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Yahoo
01-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
This $33.2 Million Private Island in the U.K. Has Long Been an Under-the-Radar Creative Haven
In the Blackwater Estuary off the Essex coast just 40 miles northeast of central London, Osea is not your typical island escape. Accessible by boat, air, or an ancient Roman causeway that appears only at low tide, the sprawling 380-acre island compound is now on the market for £25 million (about $33.2 million) with Knight Frank and Fine & Country. It's an audacious offering, not only in its scale and seclusion but also for its cultural imprint and its rich, secretive past. During World War I, Osea served as a clandestine naval base known as 'SS Osea,' and during World War II a bomb hit the island when it fell short of its London target, adding a layer of intrigue to its already storied legacy. Osea was later owned by Cambridge University but returned to private ownership in the 1950s. Today, Osea is more than a private island—it's a stage, a studio, a sanctuary. Since 2004, under the ownership of music producer Nigel Frieda (best known for his work with English girl group the Sugababes), the village-like compound has quietly evolved into one of Britain's most discreet creative hubs. Stormzy wrote and recorded much of his This Is What I Mean album here, describing the process as 'a very surreal, spiritual experience.' Rihanna has stayed. So has Charli XCX, while Olly Murs chose it as the setting for his 2023 wedding, the Independent reported. More from Robb Report Inside the Edition's City-View Residences in Nashville's Gulch Neighborhood This Small Australian Distillery's New Whisky Is Finished in Chartreuse Barrels Meet Shard Place, a Gleaming Glass Tower With the Highest Outdoor Pool in London RELATED: What It's Really Like to Buy a Private Island There's a kind of magical, cinematic quality to the island, which hasn't gone unnoticed by the film and literary worlds either. The Woman in Black—both the 1989 TV adaptation and the 2012 Daniel Radcliffe-led version—used Osea as a haunting backdrop, as did HBO's The Third Day with Jude Law. Ellery Lloyd set his New York Times bestselling fictional drama The Club here, too. In many ways, Osea is like a village, its buildings being a patchwork of styles from a variety of eras. A grand Edwardian manor and the Captain's House sit along the waterfront, both styled for grand-scale entertaining, and a former orphanage has been reborn as luxury apartments. In all, there are 38 residential properties offering a total of 90 bedrooms and 61 bathrooms, plus a pub, a couple of swimming pools, a state-of-the-art recording studio, and a helipad. RELATED: This $15 Million Coastal Compound in South Carolina Includes a 450-Acre Private Island The infrastructure is surprisingly robust—think: water treatment facilities, electrical substations, dry docks, and orchards—and the business model includes event hosting, holiday lettings, music production, and retreats. But for all its celebrity pedigree and curated rustic charm, Osea is also a functioning enterprise. 'Osea Island presents an exceptionally rare, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to acquire a private island of remarkable scale and historical significance,' says Georgie Veale, senior negotiator at Knight Frank. 'Offering extensive land and multiple properties, it affords the purchaser unparalleled exclusivity, privacy, and a wide range of potential uses.'Best of Robb Report The 10 Priciest Neighborhoods in America (And How They Got to Be That Way) In Pictures: Most Expensive Properties Click here to read the full article.
The Independent
22-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Independent
Island where Stormzy wrote album and Olly Murs got married could be yours for £25m
An island where Stormzy wrote an album and Olly Murs is reported to have tied the knot has gone on sale with a guide price of £25m. Osea Island is a 380-acre stretch of land situated in the Blackwater Estuary some 40 miles east of central London, which becomes cut off from the Essex mainland at high tide when its causeway is submerged. With a rich history as a secret torpedo boat base during the First World War, and previously as one of England's first addiction rehabilitation centres, the island has since served as inspiration for a host of artists and writers, while setting the scene for numerous films and television series. Under the ownership of music producer Nigel Frieda, known for his work with Sugababes, Osea Island has been home to a recording studio used by artists such as Rihanna, Stormzy and Charli XCX, at a reported cost in 2019 of £20,000 per day. Stormzy described his time spent on the island while recording his 2022 album This Is What I Mean as 'a very surreal, spiritual experience'. It has also served as a wedding venue reportedly used by Olly Murs for his 2023 marriage to bodybuilder Amelia Tank, with a new listing by estate agents describing the island as containing 38 residential properties. Despite viewings being described as 'strictly by appointment', Simon Pelling, of the estate agency Fine and Country, said: 'We already have several bids on it and some of them are in excess of the guide price.' 'We see it going to operators who will use it in a similar way to how it is used now – as a venue, an event space or high-end letting facility,' he told the BBC. Prior to its stint as a recording studio, Osea Island briefly hosted a rehabilitation clinic named the Causeway Retreat, which was reportedly used by Amy Winehouse prior to being shut down by a health regulator in 2010. That period echoed its history in the early 1900s as a rehabilitation centre for alcohol and opiate addiction. The island has also been used to film both the 1989 television adaptation and the 2012 film of The Woman in Black, as well as HBO's The Third Day starring Jude Law, and served as the setting for New York Times bestseller The Club.
