“Internationally important” Greek Revival Cairness House has its price slashed from £3 million to just £1.25 million in spite of it having been given a renovation that supposedly cost over £1 million
Featured in The Steeple Times when last for sale in January 2015, a 10-bedroomed Scottish mansion once lauded by Country Life as “Scotland’s most important Greek Revival house” is back on the market.
Priced this time at just £1.25 million as opposed to the £2 million it was promoted for back then – and at a staggering sum 58% lower than its £3 million tag in May 2011 – Cairness House at Lonmay, near Fraserburgh is being promoted by Knight Frank. This time round, they hail it as “being a 45-minute drive from city centre of Aberdeen, the oil capital of Europe.”
Built to the designs of the much celebrated though very short-lived architect James Playfair (1755 to 1794) using “revolutionary forms of neoclassicism,” here is a truly spectacular residence constructed from finely detailed ashlar. It was designed as a ‘calendar house’ and consists of a 110-foot long main block flanked by two raised ‘bookend’ wings with a 270-foot long ‘hemicycle’ behind.
Featuring the earliest surviving ‘Egyptian Revival Room’ in the world – complete with elaborate hieroglyph plasterwork – this is an elegantly proportioned building that extends to some 32,626 square foot.
Speaking of Cairness House to The Scotsman in late October, Tom Stewart-Moore remarked:
“The main part of the house is finished – the impressive public rooms and the grand bedrooms above. But there is further scope for the bedrooms on the second floor and the extra space in the semi-circle of buildings at the back.”
“The buyer could be someone who loves the architecture and has the budget to develop it further for their own use. Others will want to make the most of the asset to develop as a venue – you have the whisky trail not far away, so it is an interesting hospitality package.”
“But whoever buys it will have to understand the history and its importance – it is an architectural gem and deserves an understanding owner.”
Sadly, of the 9,000 acres that this palatial pad stood in when it was built between 1791 and 1797, just 16 acres remain. The current owners have, however, made the most of what they have and in 2002 planted 150 young specimen trees that created an arboretum that marked the Queen’s Golden Jubilee.
Editor’s Note – Unlike as is the case in many publications, this article was NOT sponsored or supported by a third-party.
Current owners Khalil Hafiz-Khairallah and Julio Soriano-Ruiz in one of the many reception rooms in a house they have clearly lavished great amounts of money restoring.
The Names & Numbers – Cairness House, St Combs, Lonmay, Fraserburgh, Buchan, Aberdeenshire, AB43 8XP, United Kingdom
November 2022 – Placed for sale with Knight Frank again for the much lower sum of £1.25 million ($1.48 million, €1.44 million or درهم5.44 million), a sum 58% lower than the asking price in 2011.
January 2015 – On sale with Knight Frank for a significantly reduced price of £2 million ($2.4 million, €2.3 million or درهم8.7 million) after four years on the market.
May 2011 – Placed for sale for £3 million ($3.6 million, €3.5 million or درهم13.1 million).
2009 – The restoration works carried out by Khairallah and Soriano-Ruiz were commended by the Duke of Gloucester when their project won the Georgian Group prize for the best restoration of a Georgian house in Britain. In a statement, the group observed: “From being a moribund building at risk riddled with dry rot, Cairness is now a magnificent private home.”
2000 – Sold to Lebanese journalist Khalili Hafiz Khairallah and his Spanish art historian partner Julio Soriano-Ruiz for an undisclosed sum.
The pair subsequently claimed to have spent over £1 million ($1.2 million, €1.2 million or درهم4.4 million) on renovations that included their having “retiled the roof, installed central heating, restored 180 windows and spent a year and a half removing and recasting 51 cast-iron chimney pots.”
“We spent a couple of years looking for a neoclassical house. It’s perhaps surprising that we found it in this part of Scotland, but there are lots of hidden gems in Scotland. It’s the best Greek revival house of its type in Scotland, if not Britain. It’s got the most exquisite neoclassical interiors.”
“It needed an awful lot of work done to it. It was a ‘building at risk’, but we were looking for a house to restore and that was the challenge. We wanted a house that we could bring back to life.”
“It’s actually very easy to live in because all the rooms are on a very human scale. There’s nothing vast or difficult to heat.”
1994 – Offered to the National Trust of Scotland, but turned down by the organisation as “being too costly to repair” and sold to an architect named Philip Miller and his interior designer wife, Patricia, for a sum unknown. They “significantly renovated the property but after Mr Miller suffered a mild stroke, they ‘could no longer undertake such a large task and were forced to sell [in 2000] and find a less demanding project.’”
1991 – Added to the Building at Risk Register by the Scottish Civic Trust.
1950s onwards – The house becomes used as a farmhouse and falls into decline; its park is decimated and subjected to a “mass clearance of trees” to make way for the land being used for agricultural use.
1939 to 1945 – Used by the Consolidated Pneumatic Tool Company of Fraserburgh as evacuation premises for their London head office.
1937 – Sold by the Gordon family to Ethel, Countess of Southesk.
1791 to 1797 – Constructed in the neoclassical style for Charles Gordon of Cairness and Buthlaw to the designs of architect James Playfair assisted by Sir John Soane. At this time the accompanying estate extended to some 9,000 acres of land.
The building is subsequently described in the Pevsner Architectural Guides as: “Of international importance as the only house in Britain, the design and construction of which reflected and evolved with the rapid advances in French neoclassicism towards the end of the C18… Its survival is the more precious as so many of Playfair’s other designs were either not built or have been lost or altered.”
Latest owners of sickening site of Jeffrey Epstein’s £13.2 million Palm Beach “paedo pad” seek to erase memories of what went on there with construction of a “Cape Dutch” style crib
After venture capitalist David Skok and his interior designer wife Mally purchased the cleared lot on which Jeffrey Epstein’s former Palm Beach “paedo pad” once stood in September 2021, Mr Skok subsequently commented: “One of our goals was to take something that, I think, had a very bad reputation and was a blight on the community, and do everything we could to bring that to a state of beauty and grace that really added to the town.”
The couple – who have “links to Boston and South Africa” purchased 358 El Brillo Way for £22.5 million from developer Todd Michael Glaser, who had himself bought Epstein’s 11,589 square foot “white box” abuse den in March 2021 for £13.2 million and then sent in the wrecking ball – went on to scrap Glaser’s plans for a “14,000 square foot Art Moderne mansion” and have now sought instead to build a much more modest 9,529 square foot structure on the site.
Described as being of “Cape Dutch style,” the building proposed was this week described by the Palm Beach Daily News as:
“To be built around a small courtyard, the six-bedroom house would have smooth white stucco-clad walls, a red tile roof and Flemish-style scalloped parapets. On the west side, steps would lead down to the lawn from a terrace facing a cove on the Intracoastal Waterway. The front door would front El Brillo Way, a dead-end street about a half-mile south of Worth Avenue and a mile north of former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club.”
Whether the new structure will have a vast and decidedly creepy “party shower” – as Epstein had installed when he bought 358 Brillo Way in 1990 for just £1.8 million and as Ghislaine Maxwell also had in her Manchester-by-the-Sea crib (which remains on sale still) – is something that the Skoks and their representatives have yet to comment on.
Pictured top – Jeffrey Epstein and her lover Ghislaine Maxwell (left) and a rendering for the proposed replacement for the Palm Beach, Florida house where they abused so hundreds of minors (right).
