A couple needing a property for city centre living couldn’t find a suitable house to buy so they snapped up a closed pub to call home instead.
Suzanne and Mark Wilcox’s home is some people’s idea dream des res as it still comes complete with a pool table, dart board and even the optics at the bar.
The Westgate pub came on the market in Cardiff city centre around the same time Mr and Mrs Wilcox were struggling to find a house they liked to move into.
Mrs Wilcox said: “We were relocating to Cardiff and we wanted to live in the centre, in a big home.
“Mark was driving down Cathedral Road, reading out estate agent numbers to me on the phone. He got to the bottom of the street and said ‘you need to keep an open mind’, because he’d seen the ‘for sale ‘sign on The Westgate pub.”
She told Wales Online: “He got me to Google it and I think my first words were – ‘I’m not living in a pub!’
“But when I went online and saw such a beautiful building, that it wasn’t your sort of regular pub, I got to see and understand his plan.”
The Grade II listed property was built in 1932 by Sir Percy Thomas who is credited with some of south Wales’ most recognisable buildings and structures, including The Temple of Peace in Cathays Park and Swansea’s Guildhall.
Inside the sprawling property, the pub has eight rooms, as well as bathrooms and kitchens and it still has a bar, beer terrace, pool room, dart board and even a gym area.
The first few days for the couple and their daughter at The Westgate were quite strange, as the former owner Brains brewery had left almost everything exactly the same as the day it closed in June, 2016.
Mrs Wilcox said: “I think the most surreal moment was coming down on the first morning to make a cup of coffee and using the coffee machine downstairs and having breakfast in the lounge bar.
“It was strange, walking around a pub in your dressing gown and pyjamas, it was a little bizarre. It was also wonderful exploring all the nooks and crannies that you don’t normally get to see in a pub, all the behind the scenes.”
A man who lived in the street behind the pub offered the couple a framed photo of a very unusual punter who once turned up at the bar.
As the photograph shows, an elephant once waited to be served at The Westgate’s bar and the picture now has pride of place in the family home.
Mr Wilcox added: “Apparently it was the time when the circus used to go past The Westgate on their way to Sophia Gardens for their show, and the gentleman said that the person in the photo sitting next to the elephant was his dad. And we love hearing all these wonderful stories that have developed over the years at the pub.
