£3m pipe dream: Self-made millionaire, Charlie Mullins, founder of Pimlico Plumbers,  markets his mock Tudor mansion in Kent

By Duncan Farmer for MailOnline
Updated: 09:01 EST, 3 June 2011

When Charlie Mullins bought his mock Tudor home ten years ago, he wanted to double its size, put in a swimming pool and a games room and build a garage block for his Bentley.

But his next-door neighbour on the exclusive Keston estate in Bromley, Kent, opposed the scheme. Charlie, however, found a simple way to resolve the problem: with part of the £15million fortune he had made from his Pimlico Plumbers business, he simply bought the neighbour's house.

With his opponent gone, the plans were approved and then Charlie ripped out every door and window, took the house back to the brickwork and extended it to include the indoor pool and open kitchen.

Park life: Despite the prestigious location, Charlie's home has been on the market for 18 months and has been reduced by £1million

As you might expect from a plumber, he included more bathrooms than bedrooms - and even more loos. Not a tap drips nor a pipe leaks, but after 18 months on the market, White Oaks is still up for sale. The asking price has dropped a staggering £1million to £2.7million, yet there are still no takers.

David Hughes, of selling agents Alan de Maid, says there has been a lack of confidence among top-end buyers in his patch of the South East. 'In the first three months of the year, houses between £1million and £2million sold well, but we are now seeing more buyers at up to £4million,' he says.

'We're hoping for a sale at about £3 million. We have put a guide price of £2.7million to £2.8million to get people through the door and generate interest.' And it seems to have worked. White Oaks has had a flurry of viewings, with Gianfranco Zola, the former Chelsea player and West Ham manager, among those potentially interested.

A turn-on: There are no dripping taps in Charlie and Linda's house

'Everyone who looks around wants to see the plumbing,' says Charlie, who founded Pimlico Plumbers in 1979. The company is known for its fleet of blue vans and smartly dressed staff who cater to the plumbing requirements of celebrities including Sienna Miller and Keira Knightley.

Charlie recalls one viewer from the trade, who said on leaving: 'Nice job, mate, not one pipe showing.' 'And that's how it should be,' he says.

Needless to say with such a perfectionist, work on the house took far longer than expected and, four years into the job, Charlie and Linda, his wife of more than 30 years, were fed up with living on a building site. So they moved into the house they'd bought next door.

'It had planning permission to build a 9,000 sq ft house and the idea was to live in it while White Oaks was being finished, move in there, and then build the new one and move in there. But by the time I got round to it, our children had moved out so we didn't need the space.'

His children - Scott, 38, Samm, 36, Lucy, 30, and Alice, 22 - all work for the firm, as does Linda, 50. The company has a branch in Marbella in Spain, where Charlie bought his first villa six years ago and his second - next door - six weeks ago.

'I needed somewhere for all the children to stay,' says Charlie, who has seven grandchildren.

In 2007, the couple sold their temporary home next door for £1.8million, a profit of almost £400,000, and moved into White Oaks, although now they want to move to one of Keston Park's more expensive roads and build something new.

Future plans: Charlie and Linda Mullins bought White Oaks in 2007 but now they want to move to one of Keston Park's more expensive roads and build something new

Keston Park, a development of 207 homes in 142 acres of woodland, was conceived by brothers Fred and James Rogers, local estate agents, who visited Seattle in the US in 1911 and were so impressed by its spacious suburbs, that they decided to create something similar in outer London.

They sold plots from £925 and strictly controlled the design of the houses, which were either Arts and Crafts, mock Tudor or neo-Georgian in style.

Recently owners have demolished many of the original houses and replaced them with grander homes. Margaret Thatcher lived on the estate in the Fifties before moving to Finchley and becoming an MP. Her former home was recently bulldozed. Rolling Stone Bill Wyman once lived on the estate and chef Gary Rhodes now has a home there.

White Oaks, which sits in three-quarters of an acre, has four bedrooms, five bathrooms and seven toilets. The 30ft-long first-floor games room could not only make a large fourth bedroom, but has plenty of room for yet another bathroom.

Downstairs is a grand wood-panelled entrance hall, a drawing room, dining room and fabulous 45ft Clive Christian kitchen/breakfast room, from where there are great views of the gardens. It also opens on to the indoor pool where Charlie swims every morning. And inside the triple garage is his Bentley.

The splendour and tranquillity of Keston Park, which is not gated but is patrolled by security guards, is a far cry from Charlie's roots - the Rockingham Estate in South London's Elephant and Castle.

'It was a complete hole. Coming from there is what's driven me on to become something and have a place like this,' says the 58-year-old whose trim physique, luxurious hair and perma-tan belie his years.

'I bunked off school from the age of nine to help out a plumber who lived on our estate. He was the only person with a car, and to me he had a film star's life. So all I ever wanted to be was a plumber,' says Charlie, who appeared on Channel 4's Secret Millionaire 18 months ago posing as an unemployed plumber in Warrington, Cheshire.

'Doing the programme made me realise things haven't moved on in estates.' A big fan of Margaret Thatcher, Charlie recently returned to his childhood home to film part of a TV documentary about her life.

'I started the company the same time she came to power,' he says. 'I thought she was very inspirational and gave people opportunities, such as buying their council houses or starting a business.'

Alan de Maid, 01689 813333