The house as owned by the Ponzi scheming paedophile Epstein from 1990 until his death on 10th August 2019. It was occupied for much of that time also by his co-collaborator Maxwell and it was there that they disgustingly used and abused hundreds of innocent victims.After the evil paedophile Jeffrey Epstein died and before the house was razed to the ground, the gates of the property became prone to visits from vigilantes and graffiti artists. On one occasion, quite appropriately, a tag that read: “Gone but not forgiven” was added.On 19th April 2021, the house was visited by a wrecking ball and razed to the ground.The plot was subsequently landscaped by its developer owner before being sold on to a trust connected to David and Mally Skok for £22.5 million on 30th September 2021.The new owners instructed their architects to build what they call a “Cape Dutch style” residence. It, in fact, doesn’t differ much in its look from any McMansion, but is certainly more aesthetically pleasing than the naff and most definitely creepy crib that it is the proposed replacement for.A full rendering of the circa 1-acre site, the proposed residence and its water frontage.Ponzi scheming paedophile Jeffrey Epstein and mucky madam nonce Ghislaine Maxwell took to life to Palm Beach as there, aside from the glitz and the glamour of Worth Avenue and Mar-a-Lago, they were able to lure in young victims to sexually abuse and traffic.Replacing the wicked couple that once lived there if and once their new ‘McMansion’ is eventually constructed as residents will be David Skok and his wife Mally. The pair have lived in London, UK, Boston, USA and Plettenberg Bay, South Africa and both are successful business people in the worlds respectively of finance and interior decoration.When the FBI raided the El Brillo Way home of Epstein after his arrest in the summer of 2019, they photographed the entire property. Amongst the more bizarre features was a vast “party shower” where the twisted abuser and his sidekick Maxwell no doubt disgustingly engaged in ‘activities’ with multiple sexual partners – whether willing or not. Thankfully, with demolition complete this seen of heinous crimes has now been erased from the planet.Now reduced in price to just £6.1 million ($6.95 million, €7 million or درهم25.5 million) from £6.3 million ($7.295 million, €7.4 million or درهم26.8 million) in February this year as clearly nobody wants the former residence of a mucky madam sex trafficker, the Manchester-by-the-Sea “hideaway” that Ghislaine Maxwell (AKA ‘Mrs Scott Borgerson,’ ‘Jennifer Ellmax,’ ‘Jen Marshall,’ ‘Janet Marshall’ and just plain old ‘G’) shared with her now estranged husband since 2016 also had a “party show.” It was a little more modern than that found in Jeffrey Epstein’s Palm Beach pad, but of it a neighbour remarked: “The house did have one unusual feature – a huge shower. It had Wi-Fi so they could control it from their phones, a steam unit, the whole nine yards. It was like a party shower. You can imagine what they got up to in there.” Clearly, shower room parties were high on the agenda of this bunch of deviants.
The Names & Numbers – 358 El Brillo Way, Palm Beach, Florida, FL 33480, United States of America
Standing on a lot of 33,000 square foot and near the terminus of the dead-end street, here is a property that will forever be associated with the wicked activities of the croaked paedophile Jeffrey Epstein and his incarcerated co-collaborator mucky madam sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell.
The site has a history going back to the 1950s, but the new owners undoubtedly would no doubt rather forget what went on there from 1990 until 2019:
May to August 2022 – Mr and Mrs Skok’s architect Roger Janssen of Dailey Janssen Architects and landscape designer Jorge Sanchez of SMI Landscape Architecture worked and reworked designs at the request of the Palm Beach Architectural Commission.
30th September 2021 – The vacant lot is sold for £22.506 million ($25.845 million, €26.082 million or درهم94.916 million) a trust “linked to… seasonal Palm Beach residents” David and Mally Skok.
April 2021 – Offered for sale for circa £26.1 million ($30 million, €30.3 million or درهم110.2 million) on the MLS by 360 El Brillo LLC, “a limited liability company associated with developer Todd Michael Glaser.”
19th April 2021 – Demolition begins to make way for new build with Glaser giving one word in comment to the Daily News of the wrecking ball arriving. It was: “Finally.”
15th March 2021 – Sold to Miami property developer Todd Michael Glaser for £13.2 million ($18.5 million, €15.3 million or درهم67.9 million).
July 2020 – Listed for sale for £15.726 million ($21.995 million, €18.227 million or درهم80.777 million) by Kerry Warwick of The Corcoran Group. The property was described as standing on a lot of 36,050 square feet and featured a 14,223 square foot “white box” structure with 6 bedrooms, 8 bathrooms and a 3-car garage.
August 2019 – 12 News reported that the gates to the house had been vandalised by someone who tagged them “@Leroy” in large red letters.
2011 – Ownership transferred by Epstein from his name to an entity named Laurel Inc., a company registered in the U.S. Virgin Islands.
1990 – Sold to Jeffrey Epstein for £1.8 million ($2.5 million, €2.1 million or درهم9.2 million) and “significantly remodeled.”
1952 – Built to the designs of Austrian born John L. Volk (1901 – 1984) “in West Indies-style architecture.”
The “Paedo Pad” As Was…
Referenced in April 2021 as a “pleasure palace” by the Mirror’s United States editor Christopher Bucktin, 358 El Brillo Way was where Epstein and Maxwell “abused dozens of girls.”
Prince Andrew is said to have “allegedly spent weeks” there “surrounded by topless teens” and guests got to see walls “adorned with pictures of naked girls” and cupboards “stocked with sex toys.”
Estate agent Lawrence Moens commented: “I only got involved in the sale to ensure it would be wiped off the map” whilst a neighbour added after the “grotesque” structure’s demolition: “Thank God it’s gone.”
Pictures below, taken after the FBI’s 2019 raid, illustrate amongst other things rooms where the mucky madam and her sidekick entertained, massage tables used for abuse and the very house manuals, address books and message books which this gruesome duo used during their interactions with the powerful and the privileged and those that they used and abused.
“Stately home in miniature” Poston Court could become the most expensive small country estate ever sold in Herefordshire; is it worth £10.5 million?
In 2012, when the late Shane Warne and his then lover Elizabeth Hurley paid £6 million for a manor house with 187 acres in Herefordshire it was lauded as “one of the most expensive houses ever sold” in that county.
Now, with the launch to the market of the 266-acre Poston Court Estate – situated near Britain’s best known ‘Book Town,’ Hay-on-Wye – at a staggering price of £10.5 million, a new record will be achieved for what is considered a “small country estate.”
Situated in a parish in which Lewis Carroll’s younger brother, the Reverend Skeffington Hume Dodgson, was vicar from 1895 to 1910, Grade II* listed, 4,362 square foot Poston House at Vowchurch overlooks the Golden Valley, the Black Mountains and the Forest of Dean. It is described as enjoying “some of the finest views in England” and is 139 miles from London and 48 miles from Cardiff.
Renovated by subsequent recent owners and most recently the subject of “a glamorous reinvention by [the] designer Francis Sultana,” according to a December 2021 feature in House & Garden, this “stately home in miniature” was originally a shooting lodge and includes amongst other things 4 reception rooms, 3 bedroom suites and a media room.
In addition, there is a 2,606 square foot secondary residence, Poston Lodge, with a further 3 bedroom suites, a 1,831 square foot 4 bedroom cottage, a studio office with a wet bar and a 1,885 square foot orangery with a swimming pool. Outbuildings number barns and garaging and in addition there is a tennis court, parkland originally laid out by King George III’s master gardener Sir Thomas Robinson, woodland and the “the space and topography” to create a small shoot.
The front elevation of the Grade II* listed main residence on the estate.Viewed from the rear.An aerial shot shows Poston House and its ancillary residences and outbuildings.Liz Hurley and Shane Warne paid £6 million for Donnington Hall in September 2012. Her life at the 13-bedroom Georgian house set in 187 acres has attracted press attention in the time since and in October 2021, Hurley angered neighbours by leaving the estate “looking like a battlefield” after felling dozens of trees. In 2013, the dopey diva complained that “noisy sheep were keeping her awake.”The wall mount to Sir Edward Boughton, Bart. (1794 – 1794) in St Bartholomew’s Church, Vowchurch remarks of him: “He was a man of clear discrimination, of sound judgment, of unshaken fidelity in his friendships and of inviolable honours and integrity.”
The Names & Numbers – Poston Court (Also known as Poston House), Vowchurch, Hereford, Herefordshire, HR2 0RJ, United Kingdom
June 2022 – Offered for sale for £10.5 million ($13.2 million, €12.3 million or درهم48.5 million) through Knight Frank with 266.23 acres.
