A United States Senator criticised the Clinton administration this month for selling the former official home of the US Consul General in Bermuda.

South Carolina Sen. Ernest F. Hollings (D) said during the Senate Appropriations Committee Hearing on March 2 that he did not agree with the selling of Chelston, a 14-acre beachfront estate in Paget, for $15 million last year.

His comments came after Secretary of State Madeline Albright told the sub-committee on commerce, justice, state and judiciary that funding for the upgrading of US diplomatic facilities around the world needed to be maintained and increased.

In his address, Sen. Hollings played down the importance of the findings of recent panel investigations into embassy security, which were mounted after recent bombings of the US embassies in Tanzania and Kenya.

And he said he was also concerned that the State Department had sold "good properties'' in Bermuda and Rio de Janeiro.

"We just sold off Bermuda,'' he said. "The Bermuda installation was given to us practically and now we've put our representative there in a facility that we pay to rent.'' Chelston was sold to an American businessman in July last year for around $15 million.

The news ended speculation that the estate might be bought by the Bermuda Government -- who insisted the estate was over-valued by the US.

It had been hoped that, in the sale of the estate to Government, a deal could be struck with the US paying for the replacement of Longbird Bridge, which they are responsible for the maintenance of until 2040, under terms of the lease of the former Base Lands.

When it was revealed that the estate had been put up for sale in November 1997, then Consul General Robert Farmer explained the decision had been dependent on "economic factors''.

He told The Royal Gazette : "People in Washington came to the conclusion that it was unnecessary to maintain such a large and lovely estate as Chelston.'' Maintenance costs for the estate by the US were estimated in 1996 to be around $100,000 a year.

But in his address to the Senate Appropriations Committee, Sen. Hollings said he felt Chelston had been big enough to act as both the offices and the residence.

The current US Consul General Larry Owen lives about half a mile down South Shore Road from the Grape Bay estate on a property called Mangrove View, on Mangrove Drive, Paget while the Consulate is housed in a separate building, off Crown Hill, Middle Road, Devonshire.

"We had enough land there to take all the facilities that we needed and the residences and put them on that fine track,'' Sen. Hollings said.