Fans buy Fawlty hotel
£1.5m Torquay deal
Three fans of Fawlty Towers have brought the hotel that inspired it for £1.5million.
Kumar Patel, his wife Panna and brother Keethri have bought the Hotel Gleneagles in Torquay, where John Cleese stayed in 1971 while filming Monty Python scenes.
He was so amused by the bizarre antics of the owner, Donald Sinclair,”the rudest man I ever met” that he was inspired to base a sitcom on the idea.
Sinclair, who has since died, is said to have thrown Eric Idle's suitcase out of the window "in case it contained a bomb" and complained about Terry Gilliam's table manners.
Last year, the 41-bedroom hotel had been set for demolition to make way for flats, but planners threw out the idea.
Now the Patels, who own two supermarkets and a pub in Bristol, are hoping to cash in on the hotel’s notoriety among fellow Fawlty Towers fans.
In a statement, Panna said: “We were big fans of the Fawlty Towers programme, so we believe that it will prove to be a sound investment to have bought one of the best known hotels in the United Kingdom.”
The hotel – which was not the one seen in the TV series - now offers three-star service, but many fans stay for the Cleese connection.
Published: 16 Feb 2005