2015 – Sold to a “British couple, who have led a fairly international life but, six years ago, were looking for a quiet place in the English countryside. They previously had a far larger country house, but came to realise that it did not reflect the way they wanted to live. ‘Most of the house was never used – there were rooms I wouldn’t go into for weeks at a time,’ Poston’s current chatelaine recalls. ‘But when we saw this, it ticked every single box for us,’” according to House & Garden.
September 2013 – Offered for sale for £3.5 million ($4.4 million, €4.1 million or درهم16.2 million) through Strutt & Parker and Carter Jonas with 223.5 acres.
May 2009 – Offered for sale for £4.25 million ($5.35 million, €4.99 million or درهم19.63 million) through Andrew Grant with 270 acres on behalf of Mr and Mrs Ludwig.
1999 – Sold to Stephan Ludwig, owner of Dreweatt Neate Fine Art, and his wife Emily.
1988 – Bought and restored with the assistance of the architect and Liberal policitian Philip Jebb by Esmond Bulmer of the Bulmers cider making family. Of the property at this time, the “viper wit” art historian Sir Roy Strong CH, FRSL remarked: “In the evening went to dinner with Esmond and Susie Bulmer at Poston. The house was a hunting lodge by Sir William Chambers but transformed by them into a hilltop Trianon with panoramic views over the Herefordshire landscape” in his 2016 book Scenes and Apparitions: The Roy Strong Diaries, 1988 – 2003.
1960s – Sold to a local farmer and “thereafter went into rapid decline,” according to Country Life magazine. House & Garden point that it “had hens nesting in its central rotunda dining room.”
1890 – Two wings attached to east and west.
1882 – Altered and extended.
1794 – Sir Edward Boughton, Bt. dies aged 52 and subsequently the property passes subsequently to his various descendants. A wall monument in St Bartholomew’s Church, Vowchurch remarks of him: “He was a man of clear discrimination, of sound judgment, of unshaken fidelity in his friendships and of inviolable honours and integrity.”
1765 – Built as a Georgian ‘casino’ (Italian for “small house” rather than a gambling reference) or ‘round house’ by the Swedish-Scottish architect Sir William Chambers RA – whose best-known works are Somerset House in London and Kew Gardens in Richmond upon Thames – for Sir Edward Boughton, Bt. (1742 – 1794).
Around this time also, Sir Thomas Robinson, master gardener to King George III, laid out the estate’s grounds with “many of the magnificent trees seen here today,” according to Knight Frank.
Sir Edward became the 8th Baronet Lawford in 1780 following the murder of a distant cousin, Sir Theodosius Boughton, Bt. (1760 – 1780) of Lawford Hall, Warwickshire who was poisoned days after his 21st birthday by his brother-in-law Captain ‘Diamond’ Donellan – whose wife would have inherited if he had died before he was 21. It was a famous case of its time and ultimately Donellan was executed in 1781 for his murder.
1749 – The manor of Poston is sold by the trustees of the 5th Duke of Beaufort to the Boughton family.
1635 – “Henry Earl of Worcester paid £400 (the equivalent of £62,000 today or $78,000, €73,000 or درهم286,000) for the house, which remained in the hands of the Somerset family, Dukes of Beaufort.”
1522 – “It passed to the Parry family, who were granted a licence to enclose the deer park.”
1227 – “Ralph Scudamore, the benefactor of Dore Abbey, had a fortified house here,” according to Country Life.
Poston House
The drawing room of the house is decorated in “germolene with a bit of lilac” say the current owners.The circular dining room is situated in the building’s central rotunda. Of it ‘House & Garden’ comment: “The aforementioned rotunda dining room retains some of the relics of the Bulmer period and is rich in original, as well as contemporary, references to the building’s 18th-century origins. These include three grisaille panels showing the Sacrifice to Pomona, painted by Esmond’s son Edward and recently restored. Edward, himself an interior designer and historic paint specialist, also designed two console tables, their Vitruvian scroll detailing now repeated in the edge of the circular Mattia Bonetti rug. Surrounding the magnificent ‘Three Graces’ dining table, also by Mattia, is a set of antique black klismos chairs bought in Paris.”The handmade kitchen is by a firm named Martin Moore.Previously an additional bedroom, a circular room in the basement has been converted into a media room.The primary bedroom suite is decorated in a ritzy fashion in de Gournay silk wallcoverings.There are two additional bedroom suites in the main house; they wouldn’t look out of place in a fashionable country house hotel.
Poston Lodge
The “miniature stately home” also has space for guests, staff and relatives. Amongst the accommodation is a lodge house with 3 bedroom suites named Poston Lodge.It has been decorated similarly to the main house and includes a sitting room.The kitchen has an AGA.One of three bedrooms.
Outbuildings, Offices, Orangery and Swimming Pool
A courtyard of outbuildings has been partially converted and offers potential for further accommodation.Beyond a terrace at Poston Court is an orangery building that houses a swimming pool.The swimming pool measures 32’8” by 13’5” itself.A studio office building extends to 604 square foot.
Grounds
The tennis court is ready for a budding Emma Raducanu and has been resurfaced and fenced.Over 1,000 tonnes of soil has been brought in to restore the formal parkland’s slopes.The views across unspoilt countryside are spectacular.The entrance to the estate is relatively modest and gives little away as to the £10.5 million property that it leads to.An aerial shot of the house illustrates its proximity to an especially unsightly telecommunications mast. The agents hail it as a benefit and state that its “electricity supply [is] on priority service level due to emergency services located on [the] mast.” Other elements of the infrastructure on the property include CCTV, two boreholes and an A/C saltwater treatment plant for the swimming pool.A plan of the compact 266 acre estate.
Duplex in ritzy Upper East Side co-op where Jeffrey Epstein besties Glenn and Eva Dubin live slashed in price by millions; who’d want them as neighbours given their links to the mucky madam Ghislaine Maxwell are about to be unsealed?
Documents relating to billionaire hedge fund manager and philanthropist Glenn Dubin and his allegedly racy one-time Ford Model wife Dr. Eva Andersson-Dubin will shortly be unsealed in a lawsuit filed against the now convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell.
Dubin has been described as a “friend” who “liked vacationing” with the croaked Ponzi schemer and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
His now wife dated Epstein from 1983 to circa 1991 and allegedly and most creepily, the late paedophile “wanted to marry” the couple’s teenage daughter Celina.
Supposed memory loss sufferer Andersson-Dubin has denied suggestions that she participated in group sex and gave evidence at mucky madam Miss Maxwell’s trial in December 2021.
A 14-room duplex in the Upper East Side apartment block where the Dubins live has had its price slashed by 16% to £21.2 million after exactly a year on the market leading to a realtor asking: “Who’d want to live next door to such people?”
An apartment in the tony block that is also home to Jeffrey Epstein’s former besties financier 65-year-old Glenn Dubin and his 61-year-old former Miss Sweden wife Dr. Eva Andersson-Dubin has had its price slashed by 16%.
Dr. Andersson-Dubin – who “dated Epstein for years before she and [Glenn] Dubin married in 1994,” continued to holiday and jet around with the sex offender thereafter and whom wrote to Epstein’s probation officer to shockingly confirm she was “100% comfortable with [him] around my children” – was described during Ghislaine Maxwell’s December 2021 trial as “among [Epstein’s] most loyal confidantes” by The Daily Beast.
During her time on the stand, Andersson-Dubin claimed she did not recall ever meeting a victim referred to as “Jane” and went as far as to claim that Epstein “adored” her family. Asked if she had been party to sexual encounters with “Jane,” her answer was said to be a “firm” reply of “absolutely not.”
In a development, reported last week by Haven Orecchio-Egresitz for Insider, it was revealed:
“U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska had ruled that documents involving the Dubins and their former house manager Rinaldo Rizzo will be released.”
“The Dubins didn’t oppose the release of the documents, other than one part of the transcript that Preska said had a typographical error. That document will remain sealed, Preska said.”
