had a responsibility to explore alternative options" in order to "protect the public monies invested to date".