7 replies to this topic

[glidrose]

Got four million dollars to spare?

Black Hole Hollow Farm, located on the border between New York and Vermont in the US, was where celebrated British author Ian Fleming penned [sic] 007 classics such as Diamonds Are Forever and Goldfinger.

The summer retreat and creative space for 007 creator Ian Fleming has hit the market with a price tag just shy of US$4 million through Christie’s International Real Estate.

Straddling the Vermont-New York state line, in a small town called Saratoga, Black Hole Hollow Farm was owned by A&P heiress Josephine Huntington Hartford Bryce and husband John Felix Charles Ivar Bryce — a former British intelligence officer and close friend of Fleming.

Ian Fleming often stayed in guest quarters known as the Yellow Room. From there he would take long treks into the woods surrounding the estate and return at eventide. In an old guest register, Fleming once wrote, Lived here like a king — an uninvited one — in fragrant and luxurious solitude. Black Hole Hollow Farm still exudes that unique serenity that drew Fleming back time and again.

http://www.billionai...mes-bond-novels


http://www.christies...rm-cambridge-ny


Both articles claim that Fleming wrote those two Bond novels here. We know better than that.

[Dustin]

Bit odd how such claims are made with auctions - there was a supposed TSWLM-speedboat only recently - when in fact it would be easy to research the facts.

Also $ 4 million seems almost cheap for such an estate; one presumes a massive need for renovation.

Anyway, thanks for finding this, most interesting.

[Jim]

Did it inspire the hideout in For Your Eyes Only?

[Dustin]

Good call, looks indeed a lot like I imagined the Echo Lake estate - with lake instead of pool, evidently.

[Simon]

Does look rather gorgeous...

[Jim]

I've a feeling it came up in the Henry Chancellor "The Man and his World" book that the estate was the inspiration for Von Hammerstein's place; can't locate my copy.

[Dustin]

But I've got mine handy...

On FYEO it says this:

'Inspirations
Again, this story was originally conceived as an episode in the 007 TV series. It was to be episode three, "Rough Justice", and was set in the forests of Vermont, near Ivar Bryce's Black Hollow Farm, where Ian had spent several summer holidays.'

[p.147]

[Major Tallon]

Two years ago, Mrs. Tallon and I did a driving tour of Bond locations in New York, New England, and Canada.  There is, in fact, an Echo Lake in upstate Vermont, though the topography is not like that which Fleming described, and it's a somewhat longer walk from the Canadian border than is described in the story. I've no idea if Fleming liked the name and borrowed it (or even knew about the real Echo Lake), but the lake in the story is unquestionably Bryce's Black Hole Hollow Farm.