“This lawsuit was settled in 2017, but Giuffre – who accused Epstein and Maxwell of sex trafficking her – had fought for years to have material from it unsealed. Maxwell initially opposed the unsealing, but now takes no stance. The Miami Herald is also among the parties fighting for the documents to be made public.”
The couple, who continued to associate and socialise with Epstein in the years after his 2008 conviction, purchased unit 15A at 1040 Fifth Avenue on 20th September 1996 for £23.6 million – which at the time was a “record for the building” according to Observer. That top trumps figure was surpassed in August 2016 when Thomas Lehrman and his wife Marjorie sold their “eleven-room spread” for £25 million to a limited liability company connected to the James S. Tisch, a member of the billionaire family connected to Loews Corporation.
Marketed by Serena Boardman of Sotheby’s International Realty, apartment #910C, 1040 Fifth Avenue is lauded as “remarkably graceful” and having “picture perfect Central Park views from an extraordinary 18 windows.” It has been owned by the same family for over fifty years and thus is ready for a complete overhaul.
Of it, a normally anything but shy and in fact instead publicity-prone New York realtor, whom The Steeple Times spoke to Monday on the condition of anonymity, shared:
“1040 Fifth Avenue certainly has a perky past, but whilst Jackie Kennedy and Generoso Pope Jr. were unlikely bedfellows when they both lived there at the same time, the stench of the Epstein-Maxwell connections of Glenn, Eva and Celina Dubin is actually very off-putting to buyers. Who on earth would want to live next to them?”
“It’s no wonder no one is biting-at-the-bit to snap up the apartment currently on offer and I can only suggest the sellers perhaps put off marketing until these two social misfits move off elsewhere.”
Whether the Dubins will take the Fifth Amendment if dragged into another court case remains yet to be seen; whether anyone will want to become their new neighbours, equally, does also.
Pictured top – Ghislaine Maxwell with Eva Andersson-Dubin in fancy dress on 31st October 2005 in New York City enjoying themselves at a bit of a bash (left), the exterior of the rather ritzy co-operative 1040 Fifth Avenue (centre) and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis snapped leaving the building in the 1960s.
The Names & Numbers – 1040 Fifth Avenue, Upper East Side New York, NY 10028, United States of America
Described as “one of the great apartment houses of the 1920s,” this 17-floor skyscraper designed by Rosario Candela was built in 1930 and includes just 27 residences. A “mid-rise” in style, the limestone clad building has a full-time doorman and overlooks Central Park and the aptly named – given she lived there for 30 years – the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir.
Residents Past & Present:
Primetime Emmy and Golden Globe award winning actress and model Candice Bergen and her real estate magnate husband Marshall Rose.
Former director of the Office of WMD Terrorism at the U.S. Department of State, member of staff on the President’s WMD Commission and Gerson Lehrman Group (GLG) former CEO Thomas D. Lehrman and his wife Marjorie Lehrman.
Italian businessman, newspaper man and founder of The National EnquirerGeneroso Pope Jr. He inherited his “22-room spread” from his immigrant father, according to Vanity Fair, and ironically published more pictures of his neighbour Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis than anyone else.
Apartment #910C: Featuring 14 rooms, 4 bedrooms and 6.5 bathrooms:
19th April 2022 – Price reduced to £21.2 million ($27 million, €25.2 million or درهم99.2 million).
10th January 2022 – Price reduced to £22.8 million ($29 million, €27 million or درهم106.5 million).
28th April 2021 – Listed for sale for £25.1 million ($32 million, €29.8 million or درهم117.5 million) by Serena Boardman of Sotheby’s International Realty.
Apartment 15A – 5,300 square foot and featuring 5 bedrooms and 5.5 bathrooms:
20th September 2006 – Sold to Glenn Dubin and Eva Andersson-Dubin for £23.6 million ($30 million, €28 million or درهم110.2 million).
1996 – Sold to David Koch for £7.5 million ($9.5 million, €8.9 million or درهم34.9 million).
1964 – 1994 – Home to Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. Mrs Kennedy paid £196,000 ($250,000, €233,000 or درهم918,000) or the equivalent of £4.2 million today ($5.3 million, €5 million or درهم19.6 million today).
In very much the style of the late Alan Clark MP who slept with the wife of a South African judge and both of his daughters – Bizarrely, before he croaked the taxi driver turned Ponzi schemer turned paedophile Jeffrey Epstein told associates in 2014 that he wanted to marry Celina Dubin in spite of having previously dated her mother. The croaked criminal was called “Uncle Jeff” by the child and is said to have also introduced Glenn Dubin to Jes Staley, the now former CEO of Barclays, and according to Virginia Roberts Giuffre’s May 2016 deposition, ‘Vanity Fair’ reported “Dubin was the ‘first’ powerful person that Maxwell sent her to have sex with ‘after my training.’” A chef of the financier and his former Miss Sweden wife, Rinaldo Rizzo, testified that a 15-year-old Swedish girl brought to the Dubins’ home told him “she was involved in some forced sexual activity at Epstein’s Caribbean island and was told by Maxwell and Epstein not to discuss it.” The curious and beyond bizarre relationships and friendships of the hedge fund billionaire, his family and the now dead Jeffrey Epstein and the now incarcerated Ghislaine Maxwell will once again be revisited once documents are unsealed shortly.On 17th December, Dr. Andersson-Dubin was questioned by Ghislaine Maxwell’s defence attorney Jeffrey Pagliuca in a New York City courtroom. At that time, “she denied suggestions that she had participated in group sex with a woman who alleged that Maxwell facilitated orgies when the accuser was 14” according to ‘Insider.’ Under cross examination by prosecutor Alison Moe, the doctor was asked: “Dr. Dubin, are you having some issues with your memory?” She bizarrely replied: “Yes, I do… It’s very hard for me to remember from far back. Sometimes I can’t remember things from last month… My family notices it.”In February 2021, in an exclusive story, crusading author Kirby Sommers shared evidence with ‘The Steeple Times’ that suggested the previously unnamed 9-year-old child pictured on the lap of Jeffrey Epstein on his plane in the ‘Daily Mail’ was Celina Dubin. Of this image, later during the pension pot plunderer Robert Maxwell’s daughter’s trial, ‘The Daily Beast’ suggested: “[We] previously reported that the defense [sic] wanted to bar photographs showing Epstein with his young goddaughter. One image, according to defense lawyer Chrisitan Everdell, showed Dubin’s daughter “lying across [Epstein’s] lap with her bottom – although with underwear on, but he’s got his head down close to the bottom.” (It’s unclear whether this picture, or a similar one, was shown to Dubin.)”Dubbed the “pioneer paparazzo,” “the Godfather of the U.S. paparazzi culture” by ‘Time’ magazine and a “Paparazzo Extraordinare” by ‘Newsweek,’ Ron Galella (born 1931; pictured top right) was best known for his “obsessive treatment” of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis in the years during which she resided at 1040 Fifth Avenue. In 1972, this “most co-dependent celeb-pap relationship ever” resulted in a free-speech trial – Galella v. Onassis – that eventually saw Galella fined and ultimately agreeing to never taken her picture ever again. Florida born Generoso Pope Jr. (1927 – 1988; pictured below), a man whose connections to the Italian-American mafia dogged him throughout his life, was a neighbour to the assassinated 35th President of the United States of America’s widow in the building.Jacqueline Kennedy bought the 15th floor apartment that is now home to the Dubins in 1964 prior to her 1968 marriage to Aristotle Onassis. She retained ownership of it until her death in 1994.
