Bill Heine, journalist and radio presenter, who for many years, lived in the Headington suburb of Oxford, died of cancer earlier this month at the age of 74. He left behind his partner, Jane Hanson, and their son, Magnus, as well as a 25ft long fiberglass shark, protruding from the roof what was once his house.

Twenty-seven years before the movie Sharknado sent sharks raining down on Los Angeles, California, a large shark appeared to have fallen from the sky in Headington and become stuck in the roof of a house on High Street. 

Fortunately, it wasn’t a real shark.

As the Guardian reports:  One April evening in 1986, Bill Heine was sitting on the steps opposite his newly purchased terraced house in Oxford, drinking a glass of wine, when he turned to his friend and asked a simple question: “Can you do something to liven it up?”  His friend, the sculptor John Buckley, provided an answer in the shape of an eight-meter (25ft) shark which would sit on his roof, perpetually appearing as though it had just crashed into the house from the sky.

Notionally, the shark was a political statement. It appeared on the 41st anniversary of the dropping of the atom bomb on Nagasaki in 1945. It was a protest against both the American bombing of Libya and nuclear weapons. On the other hand, it was unclear how political the message really was. Bill Heine was also just really fond of sharks. 

Perhaps, not surprisingly, the Oxford city council was not pleased. There was the matter of permits and approvals. And who in their right mind would ever approve of an eight-meter shark sticking out of one’s roof? Thus began a six-year battle between the bureaucracy and the fanciful journalist.  A groundswell of support grew for the shark as public art. The issue was ultimately resolved in 1992 when Environment Secretary Michael Heseltine intervened and granted retrospective planning permission.

Now three decades later, the Oxford city council, which fought the shark, is working to protect it as a national treasure. 

Bill Heine and his shark have been often cited as an example of British eccentricity. Heine was, in fact, however, an American from Illinois, who came to study at Oxford and never left.

In August 2016 Heine’s son, Magnus Hanson-Heine, bought the house in order to preserve the Shark. The property has been run as an Airbnb guesthouse since 2018.  The Headington Shark Apartment is available for rent for US$ 136 per night.