After failing to sell at auction on Tuesday with a final bid of $11.6M on the table, the London cottage where lauded English actor Laurence Olivier lived with actress Vivien Leigh has listed for $12.6M. That the owner would hold out for such a sum is all the more surprising considering the Chelsea four-bedroom last changed hands, according to London property blog the Rat and Mouse, in January of this year for just $2.4M. The former coachman's cottage, which Russell Simpson, one of several agents representing the property, describes to the Daily Mail as a "magical unmodernized house," was built in 1850 and acquired by the couple in 1937, shortly after they began their affair, either during or after (accounts differ) their work on Fire Over England, their first film together.
Olivier and Leigh owned the home for 19 years. Details about what happened to it after they sold are as scant as the available photos, but the place is clearly in need of a restoration, though not necessarily deserving of the Daily Mail's designation of "dilapidated." A petition on Change.org by the Vivien Leigh Circle wants to see it listed with England's Historic Building and Monuments Commission, thereby commemorating "two of England's greatest exports" by making sure the next owner doesn't ruin the place's old-timey charm.
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