Images of Apartment #910C Fifth Avenue
1040 Fifth Avenue is situated directly opposite Central Park.The 9th and 10th floor duplex currently on the market is entered via a 30-foot long room described as a “gallery.” It has a marble floor and is said to “anchor each of the principal entertaining rooms.”An oak paneled library is listed as “large and handsome.”The 30-foot long living room has two sets of double doors and a wood burning fireplace.The “elegant formal dining room” has a “marble-mantled wood burning fireplace” and is said to enjoy “divine tree-top outlooks.”Surprisingly, the “enormous” kitchen is modern in style and has a Viking oven that appears to be nearly new. Beyond it is a breakfast room, a pantry, a laundry room and “an unexpected east facing elongated terrace that could be accessed from an expanded breakfast area, and would be lovely for a step out to enjoy a bright morning or the crisp evening air.” The current staff accommodation includes 4 staff bedrooms and 3 staff bathrooms.The “marvellous master suite” has a wood burning fireplace, a park facing dressing room and a private bathroom.The chintzy dressing room would not be a room to spend time in if you had a headache.If her were still co-presenting the panel show ‘Through the Keyhole,’ Loyd Grossman could ask: “Now, who’d live in a house like this?” after looking at the master suite’s bathroom. Aside from yet more bizarre tenting to the ceiling and powder blue fittings matched with gold taps and flowery tiling, one could imagine a dictator’s wife only viewing this room to be tasteful.Another bedroom is decorated with wallpaper that would have delighted the late Laura Ashley and has a tented ceiling that only dust and moths could love.A bedroom at the rear is anything but opulent.Clearly the current owners aren’t advocates of king-sized beds, but clearly also they love flower power in the wallpaper department.Another bedroom, complete with a fireplace and park views, has already been stripped of all furnishings.The current owner’s love of anything but calming wallpaper continues in this bathroom. It is one of 6.5 such spaces in the duplex.The “picture perfect views” across 843-acre Central Park are available from “an extraordinary 18 windows.”The floor plan of the 9th and 10th floor duplex currently for sale through Sotheby’s International Realty neglects to detail the exact square footage of the property.Situated close to the Solomon R. Guggeheim Museum, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Neue Galerie New York and The Jewish Museum, the duplex on offer is situated between East 86th and East 85th Streets.
WORLD EXCLUSIVE – We reveal pictures never seen before inside Ghislaine Maxwell’s £5.4 million Manchester-by-the-Sea hideaway that show her and her errant hubby’s appallingly bad taste in the decorating department and share an image of the convicted sex trafficker’s super-sized “party shower” where goodness knows what went on
Though the mainstream media featured images of the house – which sits on a plot of 1.49-acres and is called ‘The Phippen-Smith House’ (but is more commonly and anonymously just known as ‘301 Summer Street’) – when it came up for sale in February, what they did not point out was that those pictures were of the property when it was sold to the duo through an LLC by agents Compass in June 2016 for £1.8 million.
Convicted criminal Miss Maxwell – who has variously shown her decided deviancy by faking photos and using pseudonyms including ‘Jennifer Ellmax,’ ‘Jen Marshall,’ ‘Janet Marshall,’ ‘Mrs Scott Borgerson’ and just plain old ‘G’ – and her not even known to her family husband since 2016 until her arrest in July 2020, most certainly used 301 Summer Street as one of their main residences. The mucky madam had sold her New York townhouse for £11 million in April 2016 and retained her Belgravia, London mews house until April 2021.
Featuring 15 rooms, 5 bedrooms, 5.3 bathrooms, 8 fireplaces and now extending to a total of 6,113 square feet after the secretive couple added several tasteless extensions resembling portacabins, the internal style of the property is now anything but respectful of the architecture of a building originally constructed in Salem, Massachusetts in 1660 and relocated and re-erected on its current site in 1930.
Little is known about what Borgerson and Maxwell got upto when they lived together at 301 Summer Street, but in July 2019, tittle-tattling neighbours told tales about the crib to The Sun on Sunday.
The first “pal, who did not want to be named,” gossiped to the paper:
“Ghislaine was always very polite and well dressed – she was definitely living there for a while. I thought her and Scott were husband and wife – they seemed really happy together… They were very friendly. When I found out what she’d been accused of I was shocked.”
“Upstairs they had two kids’ bedrooms with toys everywhere and I thought they were their kids but I found out they were Scott’s from his previous marriage.”
“I only saw her in sweat pants one time – the other times she was all done up looking good.”
“They had two dogs there, they were like hunting dogs and they were fierce. One time they came out of nowhere and I thought they were going to kill each other. Maxwell came out of nowhere too and calmed them down.”
“The house did have one unusual feature – a huge shower. It had Wi-Fi so they could control it from their phones, a steam unit, the whole nine yards. It was like a party shower. You can imagine what they got up to in there.”
One is simply left asking of this shower (pictured for the first time ever below): Did alleged Belgravia bathroom bonker Prince Andrew visit and try the contraption out and, if so, what on earth did the randy royal get upto in it?
301 Summer Street in pictures seen for the first time today – That the sitting room of the current Mr and Mrs Borgerson’s house has a gun above the fireplace is somewhat creepy given Rebecca Borgerson’s allegations about her now ex-husband being “verbally and physically abusive.” The furnishings in the room, equally, are somewhat curious – the “prison orange” sofa being especially relevant given where Ghislaine Maxwell now finds herself.301 Summer Street in pictures seen for the first time today – One of the 5.3 bathrooms at 301 Summer Street features a shower the size of a studio flat. It is quite the contrast to the bathroom at Miss Maxwell’s former Kinnerton Street home where Virginia Roberts Giuffre claims she was forced into sexual relations with the Duke of York in 2001 – a room which we were able to prove she talked nonsense about when she claimed the bathtub “too small for any activity whatsoever” when we exclusively published photographs of it in January this year. Of this bathroom, in July 2019, a “pal” and neighbour told ‘The Sun on Sunday’: “The house did have one unusual feature – a huge shower. It had Wi-Fi so they could control it from their phones, a steam unit, the whole nine yards. It was like a party shower. You can imagine what they got up to in there.” It has not been confirmed as to whether Prince Andrew ever got to try this particularly opulent shower area out.
Then & Now – How Maxwell and Borgerson have changed ‘The Phippen-Smith House’ – Images from the June 2016 listing and images from the February 2022 listing
Then in 2016 and now in 2022 – The entrance elevation of 301 Summer Street from its driveway in 2016 (left) and in the latest listing imagery in 2022. The building does not look especially well kept or maintained in either image.Then in 2016 and now in 2022 – Supposedly vegan Ghislaine Maxwell and her beefy husband Scott Borgerson relocated the house’s kitchen into a space that the previous owners had used as a sitting and dining area and moved a window to accommodate a very large Sub Zero Wolf type oven. Their menacing choice of black and white tiling most certainly wouldn’t appear to more ‘homely’ cooks such as condescending cakebaker Dame Mary Berry DBE, cocaine crackpot The Honourable Nigella Lawson and “let’s be havin’ ya” yeller Delia Smith CH CBE.Then in 2016 and now in 2022 – The original kitchen may have been somewhat like that seen in the home of Hyacinth Bucket’s in the 1990s BBC series ‘Keeping Up Appearances,’ but the Borgerson-Maxwell version can only be surmised as having a “clinically cold look.”Then in 2016 and now in 2022 – A dining room with somewhat strange wallpaper in 2016 has been redecorated in a style that looks more like an office where Ricky Gervais might feel at home. The painting on the right-hand wall perhaps might have some kind of connection with Ghislaine Maxwell’s charity Oceana and her supposed number one passion (other than sex trafficking minors), the oceans.Then in 2016 and now in 2022 – Surprisingly, Maxwell and Borgerson did actually brighten up the hallway and staircase area of the home with a fresh white look. Again, however, one is left asking what strange extra-curricular activities the oars on the walls might have been used for.Then in 2016 and now in 2022 – Mr and Mrs Borgerson plainly liked the ‘vomit green’ colour in this room and made few changes here.Then in 2016 and now in 2022 – The previously traditionally styled master bedroom, however, got a full-on makeover and extension and sliding doors that’d look more suited to a residence in the oligarch hideout that is One Hyde Park.Then in 2016 and now in 2022 – What Americans call a ‘deck’ and what Brits might term a ‘terrace’ was subjected to a complete B&Q style makeover by Mr and Mrs Borgerson. The garden beyond now looks like a totally neglected wilderness. Mate of royals and TV gardener Alan Titchmarsh MBE most certainly would be less than impressed.Then in 2016 and now in 2022 – Maxwell and Borgerson tore off the traditionally appropriate colonial-style detailing at the rear of 301 Summer Street and plonked on what looks like a portacabin. Good taste and respect for architectural heritage and this couple most definitely are not in unity.
