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Unfolding Stories
'Downton Shabby': US producer quits Hollywood to do up UK family pile
Hollywood producer Hopwood DePree tracked down a red-brick 15th century pile with 60 rooms in the countryside in northwest England after hearing stories about it since he was a child.
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US film producer Hopwood DePree inspects the interior of Hopwood Hall, his family's ancestral home which dates from the 15th century, which he is in the process of restoring, in Middleton, northern England on November 28, 2022. (AFP/Oli Scarff)
A
s a child, Hopwood DePree heard stories about the family owning an ancestral country home in England but always thought it was the stuff of legends.
That was until the Hollywood producer tracked down a red-brick 15th century pile with 60 rooms in the countryside in northwest England.
In 2017 the American quit California to live full-time near Manchester and restore the building, which had fallen into a state of disrepair, to its former glory.
The unlikely chain of events began one evening in 2013 when DePree was looking on a genealogy website and found an old photo of the property.
"My gosh. It's the place my grandfather was talking about," he recalls thinking.
The property was Hopwood Hall, explaining DePree's unusual first name passed down the generations, which he had always felt embarrassed about.
Soon afterwards DePree got on a plane on a mission to find Hopwood Hall, "just out of curiosity".
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