EuroMillions £40.6m jackpot winner says building dream home during lockdown 'saved him from getting lonely'
27 September 2023, 15:46 | Updated: 27 September 2023, 15:50
A man who built his 6,000 sq ft dream home after winning £40.6m in the lottery has revealed how the project helped him cope with lockdown.
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Gareth Bull, 52, who won £40.6m in the EuroMillions in January 2012, started construction on his dream home in 2019, just six months after buying a two-acre site in Nottinghamshire the previous year.
Kitted out with an artificial lake, a swimming pool with programmable waves, three bars and two hot tubs, Mr Bull said building the home was the “perfect distraction” when lockdown hit.
“The house is extra special because I did so much of the work myself, and during the pandemic too,” Mr Bull said.
"It helped me through lockdown, and I don't know what I would have done if I hadn't had this to work on. It was the perfect distraction with a great reward at the end of it."
Alongside the main four-bedroom house, Mr Bull also set up a two-bedroom lodge outside the house which he has since named ‘Lockdown Lodge’.
"Once I got the green light to go ahead, I started digging and just didn't stop,” he added.
Among the house’s impressive features is an artificial lake “the size of two tennis courts”. Originally dubbed the ‘Lockdown Lake’ the lake is now referred to as the ‘fish orphanage’ after Mr Bull filled it with hundreds of rehomed fish.
"I called it 'Lockdown Lake', made a little sign with its name on it and invited anyone who needed to rehome their fish to bring them here," he said.
“Now, I have a couple of hundred fish, mainly goldfish and 10 koi carp and I call it my ‘fish orphanage’ because they’ve all been rehomed.”
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He continued: “I was living here on my own at the time, and I didn't know what to do, so I threw myself into work on the home, and it saved me from getting too lonely.
"Lockdown rules allowed building sites to keep going, so eventually some of my builder friends came to help me, but this turned into my ultimate lockdown project."
His dream house project took a year-and-a-half of construction, as he eventually moved in on Christmas Eve 2020.
“I wanted everything to be perfect when I moved in and it was.”