The Names, Dates & Numbers – Ghislaine Maxwell, Scott Borgerson and Jeffrey Epstein and The Phippen-Smith House, 301 Summer Street, Manchester-by-the-Sea, Cape Ann, Essex County, Massachusetts, MA 01944, United States of America
26th March 2022 – A beady-eyed reader supplies The Steeple Times with the current listing brochure for 301 Summer Street complete with up-to-date imagery of the house. It shows how Borgerson and Maxwell well and truly have made an utter mess of what was a previously charming residence.
March 2022 – The real estate website Realtor.com suggests the house to currently be worth a significantly lower sum and estimates its value at just £2.45 million ($3.235 million, €2.945 million or درهم11.88 million).
February 2022 – 301 Summer Street, Manchester-by-the-Sea is listed for sale for £5.368 million ($7.295 million, €6.443 million or درهم26.791 million) by Campion And Company. The firm, however, do not include a public listing of the property on its site and they do not include any current photographs of the house.
29th December 2021 – Ghislaine Maxwell is found guilty on five out of six of the charges she had faced. Her husband was not present for the verdict and left his wife to face being sent down alone and with just her brothers and sisters to support the by now convicted child sex trafficker.
29th November 2021 – Ghislaine Maxwell goes on trial at the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. Her husband did not attend on a single day of that trial.
2nd July 2020 – Ghislaine Maxwell is arrested at Tuckedaway.
In the weeks after her arrest, as she unsurprisingly unsuccessfully sought bail, Maxwell claimed via her lawyers that the “majority of her assets” had been transferred into a “trust controlled by her husband and another unnamed party.”
In documents submitted to the courts, they put her their worth at £17.1 million ($22.5 million, €20.5 million or درهم82.6 million) and suggested: “For Ms Maxwell to flee, she would have to abandon her spouse. She will not isk destroying the lives and financial well-being of those she holds most dear to live as a fugitive during a worldwide pandemic.”
Going further, they added: “In fact, every action Ms Maxwell has taken from the time of Epstein’s arrest up to the time of the first bail hearing was designed to protect her spouse… from harassment, economic harm, and physical danger. If Ms. Maxwell were to violate her bail conditions, which she has no intention of doing… she would be leaving her spouse…with virtually nothing.”
In a letter to Judge Alison J. Nathan, Mr Borgerson added: “The person described in the criminal charges is not the person we know. I have never witnessed anything close to inappropriate with Ghislaine. Quite to the contrary, the Ghislaine I know is a wonderful and loving person… I believe that Ghislaine had nothing to do with Epstein’s crimes.”
13th December 2019 – Ghislaine Maxwell purchases Tuckedaway, 338 East Washington Road, Bradford, New Hampshire, NH 03221 for £787,953 ($1,070,750, €945,752 or درهم3.93 million) via Jennifer Johnson and Margaret Weathers of Four Seasons Sotheby’s International Realty. The house had been listed at a price of £879,000 ($1.195 million, €1.055 million or درهم4.389 million) in March that year and sold previously for £773,000 ($1.050 million, €927,000 million or درهم3.856 million) on 15th December 2017.
Mid-late 2019 – Maxwell is said to have “fallen foul” of locals and left Manchester-by-the-Sea. An alleged sighting of her in Los Angeles followed in August 2019 when she was snapped at an In-N-Out Burger restaurant in Los Angeles, California. The photographs were proven to be fake as advertising on hoardings in the background had never been at that location. Her associate Leah Saffian, whose dog appeared in one of the images, has never explained her role in this skulduggery.
10th August 2019 – Jeffrey Epstein dies by supposed suicide in his cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC) in New York. He had previously supposedly attempted suicide on 23rd July 2019 whilst sharing a cell with alleged quadruple killer cop Nicholas Tartaglione.
6th July 2019 – Jeffrey Epstein is arrested after his private jet lands at Teterboro Airport, New Jersey.
15th June 2019 – The Cash & Rocket Rally ends in Monte Carlo. Miss Maxwell was clearly especially keen to avoid being photographed. She was subsequently not seen again in public until her trial commenced on 29th November 2021.
13th June 2019 – The mucky madam sets off from London on the car rally in an Alfa Romeo with Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason’s wife Annette (known as ‘Nettie’ to her chums). They travel first to Paris and then go via Geneva to Monte Carlo.
12th June 2019 – Maxwell and Borgerson are named in court documents concerning a case between Tidewood LLC and John Appel, Katherine Rive and Curtis Hollingsworth regarding a property dispute concerning their shorefront access. In due course, on 11th March 2020, judgment was found in favour of the plaintiff.
During this particular London visit, Miss Maxwell met with her six living siblings Anne, Kevin, Isabel, Christine, Philip and Ian to remember her late pension pot plundering father on 10th June 2019 on what would have been his 96th birthday. She also supposedly went to Buckingham Palace for tea with the man who subsequently paid £12 million ($15.8 million, €14.4 million or درهم58.2 million) to a woman he supposedly never met (but emailed Jeffrey Epstein’s ex-lover about), Prince Andrew.
30th June 2016 – The Phippen-Smith House is sold to Tidewood LLC, a limited liability company controlled by Ghislaine Maxwell’s “secret husband,” for £1.802 million ($2.450 million, €2.164 million or درهم8.998 million). The couple are said to have spent £1.8 million ($2.5 million, €2.2 million or درهم9.2 million) on renovations in the years since that included the installation of many security cameras. During the purchase process, Maxwell is said to have used the pseudonym ‘Jennifer Ellmax.’
April 2016 – Ghislaine Maxwell sells her Upper East Side, New York townhouse for £11 million ($15 million, €13.2 million or درهم55.1 million) and “disappeared.” She had originally bought that property in 2015 for £12.4 million ($16.9 million, €14.9 million or درهم62.1 million).
Date unknown in 2016 – Scott Borgerson marries Ghislaine Maxwell. She eventually revealed she was married to her until then “secret husband” in court in December 2020 to the surprise of the world and her own brothers and sisters even.
20th June 2015 – Rebecca Borgerson files for divorce from her then husband. She cited “irreconcilable differences.” The couple had married in 2001 and had two children together.
15th June 2014 – Scott Borgerson is charged with the assault and domestic battery of his then wife Rebecca Borgerson.
2014 – Ghislaine Maxwell meets her future husband at the Arctic Circle Assembly in Reykjavik, Iceland whilst married to his then first wife.
