An iconic home with the torso of a shark protruding from the roof is now available to rent for £3,500 per month.
The Victorian terraced home in Headington, Oxfordshire, features a 25-foot fibreglass and steel shark sculpture which appears to have dived head first into the roof.
The Shark House was created by writer Bill Heine and sculptor John Buckley and erected on August 9, 1986.
It has been a controversial property since its conception having been erected overnight without planning permission, becoming the subject of a dispute spanning six years over whether it should remain or not.
Oxford city council argued the inanimate shark was a danger to the public but it was later found to be safe.
The council then said it needed to be taken down because it constituted a development.
A retrospective planning application for the unique installation was declined in 1990 and it was only given permission to stay after Mr Heine appealed to the Secretary of State for the Environment in 1992.
Having been erected on the anniversary of the second atomic bomb being dropped on Nagasaki, the Shark House was intended to be an anti-nuclear and anti-war art work.
An iconic home with the torso of a shark protruding from the roof is now available to rent for £3,500 per month
The Victorian terraced home in Headington, Oxfordshire, features a 25-foot fibreglass and steel shark sculpture which appears to have dived head first into the roof
The Shark House was created by writer Bill Heine and sculptor John Buckley and erected on August 9, 1986 (Pictured: the rear of the property)
At the time, Mr Heine said: ‘The shark was to express someone feeling totally impotent and ripping a hole in their roof out of a sense of impotence and anger and desperation…. It is saying something about CND, nuclear power, Chernobyl and Nagasaki.’
Mr Heine, who passed away in 2019, also wrote and published a book about the shark in 2011.
The house is currently owned by his son, Magnus Hanson-Heine, who purchased his childhood home in 2016 when his father had remortgaged the property as it was at risk of being repossessed.
‘It looked increasingly likely that the shark would be ‘tidied up’ so the property could be sold off as a regular terraced house. In the end, I agreed to preserve this piece of history and join the fight for its survival. The shark house is safe for now,’ Magnus told The Guardian at the time.
Since then, it has become an iconic landmark and, in 2022, the Shark Home received listed status.
However, Magnus was less than impressed, telling The Independent at the time: ‘You couldn’t write a more tone-deaf planning decision. They don’t understand the artwork and they have done damage to a beautiful piece of the city’s cultural heritage, which is a surprisingly perverse use of the Heritage register.’
He also told the Associated Press: ‘Using the planning apparatus to preserve a historical symbol of planning law defiance is absurd.’
Magnus has been renting the house for short stays on Airbnb but now the whole property it available for long-term rent with Chancellors for £3,500 per month.
The two-storey house has a cellar, private garden, four double bedrooms, three of which are ensuite.
Downstairs, there is a kitchen diner, utility room, large reception room and a garden room.
A few rooms have kept period features including wooden floorboards and sash windows.
The colour scheme is neutral throughout the house with beige carpets, cream-coloured walls and natural light.
The Shark House is fully furnished and marketed to families and professionals ‘seeking a distinctive living space’, according to the agents.
‘The iconic Headington Shark House, recognised globally for its stunning 25-foot fibreglass and steel shark sculpture, offers a unique opportunity to reside in a living piece of art history.’