HERE’S a thing. Sometimes houses are like buses... you wait for a good one to come along for ages and then two come along at once.

This week we chanced upon two towering properties in Fulford Road, both superb properties – and both with tremendous commercial potential.

At the moment they are both run as successful bed and breakfast businesses.

One is going to stay that way, the other – well that depends upon the buyers. Let us explain...

Roger Dick and his wife Lesley have owned Turnberry House for seven years and have been running the property as a popular bistro-style bed and breakfast hotel.

Now, by Roger’s own admission, the couple have gone into “semi-retirement”

and while still getting plenty of guests, are not quite as intent on working all hours as they might once have been.

“If someone wanted to buy the property as a going business concern then it’s a very healthy proposition,”

says Roger. On the other hand, with one eye on their own future, the couple have also got planning permission to return Turnberry to residential use.

So, business or pleasure, you can take your pick. The property is certainly ideal for either use.

Built in the early 1900s and at one time a “superior residence” for army officers from the nearby barracks, it’s a big, sprawling, stylish and elegantlypresented house with a huge amount of space on offer.

It begins on the ground floor with a run of rooms which includes, from front to back, a generous sitting room, a dining room, a breakfast room and conservatory, a kitchen and utility and cloak rooms.

On the first floor there are four bedrooms, all with en-suite shower rooms, and on the top floor there are two bedrooms, both with en-suite bathrooms.

Selling agents Naish assure us that virtually no conversion work is needed for this big, romper-stomper of a house to simply become a large and impressive family home.

Naish have set a guide price of £615,000. You can contact them on 01904 653564.

Next door, meanwhile, we have what is very much a going concern (we know what the turnover is and, while we would never be so impolite as to make it public knowledge, it is very healthy).

The Hollies is a beautifully-presented and imposing guest house which remains highly popular with visitors to York. Here you will find a house divided neatly between guest and owneroccupied spaces.

The latter includes a lounge with double doors out to a lawned garden with decking area (also available to the guests), two bedrooms and a bathroom. Then comes a kitchen, communal guest lounge and dining area and six guest bedrooms, all with en-suite facilities.

This, say selling agents Quantum, would be an ideal starter business as it has a sound commercial base and yet has good private areas.

The asking price is £575,000 and Quantum can be contacted on 01904 631631. Home or business or both – it’s up to you.