What A Tangled Web They Weave…Mr & Mrs Scott Borgerson’s curious love lives – Ghislaine and Scott certainly know how to choose them… Not…
Incarcerated sex offender Ghislaine Maxwell with her since dead ex-lover and associate Jeffrey Epstein (left). The latter died by apparent ‘suicide’ on 10th August 2019 in prison awaiting trial whilst the latter took up with submarine pilot Scott Borgerson, supposedly married him in 2016, but curiously did not tell her very own siblings of this union until after her 2020 arrest.Whilst his now estranged wife Ghislaine Maxwell – whom he didn’t even bother to turn up to support at her December 2021 trial and whom he supposedly dumped in a telephone call to her prison around the same time – is very clearly known for her deviancy and use of pseudonyms, Scott Borgerson, it seems, also likes to change his look to avoid detection. During their time together, Maxwell (AKA ‘Mrs Scott Borgerson’) settled two separate lawsuits with Virginia Roberts Giuffre and Sarah Ransome, who each claimed she coerced them into sex acts with Jeffrey Epstein, under confidential terms.Scott Borgerson is a man who could certainly go under the radar given he has most definitely altered the way he looks multiple times over the years. Clearly, this is a trait he shares with his wicked second wife. The couple’s live-in ‘houseboy’ and dog walker in 2015, Rasmus Alpsjö, spoke of their “secretive nature” in March 2022 and claimed Mr Borgerson to be a “militant,” “scary” and “intimidating” man who once told him he’d teach him “how an alpha male treats a dog.”The cowardy custard and “famous for namedropping” former CEO of CargoMetric’s first marriage to a lady named Rebecca broke down in 2014. The couple had married in May 2001 in Palm Beach, Florida and had two children together, but in court papers Rebecca Borgerson alleged her Missouri born husband to have a “history of alcoholism, physical and verbal abuse, and extreme controlling nature.” The first Mrs Borgerson claimed also that her now ex-husband once told her: “Don’t make me beat you in front of the children.” Their divorce was finalised in December 2015.Since his current wife – whom he tellingly tended to describe more simply as a “partner” to anyone who enquired in the years prior when asked – was taken into custody on 2nd July 2020, Scott Borgerson briefly “went to ground” and after briefly writing supportive letters then “avoided” her entirely. He was seen walking one of their dogs, a Vizsla named Captain Nemo, in Manchester-by-the-Sea and spotted out shopping and driving a Tesla and a cabriolet Mini, but now it seems he’s gone and got himself entangled a yoga enthusiast and journalist called Kris McGinn Straub. Of this blonde mother, who is currently getting divorced and “covers and photographs food and cultural trends for the 133-year-old local newspaper the ‘Manchester Cricket,’” it has been amusingly observed: “She has an ass that could crack open a walnut.”The Cape Ann seaside home owned by Mr and Mrs Scott Borgerson stands above a rocky outcrop looking out to sea. It has a plaque on it that reads: “The Phippen Smith House, 1660. House originally at 9 Elm Street in Salem, deconstructed here in 1917 and reconstructed on its current site in 1930.”Since they purchased it in 2016, the couple have made significant alterations including the addition of a first-floor extension. Current listing photographs clearly show, however, that the external condition of the building has significantly been allowed to decline in recent months and indicate a garden that is an overgrown wilderness.
Manchester-by-the-Sea was known more simply as ‘Manchester’ until 1989 when its town council decided to change its name to avoid confusion with the much larger city of the same name. The eponymous 2016 film starring Casey Affleck as a “grief stricken loner” who gets himself involved in a bit of a messy familial situation is apt given current resident Scott Borgerson comes across as just such in the wake of his current wife’s much deserved incarceration.
A Maxwell Mess… Further imagery from the current sale listing illustrating the bad taste of Miss Maxwell and her errant husband
Now in 2022 – It seems that at their home by the sea, this very, very, very odd couple aspired for decoration that would be more akin to something left behind by Claire Sweeney after one of her tepid ’60 Minute Makeover’ visits to suburbia for her ITV show than something respectful of a house first constructed circa 1660 for John and Alice Pickering in Salem, Massachusetts.Now in 2022 – The couple’s decision to leave the original paneling in this sitting room alone is to be saluted, but their bizarre light fittings and furnishings are frankly beyond naff. As for that rug, well… The less said, the better.Now in 2022 – The only thing that can be said of this bedroom is that it is most certainly “bland” and “lacking in personality.”Now in 2022 – Clearly, it seems, Scott Borgerson has some kind of anal attention to detail when it comes to lining up his footwear collection. One has to wonder, as with his dogs, if that’s an “alpha male” kind of trait or whether his wife forced such upon him.Now in 2022 – Whatever went on this room is no more. Maybe Mr Borgerson has cleared out Ghislaine’s grubby junk in preparation for the house’s sale.Now in 2022 – The internal area of the portacabin-like structure plonked on the first floor of the house by the couple contains a sitting area where they no doubt looked out to sea pondering their future disgrace.Now in 2022 – The not so classy terrace beyond the master bedroom features grass as fake as the stories that the mucky madam tried to use against her sex trafficked victims. Now in 2022 – It is without doubt that Mr and Mrs Borgerson found solace in lounging around out here. Little is known, however, about who actually visited them at 301 Summer Street in the years between 2016 and 2019. Now in 2022 – Another view of a terrace where the pair no doubt enjoyed sundowners and chatted about sex, submarines and subterfuge.Now in 2022 – The aforementioned sign detailing the history of the house does remain on the building in spite of Maxwell and Borgerson having ripped out most of the historic features.
Croaked Jeffrey Epstein’s ‘paedo islands’ go up for sale for ‘just’ £95 million in spite of supposedly being worth £182 million; we ask: “Who on earth would want to live in a place where such hellish abuse occurred?”
Promoted in a 3:15-minute video shared on YouTube and in an online listing, ‘The Jameses’ – as the realty firm term what they laughably call “exceptional private islands,” but which are more widely known as the ‘Padeophile Islands,’ ‘Orgy Islands’ and ‘Islands of Sin’ – are being sold with a view to resolving the deceased paedophile’s “outstanding lawsuits and costs of estate operations.”
The first of the two islands is the larger of the pair, but the lesser developed. Named Great Saint James, it extends to 161.3-acres and is marketed as having “significant subdivision possibilities.” It is lauded as surrounded by “turquoise waters” and aside from supposedly having “charming islets” comes with its own “marine preserve,” Christmas Cove.
Smaller Little Saint James – somewhat ironically nicknamed ‘Little Saint Jeff’s’ by its late owner in view of his allegedly very strangely shaped ‘member’ – is 71.6-acres in size. It comes with a main compound – in which the late paedophile used and abused young women and boys allegedly also – and four guest villas and has what Bespoke Real Estate bizarrely terms a “comprehensive, discreetly located, infrastructure support system.” No mention is made of its supposed submarine docking station or the “abuse temple” with tunnels that may or may not have been demolished.
In addition, other features include “palm tree lined beaches” – which Ghislaine Maxwell’s sometime lover planted without seeking the correct permissions – and a “helipad, private dock, gas station, high-capacity water filtration, 2 pools… 3 private beaches, gym, tiki hut, and additional maintenance and viewing structures.” According to The New York Post, it took seventy staff to maintain Little Saint James.
Purchased separately in 1998 and 2016, Epstein paid a total of £23.02 million for both islands and spent millions more on crackpot crazy constructions and landscaping. When on bail in 2019, his lawyers valued them both at just £65.5 million though others have said their worth to be as high as £181.8 million.
Illustrating how dreadful a place the two islands were, one victim of multiple rapes there as many as three times per day over five months, a South African named Sarah Ransome, remarked: “A shark would have been my best friend at that point. I didn’t even think about it – it was just, get me away.”
Going further, the Attorney General of the United States Virgin Islands concluded: “[The Epstein islands are] the perfect hideaway and haven for trafficking young women and underage girls for sexual servitude, child abuse and sexual assault” whilst today we conclude by asking: “Who on earth in their right mind would want to live in a sordid place like that?” Only total toerags like Sir Richard Branson, Bernie Ecclestone, Sir Philip Green and the Duke of York ought to apply.
An annotated aerial shot of both Great Saint James and Little Saint James showing the locations of key features.
The selling agents neglect to mention ‘The Jameses’s’ former paedophile owner Jeffrey Epstein, but they do point to a map that highlights that the islands are 8.5 hours from London, 2.5 hours from Miami, 3.5 hours from New York and 10 hours from San Francisco.Epstein was most certainly not someone who welcomed visits from his neighbours.
The Names & Numbers – ‘The Jameses’ (Great Saint James and Little Saint James islands), United States Virgin Islands (USVI)
March 2022 – Listed for sale through Bespoke Real Estate for £94.5 million ($125 million, €113.8 million or درهم459.1 million) with “subdivision capabilities.” Listed as “two exceptional private Caribbean islands with 230 acres, 6 beaches and 5.8 miles of coastline.”
Media reports have previously estimated the islands to be worth a combined sum of £181.8 million ($240 million, €218.4 million or درهم881.4 million), a figure 92% higher than the current listing price and 178% higher than the July 2019 valuation.
