Welcome to ‘The Village that Bebo Built’ thanks to US tech millionaire
Here's how a tech couple went from founding a very cringey social network to running a very posh village shop.
If you’re in your late twenties to mid-thirties, the name Bebo is likely to evoke strong nostalgia for cringey early attempts at social networking.
But to the residents of a small village in the south-west of England, the short-lived MySpace rival is the reason their local shop just got a posh makeover.
It’s also the reason the local pub had a refurb, and is now a restaurant run by the one-time South West Chef of the Year.
Oh, and it’s also the reason the local manor house is being turned into a boutique hotel.
It’s all thanks to US tech entrepreneur couple Michael and Xochi Birch, who had a magnificent run founding websites in the first decade of the 2000s.
Most notably – and lucratively – the pair created Bebo in January 2005, watching the number of users grow to more than 10 million before selling it to AOL for $850 million in March 2008.
It wasn’t long before the site’s popularity started a terminal decline, and it was closed in 2013. But no matter: the Birches were rich, and they had an idea of what to do with their fortune.
Michael Birch’s great-great grandfather built the village shop for a little place in Devon called Woolfardisworthy – usually referred to as Woolery, which is how the name’s pronounced.
The business remained in the family until 1961, and Michael’s grandmother Millicent Andrew was born above the premises in 1900.
The tech millionaire used to visit the area when he was a boy, and decided he would use his wealth to transform it into a classy destination.
In 2015, he and his wife bought a delapidated local pub named The Farmers Arms, and set about renovating it.
A few years later, it reopened under the same name – but now it was selling sausage, chips and beans for £16.50, and it soon earned a favourable mention in the Michelin Guide.
Much of the food came from a 90-acre farm nearby, which was also bought by the Birches.
They had caught the bug. In the following years, they opened up a fish and chip shop in the village, and also bought the Georgian Woolsery Manor to begin work on a hotel.
And most recently, the couple have transformed the village store that was built by Michael’s relative into ‘Britain’s poshest cornershop’.
The new-look boutique has had mixed reviews from the Woolsery locals.
One said: ‘Absolutely love our village shop make over. All the buildings were listed and derelict back in 2015 and have been renovated at the cost of millions.
‘We’ve already been lucky enough to have the pub, restaurant, fish & chip shop completely renovated by a millionaire who spent his childhood in the village.
‘The manor house is still being done up and there’s a bakery to be added as well.
‘So lucky to buy in this village without any knowledge of the investment that was being planned.’
But others have raised concerns about the prices: a two-litre bottle of milk will set you back £2.10, while a tin of Heinz soup is £2 – more expensive than Waitrose by 30p.
Another local said: ‘Beautiful renovations clearly needed in the village, but given it was an American tech millionaire owning it all. it would have been better seeing investment on a local level and some sort of cooperative that benefitted the local families.’
However, most seemed happy to spend a little more in exchange for investment in Woolsery.
A resident commented: ‘No one would run at a loss, convenience stores are more expensive.
‘At least they’re selling some local good stuff too.’
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