Forget Windsor Castle this summer, why not visit this medieval castle in Kent owned by Real Housewives of Toronto star Ann Kaplan Mulholland.
Ann, 63, gave us a guided tour of the venue and opened up about her extraordinary life that saw her go from a struggling single mum-of-two who moved out at 14 to one half of a billionaire power couple with multiple properties and businesses across the globe.
Sporting a 24-carat diamond engagement ring worth around half a million pounds, the reality star and mum-of-eight asks staff to light the fireplace dating back to 1080 as she sits on a red throne-like chair in her new reception room.
Originally from British Columbia, Canada, Ann bought Lympne Castle for £5.5million in cash in February 2023.
“The assessment value is around £44million,” Ann tells the Mirror. “The last offer on the table was £11million, we offered £6.5million in cash”.
But after receiving the survey report back, Ann knocked off £1million for repairs, leaving her famous plastic surgeon husband Dr Stephen Mulholland, 63, terrified they had lost the character property in Hythe.
“My husband flipped out,” Ann explains. “He told me to just give them the £6.5million but the survey found all the electrics, drainage and everything in the castle needed to be replaced. I told them we can pay £5.5million in cash tomorrow morning by 10am and they accepted the offer.”
The power couple are now working around the clock to transform the centuries-old castle, with numerous construction workers dashing around as Ann takes meetings with contractors in-between outfit changes.
But life hasn’t always been so glitzy for the reality star, recalling her “rough childhood” that saw her move out at 14-years-old.
Ann says: “I grew up thinking I was adopted. My four sisters all had blonde hair and that explained why I was darker than them all. But when I was 12, my mother sat me down and told me she was my biological mother, but my father was a Hawaiian entertainer.
“I decided to move out after she remarried and moved out of town. We were living in Victoria and if I moved with them, it would mean changing schools so I got a job as a waitress and rented a room from someone I found in a newspaper ad.”
After finishing school and attending a design college, Ann met her first husband and she went on to have her first child at 28 years old.
She then gave birth to her second child a year later, before her then-husband left and refused to pay child support.
“I guess there’s a famous saying,” Ann says. “There were too many people in the marriage, and so I decided I would do it on my own. He never paid any child support. Not one dime or any spousal support. And suddenly I was a single mum with two kids.”
Ann recalls shopping in second-hand stores to provide her children with clothes, while also working nights and renting out a room in her Victoria home.
“I never took a day off,” she says. “I was working as a designer and would take my son with me. I’d take a box of crayons and show up at people’s homes and say ‘Sorry, I’ve got my kid’. Then I started working as a commercial designer, mainly because I didn’t like housewives.”
Ann hit rock bottom before launching her business, struggling with life as a single mum while working seven days a week.
After spotting a gap in the market, she launched iFinance in her early 30s, a business offering fair and affordable loans to those in need of a medical, dental or veterinary procedure.
“I felt like my life was over,” Ann says. “I ended up being a single mum with two kids, no money and I would always be crying. I remember this one moment when the babies were in the bathtub and I was leaning over the tub while crying. I felt like I had lost, I was a loser, I was labelled and that was what was going to define me.
“The kids looked up at me and started crying and I thought, oh my goodness, my crying is making them cry. And it was that defining moment that changed my attitude.”
While at a plastic surgery convention in Toronto promoting iFinance, Ann, who was 38 at the time, met her now husband Dr Stephen Mulholland, founder of the multi-million-pound business SpaMedica.
“He chased me for 18 months asking for a date,” she explains. “I finally thought, you know what, he’s as weird as I am. We’re both really quirky. I never would have married him if I knew your husband couldn’t operate on you though.”
Together, the couple worked to build their finances, and with multiple business ventures under their belts, they are now worth a cool £1billion.
Ann then went on to star in the Real Housewives of Toronto in 2017.
When asked how many properties the couple owned, Ann couldn’t remember off the top of her head. “We’re buying another one this week. I am not sure if it’s nine, 10, or 11.”
Ann went on to have two more children with Stephen while adopting her sister’s children and becoming a step-mum to her husband’s children from his previous marriage.
This makes her a mum-of-eight to Luke, Gabie, Barrett, Keaton, Destiny, Rock, Talise, and Chase, with Ann admitting she has a “strict household”, and refuses to give her children money unless they earn it.
“If my daughter wanted a doll, she had to scrub the floor”, Ann says.
Ann and Stephen moved to the UK in 2022 after all their children moved out of the family home.
The couple have a luxurious apartment in Mayfair, but decided to purchase Lympne Castle in February 2023 after falling in love with the British countryside.
Ann’s late mum is from Scotland, and she also attended Henley Business School in her early 20s.
“I’ve been back and forth to England so many times,” she says. “We decided not to buy in London because it was so expensive. We found a tiny flat for £8.5million. Mortgage rates were through the roof and we knew we wanted to buy somewhere outright.
“I found the castle while scrolling through some property websites. We had no link to Kent but the countryside is breathtaking.
“I didn’t even know it wasn’t open to the public until we opened it, and then it became a big job to make sure we respected the community.”
But the community have embraced Ann with “open arms”, as locals thank her for opening up the historic building for public viewing.
There are also plans to open a bistro in the coming weeks, with a range of hot food and even a menu for visitors’ four-legged friends.
“I tried to hire in the community,” Ann explains. “We fell into it and it’s a lot of work but we love it.”
As well as the castle that overlooks the English Channel, Ann and Stephen own homes in Hawaii, Las Vegas, Vancouver, and Toronto – where her next-door neighbour is none other than famous rapper Drake.
“It wasn’t always easy but I watched every penny and worked hard…very hard,” she says.
The venue is also available for weddings, with Ann hosting her first-ever ceremony just three months after getting the keys to the unique property.
There are also plans to convert some of the rooms into residential properties, allowing guests to stay overnight at the grand location.
