Archive for June 2011

McLaren launch at One Hyde Park

McLaren’s foray into the midst of exclusive Knightsbridge went off with a bang, as Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button cut the tape on the all-new showroom in Candy & Candy’s One Hyde Park.

£50m Witanhurst House basement expansion

Protruding into the clouds above the leafy skyline north-east of Hampstead Heath is a crane so tall it is visible for miles around. In fact, the only Londoners in N6 who struggle to make out the top of it are those living right beneath it in the equally verdant environs of Highgate village. But what they can’t see is more than made up for by what they can hear; the constant growl of the giant diggers cutting a small canyon into what has become known locally as Ground Zero and the screech and roar of articulated lorries - an estimated four an hour for six months - queuing up to remove the fresh earth. If that weren’t enough, there is the metal hoarding around part of the six-acre site, cabins emblazoned with the logo of the contractor responsible for excavating 15,000 square metres, not to mention the numerous builders, landscape gardeners, decorators, project managers, architects and engineers who will be coming and going - all in the name of making Witanhurst House, London’s largest private house (if you discount Buckingham Palace), even larger and grander. In fact, when work is completed, some time in late autumn 2012, Witanhurst House will be more than double its original size, extended by 45,000 sq ft - the equivalent of 10 very generously sized detached family homes. It will be a mere 2,000-odd square feet smaller than Buckingham Palace, which many don’t count as a private house anyway on the basis that it belongs to the taxpayer.

But although Witanhurst was bought over three years ago and work has been going on for 18 months, no one knows exactly who the new owners are.

The house was bought in 2008 for £50 million by the offshore company Safran Holdings. It was then rumoured that the real buyers of the house near the summit of Highgate West Hill, which enjoyed a brief turn in the limelight as the Fame Academy house in 2002, were construction tycoon Elena Baturina and her husband, Yuri Luzhkov, the former mayor of Moscow. The couple have repeatedly denied all such reports and have taken legal action against those who have suggested otherwise. No other names have ever emerged but the very rich are often extremely secretive. It is understood that even Robert Adam, the architect behind the £50 million expansion project, does not know who his client is. He receives his instructions via an intricate web of companies and agents that appear dedicated to keeping the secret, well, secret.

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Chelsea Barracks gets go-ahead at last!

A multimillion pound redevelopment of Chelsea Barracks has been given the green light two years after the Prince of Wales intervened over plans for the site.

Westminster Council last night gave consent to an outline master plan for the scheme, which will see the 13-acre property turned into up to 448 houses and flats, a sports centre, shops and health centre. The plans will be referred to the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, for approval before detailed designs are submitted, the council said. The move comes after a row broke out between Prince Charles and Lord Rogers over a previous design by the award-winning architect for the site in west London. In June 2009, developer Qatari Diar Real Estate withdrew its planning application for the prestigious site after the prince wrote to the chairman, the prime minister of Qatar, saying his “heart sank” when he saw the design. Lord Rogers said Charles’s determination to express his views on his design for the barracks was “wrong”. Following the withdrawal of the planning application, Qatari Diar’s then-partner, the CPC Group, launched a high court action to get an early payment of £68.5m after the scheme’s collapse, but the legal bid failed.

The architects behind the revised plans are Dixon Jones, Squire and Partners and Kim Wilkie. Councillor Alastair Moss, chairman of the council’s planning and city development committee, said: “Chelsea Barracks is the most significant residential development we have seen in Westminster in recent years.

“It is a world-class site in a historic part of the capital and it is vital that its redevelopment helps improve the area.” “We should be proud of this scheme and the huge amount of effort put into it by all parties.”

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Press Association
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 21 June 2011 09.09 BST

Updown Court up for sale at £75 million

The most expensive country house in the UK has gone up for sale for £75million!!!

Updown Court has 103 rooms, five swimming pools, two penthouse apartments and a helipad. It stands in 58 acres of grounds. The residence - in the Surrey village of Windlesham - was originally put up for sale with agents for £70million a few years ago.

Updown Court: This luxury mansion, in Windlesham, Surrey, is on the market for £75million. The enigmatic owner behind Updown is bricklayer’s son-turned-property developer supremo Leslie Allen-Vercoe, 67.
His company Rhymer Investments purchased it in 2002 out of receivership for £20million - and has since spent at least £30million on renovation work. Now, an Irish bank has requested a drive to sell the mansion with a new price tag which reflects the vast sums ploughed into it.

The owner behind Updown Court is property developer Leslie Allen-Vercoe. His company Rhymer Investments purchased it in 2002 out of receivership for £20m. Extra agents, including retired property specialist Colin Penfold, 73, have also been called in as efforts are increased to clinch a sale. Penfold said: ‘It has just about every conceivable luxury. It think it has potential.’

No place like home: House for sale in Teignmouth includes an altar in the dining room and a mausoleum in the garden
Upward mobility! When it comes to looking good, holiday park homes are reaching new heights…
Britain’s richest street: The place by the palace, where the average house price is £19.5m
The neo-classical California-style mansion was built in 2002 on the site of an earlier property which was owned during the 1970s by Prince Sami Gayed of Egypt.
The house, which has 24 bedrooms and 23 bathrooms, has been built with some of the world’s rarest materials - mainly Italian marble.
Visitors approach the mansion, which is 30 miles from Central London, along a heated marble driveway.
The mansion has a 50-seat cinema, a two-lane bowling alley, a gymnasium, a squash court, a flood-lit tennis court, a lake, a wine cellar for 3,000 bottles and a ‘panic room’.
Neighbours include Sir Elton John and Queen guitarist Brian May.

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By DAILY MAIL REPORTER
Last updated at 1:13 PM on 6th June 2011