THE stunning Lake District holiday home of the Kagan family is for sale with a £3m price tag.
Eusemere, on the beautiful banks of Ullswater, has been a holiday home for the Huddersfield family for the past four decades.
But now Lady Margaret Kagan, widow of former textile tycoon Lord Kagan, has put the estate on the market.
It was visited countless times by her late husband, who made his fortune after establishing the Gannex textile empire.
The brand was made famous by Huddersfield-born Prime Minister Harold Wilson.
Lady Kagan, who celebrated her 84th birthday this month, said she was sorry to sell the “fairytale house’’ where she had enjoyed some of the happiest times of her life but the time was right to let it pass into the hands of new owners.
Interest has already been expressed from potential buyers in Yorkshire, Italy and Australia.
Lady Kagan said her husband Joseph, a Lithuanian Jew, who founded Gannex in West Yorkshire after escaping from the Nazis, had come across the house after flying over the area in the early 70s in their little Auster one-engined plane.
Lord Kagan, a close friend of Harold Wilson, suffered a fall from grace in 1980 after he was charged with tax evasion and sentenced to 10 months in Rudgate Prison.
Although stripped of his knighthood he retained his peerage and later spoke in the House of Lords on a wide range of subjects.
He died in London in 1995.
Lady Kagan, of Fixby, said: “We all fell in love with Eusemere immediately. It has such a wonderful atmosphere and character but I'm afraid it needs a poet's imagination to do justice to it. It is light and airy and uplifting; I don't know why.
“William Wordsworth used to sleep in a particular bedroom there and I still have a piece of the original wallpaper framed as a picture.”
As well as being a holiday home for the Kagans and their children and friends the house was used to give disadvantaged children from Calderdale a treat once a year, when they would be invited to stay in a number of tents on the site.
Lady Kagan, a mother-of-three, said: “We have been so lucky to have spent so much time in these wonderful surroundings and I rather hope that the new owners will enjoy it as much as we have done.
“Barkisland Hall was used by us for official entertaining, but this place was our holiday home.
“We used to have fabulous times at Eusemere, but undoubtedly the highlight was at Christmas. when we had walks up the fell. We also had a boat called Eden Mist and we very much enjoyed taking that out on the lake.
“I feel very nostalgic about it, it has been quite a big part of our lives for such a long time.
“But my two sons, Daniel and Michael, have emigrated to the United States, Jenny has got married and I am approaching antiquity and am not very keen on looking after Eusemere any longer, I'm too old.
“So it seemed a good time to sell it. All good things come to an end.
“Having said that, I still spend £2 on two lottery tickets every Saturday. So you never know, if my numbers come up I might end up buying it back from our company Kagan Textiles. I know I shall be sorry to see it go, but I hope it will go on giving pleasure to someone else.”
The house is being marketed by Savills estate agents.
