Rochdale ends descendant’s Hopwood Hall renovation dream
The council has cancelled an exclusivity agreement with Hopwood DePree XIV, claiming the US actor-turned-producer from Los Angeles has failed to produce a viable business case for the building’s future use.
DePree, a descendant of the Hopwood family that owned the hall for 500 years until the early 20th century, has been involved in the renovation of the grade two-listed Rochdale building into an arts, community, and culture hub since 2017 when he was granted an options agreement by the council.
Since then, work to repair the derelict building has been ongoing and documented by DePree in a series of YouTube videos and a book titled Downton Shabby: One American’s Ultimate DIY Adventure.
However, a spokesperson for Rochdale Council, which owns Hopwood Hall, said that DePree had failed to adhere to the terms of the 2017 agreement, and announced it would not be extending it.
The spokesperson said: “As a council, we have a duty to protect public money and important, council-owned assets like Hopwood Hall, and ensure they have a viable future which will benefit the wider community.
“For that reason, we have commissioned independent financial consultants to assess the business model proposed by Hopwood Productions and they concluded that these proposals would be loss-making and unlikely to be able to secure future public or private funding.”
In response to the council’s decision, DePree said he was “extremely surprised” and suggested he may have been “misled”.
“The council has not informed me that any cabinet decision was being sought or had been made; representatives from the council’s Corporate Services Directorate and Legal Department were in contact with our lawyers on 30 and 31 October to say that they were seeking instructions,” DePree said.
“If the cabinet made this decision before these emails, it appears that they have misled us, which is extremely disappointing.”
DePree’s Hopwood Hall option agreement expired on Halloween. He claims that his legal team had attempted to engage with the council on 17 October to seek an extension but that “multiple emails and calls went unanswered”.
“Therefore we served notice to exercise the option to purchase to the council on the afternoon of 29 October,” DePree said.
“At no point since has the council informed us that the option notice is disputed. Under the option agreement, completion of the purchase must take place 20 working days after the notice was served and is legally binding on both parties.”
DePree added that his efforts at Hopwood Hall to date had come at “significant personal cost” and accused the council of being “extremely unprofessional and insensitive” in cancelling the option agreement.
“As far as I am concerned, we have a legally binding agreement for the purchase of Hopwood Hall and this cabinet decision puts the council in breach of contract.”
The council said that DePree had been given ample time to come up with a business case and that around £1.7m of public cash had been spent on the building to date.
“As Hopwood DePree has not been able to produce a viable proposal, despite having had seven years to do so, and having been given advice and support from the council and RDA throughout that period, in order to protect the public monies invested to date, we now have a responsibility to explore alternative options.”
