A £5 million Warwickshire business centre, once home to the founder of the USA Girl Guide movement, is to be managed by a firm of Leamington commercial property consultants.
Award-winning ehB Commercial has won the contract to manage and market The Wellesbourne House Business Centre in Wellesbourne after it was taken off a firm of London agents.
The centre, which comprises 30 offices set in landscaped grounds, ranging from single rooms and small suites to self-contained buildings, is a mix of both modern buildings and the impressive period structure of Wellesbourne House – once the home of American ‘Daisy’ Low.
Daisy, whose husband’s family were wealthy cotton merchants with businesses in the USA and England, moved to England after marrying in 1886 and bought Wellesbourne House after living for a while in Leamington Spa.
On a hunting trip to Scotland, she befriended Sir Robert Baden-Powell, the founder of the Boy Scout movement, which then had a growing membership in Britain, the United States, France and Germany.
Baden-Powell’s sister had started a small group of girl scouts in Scotland – known as Girl Guides – and Daisy took the idea to the United States, changing its name in 1915 to Girl Scouts of the United States and becoming its president. When she died in 1927, she was inducted into the Women’s Hall of Fame. Her birthday is celebrated by the Girl Scouts as ‘Founder’s Day’.
ehB Commercial director Simon Hain said: “The house has a fascinating history and even today there are Americans who come and visit the place where Daisy lived and made her plans for creating the Girl Scouts movement.”
ehB Commercial currently handles a raft of properties – including retail units, offices, warehouses and industrial units – as well as providing such services as valuations, acquisition & corporate property advice, development, investment & commercial property management and landlord & tenant reviews.
Last year the firm was crowned Warwickshire’s ‘Most Active Agent of the Year’ by a leading commercial property magazine, Estates Gazette.
