Widowed grandmother's tears of joy as she scoops luxury Cornish house trends now
A widowed grandmother-of-six, who won her dream home after spending £25 to enter the Omaze draw, says the first thing she did was call her children and then open a bottle of red wine after she secured the £4.5million Cornish property.
June Smith, from Essex, has been given the keys to the luxury six-bedroom, three-storey property overlooking the Fowey Estuary - and has also won £100,000 in cash.
The mother-of-three had tears of joy as she told the Omaze team that the last time she stayed in Cornwall was in a caravan and how her late husband, Ron, who was an architectural designer, would have loved it.
In disbelief, the 74-year-old revealed that she never thought people win jackpot competitions and how she still cannot believe she was fortunate enough to scoop the multi-million pound coastal home.
The property is said to be the biggest-ever house prize to be given away in a draw in Britain and comes mortgage free, with all stamp duty and legal fees covered.
June Smith, 74, has now been given the keys to the luxury six-bedroom property in Cornwall
The property is said to be the biggest ever house prize to be given away in a draw in Britain
(From left to right) June Smith's son Rory Smith, June Smith herself, her granddaughter Lilian Smith, her daughter Katharine Smith, her granddaughter Nicole Bysouth-Smith, Rory's fiancé Rebecca Swinn and Rebecca's mother Barbara Swinn
June Smith celebrates after winning the keys to the £4.5million Cornish waterside mansion
Ms Smith is free to either live in the house, rent it out or sell it. If she decides to rent it, local estate agents estimate it could achieve £5,000 to £7,000 per month from long-term rentals - and up to £14,000 a week from peak season holiday rentals.
The grandmother, who stayed with her family in a caravan the last time she went on holiday to Cornwall, won the prize in the latest Omaze Million Pound House Draw.
Ian Garrick – November 2020
Britain's first Omaze winner, policeman Ian Garrick, 58, from Mablethorpe, Lincolnshire, won a house in Cheadle Hulme, Cheshire, which he later sold for £1.1million. It meant he could retire and move to a £500,000 detached house with views of the countryside.
Catherine Carwardine, April 2022
NHS worker Catherine Carwardine, 60, from Wolverhampton, won a £3million six-bedroom house overlooking Lake Windermere. Beforehand, she and her her husband Chris had been fostering children at their five-bedroom house in Telford, Shropshire, for five years.
Uttam Parmar, August 2022
Operations manager Uttam Parmar, 58, from Leicestershire, won a four-bedroom Cornish house with panoramic views of the Camel Estuary. He and his wife Raki, 53, initially put the house on the market for £4million - but since then they have decided to hang onto the property for now.
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She lost her husband of 43 years, Ron, last year when he suffered a heart attack at 74 and has lived in her two-bedroom detached house in Essex for the past 17 years.
She worked as a bookkeeper before she retired to have children while Ron worked as an architectural designer all his life.
Ms Smith, who has three children and six grandchildren, said that Ron would have 'absolutely loved the design of this house' and will be 'looking down with an approving smile'.
She also said that when she was told she had won the grand prize, she could not believe she had actually won, saying: 'People like me don't win things like this.'
Ms Smith said: 'I was just settling in for a standard Friday night in front of the telly - then the next thing I knew I'd won a mansion, I couldn't believe it. The first thing I did was call my children, the second was to open a bottle of red!
'My husband Ron died last year, but I'm sure he played a part in this win - he won it for all of us. Ron always wanted us to be financially secure as a family - and this house gives us that security.
'He spent his life working with architecture, he'd have absolutely loved this house - it's a work of art. We used to come for
