J.K. Rowling created a world that hasn’t ceased fascinating children and adults around the world since the first Harry Potter book came out in 1996. The first person in the world to become a billionaire purely through writing books, and also the first person in the world to lose her billionaire status due to the scale of her charitable donations, Rowling is well known as the phenomenally wealthy, philanthropic mother of wizards. So where does this remarkable human reside?
In 2015, Rowling sold her beautiful Edinburgh mansion for a cool £2.25 million, but before deciding to sell, had erected £250,000 Hogwarts-style tree-houses in the vast garden. The garden’s size is due, apparently, to Rowling’s decision to demolish an adjacent house worth £1m in order to enlarge it.
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“But whyyyyyy would she leave such a glorious place?” you cry. Media attention, is the answer. Living in the city meant Rowling was under constant scrutiny, and so she moved. Where? Approximately seventy-four miles north of Edinburgh, to an estate she purchased in 2001, Killiechassie.
Killiechassie has an impressive history, passed down between various members of the aristocracy, and legend has it, once the hideout of Bonnie Prince Charlie. Lovers of all things magical will also be pleased to note that a small loch on the property is thought to be home to a Celtic water spirit. If JK had to give up those unreal tree-houses, I suppose Killiechassie was a good place to go.
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In 2001, Rowling married her husband, Dr. Neil Murray in the library of the home, which boasts, according to its extensive Wikipedia page, two halls, a dining room, a drawing room, a morning room, and seven bedrooms, with a two-bedroom extension on the west wing, a swimming pool, covered with copper domes, a state-of-the-art electronic security system, and 24/7 guards.
In 2014, Rowling announced plans to build a Hagrid-like hut on the edge of a forest of the 162-acre estate. While no official photos of the finished product are anywhere to be found, we can imagine they look something like this:
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No photos are available of the inside of Killiechassie, but I like to believe that it now contains singing paintings, moving staircases, poltergeists, and a forbidden corridor or two!
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