Christian Magg and his husband Greg Taylor grew up in Germany and America respectively but soon after falling in love with each other they both fell in love with England, specifically quaint and historic olde England.
asserted
they → grow → England
So when they stumbled on the picture postcard village of Chilham in Kent - a staple for film and TV adaptations from Jane Austen and The Canterbury Tales to Miss Marple - they knew it was where they wanted to buy.
asserted
they → stumble → Marple
And when a timber-framed cottage dating from 1549 came on sale next to Chilham Castle they knew they had to have it - and set out to give it the most lavish and fastidious restoration that money could buy.
uncertain
money → frame → that
The garden would be designed by a Chelsea gold medal winner, every single brick would be removed, repaired and 'kissed' before repointing, an artisan craftsman would use medieval glass in the windows.
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craftsman → design → windows
The problem - and it was a problem that almost broke them - was the person they chose to carry out the vast project.
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they → break → project
Local builder James Fuller turned out to be not just an unreliable workman but a crazed thug who would terrorise the couple for months.
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who → turn → months
The purchase price was just £600,000 when they bought the Grade-II listed Tudor property in 2019 but the budget for their planned extraordinary upgrade would be some three times as much.
Christian Magg and his husband Greg Taylor bought Well Cottage – a Grade-II listed Tudor property in the quaint village of Chilham for £600,000 in 2019 after falling in love with it
Pictured is the couple’s renovated main bathroom with fixtures and fittings from Catchpole & Rye, and a sink salvaged from a junk yard
Here you can see that the couple removed the loft to give a high ceiling effect in the bedroom as part of their renovations
The restoration project turned sour when the couple fell out with their builder.
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couple → buy → builder
The row culminated in Fuller climbing onto the roof of their 16th-century cottage and throwing tiles down to the ground below
Their super-sensitive restoration would see them almost double the floor-plan by building a basement and modern glass extension and ripping out the attic space to give the two upstairs bedrooms higher ceilings.
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them → culminate → ceilings
Every brick on the upstairs exterior walls was to be removed, repointed and re-rendered while centuries old internal walls, made of wattle and daub, would be stripped and repaired and then replastered in lime.
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walls → remove → lime
The couple, who met at Munich's famous Oktoberfest 14 years ago, even planned a wet room with a mosaic floor copied from one in the Vatican and a high-tech Japanese toilet in the guest room.
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who → meet → room
There would be a dedicated storage area just to accommodate their Christmas decorations, as Christian believes 'you can never have enough storage'.
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you → accommodate → storage
However the renovation, which would not have been out of place on TV's Grand Designs, would turn a dream home project into a nightmare - because of Fuller.
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which → turn → Fuller
Christian, 52, from Augsburg, and 63-year-old city financier Greg from Colorado had initially known Fuller as a near neighbour, as he briefly lived opposite them, across the pretty square.
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he → know → square
And when they learned that he did general building work - at the time when they were still drawing up their bigger plans for the house - they decided to give him a trial run with a smaller project, the renovation of the stand-alone garage, which sits some 50 yards behind the main property.
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which → learn → property
Fuller, 44, who now lives in Ashford, may have been on his best behaviour, knowing how much potential work was at stake, because he carried out the garage job to an acceptable standard and broadly on time.
And this was what persuaded them to make what would be the terrible mistake of offering him the big job on the house.
uncertain
what → live → house
A source close to the couple said: 'This was their Hansel and Gretel cottage, an archetypal historic English country home on a chocolate-box village square opposite a 15th century pub and 14th century church.
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This → say → pub
What more could they want?
uncertain
they → want → What
'But it was quite small, cold and dark and needed a lot of TLC so the plan was to make it warmer and fill it with light and have more living space.
'
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it → need → space
They wanted to keep the building work as local as possible and they had begun to trust Fuller.
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they → want → Fuller
Looking back though that was a terrible mistake.
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that → look → ?
It was clearly a much bigger, more complex project than the garage and they didn't really do their due diligence, they never really looked into him all that much.'
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they → do → him
No expense was spared when they were designing the kitchen with a La Cornue range cooker
Attention to detail was key for the wealthy couple with every aspect carefully considered and planned.
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aspect → spar → couple
They even designed a wet room with a mosaic floor copied from one in the Vatican
Well Cottage is in the picture postcard village of Chilham in Kent – a staple for film and TV adaptations from Jane Austen and The Canterbury Tales to Miss Marple
Greg and Christian wanted to give their home the most lavish restoration that money could buy.
uncertain
money → design → that
They said they could have bought a manor house but instead wanted to live in the village
Their project included three dilapidated outbuildings behind the house, once used to store bins, firewood and debris, being replaced by a glass structure held together by black metal frames that linked to the main house and formed part of a new modern kitchen, dining space and home office.
uncertain
that → say → kitchen
The basement - the only way to gain a third bedroom - would be dug under a rear courtyard and be shored up with steel and supervised by an archaeologist for six months due to the fact that it abuts Chilham Castle's old lopsided boundary wall.
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it → gain → wall
The blueprints would increase the floor-plan from 1,311 sq ft to 2,279 sq ft and would see the 20th-century pine floors replaced with engineered wood so that underfloor heating and insulation could be installed.
uncertain
heating → increase → wood
Meanwhile Christian and Greg hired celebrated horticultural expert Jo Thompson to design a fairytale garden, with a stream flowing from the old well.
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Christian → hire → well
Fuller started work early in 2021, initially restoring the roof tiles, before rendering the outside of the house and completing the concrete and steel structure of the basement.
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Fuller → start → basement
But that was as far as he would get as relations soon began to sour - and they began to get glimpses of Fuller's toxic and explosive personality.
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they → get → personality
The source explained: 'Fuller was on the project for about two years and although work started well initially, it pretty much became stagnant.
'
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it → explain → years
He wasn't very well organised.
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He → organise → ?
He routinely failed to order building materials on time which meant that contractors were often left sitting in their cars waiting around then being unable to do any work.
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contractors → fail → work
One of the contractors working on the garden told them that he felt intimidated by James.
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he → work → James
Then the architects started to have serious misgivings about Fuller because he failed to turn up to meetings with them.
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he → start → them
In the end they actually told Christian and Greg point-blank "We don't think you can finish this project with him in charge."
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you → tell → charge
By this point, after two years, Fuller had been paid an incredible £1.4million - but a lot of the work paid for hadn't been carried out.
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lot → pay → work
Yet he was still demanding more and more cash.
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he → demand → cash
In October 2023, soon after being fired, Fuller submitted yet another bill for £160,000, claiming he had to pay four contractors who had been working with him every day.
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who → fire → him
The source said: 'They knew he was just trying it on as they'd seen the site every day and there had been no one working there.
'
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they → say → site
So they hired a surveyor to check over his work - and they estimated it only being worth around £500,000.
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it → hire → work
…and 40 more, not listed.
The Aporia