10th August 2019 – Jeffrey Epstein dies by supposed suicide in his cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC) in New York. He had previously supposedly attempted suicide on 23rd July 2019 whilst sharing a cell with alleged quadruple killer cop Nicholas Tartaglione.
July 2019 – Forbes reports Little St. James to have been valued at £48.4 million ($63.9 million, €58.2 million or درهم234.7 million) and Great St. James at £17 million ($22.5 million, €20.5 million or درهم82.6 million) – or a total sum of £65.5 million ($86.4 million, €78.7 million or درهم317.3 million) – in documents filed by Epstein’s legal team when he applied for bail.
6th July 2019 – Jeffrey Epstein is arrested after his private jet lands at Teterboro Airport, New Jersey.
January 2016 – Epstein purchases the 161.3-acre Great St. James for a total sum of £17 million ($22.5 million, €20.5 million or درهم82.6 million) through various shell companies and with the help of Dubai businessman Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem as a “beneficial owner” as the then owner, a Danish politician named Christian Kjær, had been “begged” not to sell to the paedophile due to rumours about his “sexual preferences.”
According to the BBC, Epstein “had drawn up plans to develop the 161-acre island by building homes, an amphitheatre, as well as an underwater office and pool.”
2007 onwards – According to the Independent, “Epstein began a massive programme of building and remodelling that drew suspicion from local officials. His main compound nearly doubled in size, sprouting into a plush mansion with an outside terrace connecting the master bedroom and the swimming pool, along with a desalination system.”
“Satellite photos show a sprawling network of terraces, cottages, beach houses, swimming pools, docks, utility buildings, a helipad, a tennis court, slipways, some kind of enclosed lake or lagoon, and various huts of unknown purpose, all connected by palm-lined roads where golf buggies ferried guests from place to place (a journey across the island reportedly took about five minutes).”
1998 – Epstein purchases the 7.16-acre Little St. James for £6.02 million ($7.95 million, €7.24 million or درهم29.20 million) through a shell company named L. S. J. LLC. It had been marketed for sale for £8 million ($10.5 million, €9.6 million or درهم38.6 million) on behalf of a venture capitalist named Arch Cummin.
Some of the ‘Famous Faces’ who’ve visited the ‘Paedo Islands’
Royal rotter Prince Andrew. Alleged to have flown to the islands on 4 occasions and is alleged to have had sexual relations with the then underaged in the territory Virginia Roberts there.
Now croaked paedophile and cocaine addict Jean-Luc Brunel. Known to have supplied three 12-year-old sisters to Epstein and visited him in jail at least 70 times during his 2008 incarceration. Known to have visited the ‘Paedo Islands’ on multiple occasions.
Temperamental supermodel Naomi Campbell.
Prone to tell porky pies politician President Bill Clinton was reportedly a visitor according to Virginia Roberts Giuffre. Hillary Clinton’s husband has denied this however.
Magician David Copperfield – who reportedly proposed to supermodel Claudia Schiffer there.
Socialite Clementine ‘Clemmie’ Hambro. Known to have visited in 1999.
Theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking. Known to have visited in March 2006.
American-Canadian theoretical physicist and cosmologist Lawrence Krauss. Known to have been amongst a group of 21 physicists invited to Little St. James for a meeting about gravity. Of Epstein, the scientist later remarked: “As a scientist I always judge things on empirical evidence and he always has women ages 19 to 23 around him, but I’ve never seen anything else, so as a scientist, my presumption is that whatever the problems were I would believe him over other people… I don’t feel tarnished in any way by my relationship with Jeffrey; I feel raised by it.”
Convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. Known to have visited the islands on many occasions from when Epstein purchased them until his death in 2019.
Billionaire businessman and L Brands founder Leslie Wexner. Known to have visited in 1998 “with several Victoria’s Secret models in tow.”
Epstein, pictured here with a woman he no doubt abused, had a ten-person shower installed in his main compound and made it his primary base from 2017 onwards.The sexual deviant liked to take his many, many victims on hikes across his islands. Goodness knows what he did to them during these misadventures.Fellow paedophiles Ghislaine Maxwell and Jean-Luc Brunel on the very same space where their host was primarily photographed.Bizarrely the since supposed died by ‘suicide’ Jean-Luc Brunel was pictured in the same space wearing a baseball cap with the caption ‘Israel Army.’Other visitors to the islands included the since himself disgraced CEO of Barclays Jes Staley and his beady-eyed wife Debbie.Prince Andrew, whose feckless wife happily took loans and assistance from Jeffrey Epstein, was a regular on Little Saint James.Stephen Hawking was amongst a group to visit in March 2006 for a conference about gravity.This image shows the evil ‘head of the municipality’ in a dressing gown on Little St. James with one of his victims. It is telling in that both look like they know that something truly appalling has happened.Clearly Ghislaine Maxwell liked the covered porch just as much as her ‘boss’ turned lover. Pictured here with fellow paedophile Jean-Luc Brunel munching on some nosh, the deviant daughter of the pension pot plunderer sits at the very desk where her evil cohort controlled his wicked operation.That infamous terrace in marketing material created by Bespoke Real Estate. Note that some of the original furniture has been replaced.The Ponzi scheming associate of Robert Maxwell reveled in luring young girls to his islands as once there, they could not escape him and his abusing cohorts.
Jeffrey Epstein’s ‘Temple’
The gruesome paedophile Jeffrey Epstein built a structure described by many as a “temple” between 2009 and 2013. It is unclear what the structure was actually used for, but it certainly sent conspiracy theorists crazy.
The building was said to have “acoustic walls” and a “door to prevent people from leaving” complete with a “medieval era lock.” Its base was painted with broad, vivid horizontal stripes and for a time it featured a gold dome atop.
Statues including one of the trident-wielding Poseidon, the Greek God of the sea, and birds “perched” on its corners and aside was a terrace with a labyrinth motif.
Insider suggested “it strongly resembles a temple, though of which sort remains elusive.”
The gold dome supposedly “flew off” during the “deadly 2017 hurricane season.”
Further images of Great Saint James and Little Saint James
Controversial ex-owner of Blackpool Football Club Owen Oyston – associate of paedophiles Max Clifford and Stuart Hall and also ‘Coronation Street’ actor ‘Cock Roache’ Bill Roache – puts his gaudy gold-clad Lancashire mansion up for rent for the astonishing sum of £40,000 per month
Flamboyant fedora hat sporting “miner to millionaire” Owen Oyston undoubtedly revolutionised the estate agency business in the 1980s by producing television adverts where, suited and booted, he ended up falling backwards into swimming pools. This Labour supporter made millions during the process and then built a radio and magazine empire. He was then sent to prison for rape and indecent assault whilst accusing Tory ministers of setting him up and continuing to protest his innocence.
A Granada Television Crown Court actor in his past also and married twice to a ‘Miss Blackpool,’ County Durham born Oyston was the man during whose reign Blackpool Football Club was catapulted into the stratosphere of the Premier League very briefly in 2010. Then, during a time when his £11 million pay package was exposed to be outrageously higher than even Wayne Rooney’s, it all began to go very, very sour; so sour, in fact, that the Oystons were ordered to pay £31 million to his Latvian co-owner Valērijs Belokoņs (also known as Valeri Belokon) to buy out his share in the business.
Now, after a long, complex and very expensive battle with Belokon – a banking tycoon associate of President Donald Trump and Prince Charles turned alleged money launderer – over control of the team known as ‘The Tangerines,’ Mr Oyston has now turned to attempting to rent out one of his properties, Grade II* listed Quernmore Park Hall, near Lancaster for the astonishing sum of £40,000 per month. Given how gauchely and gaudily the 12-bedroomed mansion’s ‘Hyacinth Bucket-esque’ interior is currently presented, one wonders if he and his Wembley, London based estate agents are having a giggle.
It is not known where Mr Oyston – who paid fellow Sandgrown’un estate agency tycoons Eileen and Howard Oldroyd £1.75 million for the 26,681 square foot Georgian mansion in 2014 and then tried to sell it for £3.25 million or 86% more in 2018 – is currently himself bedding down. His last known abode was a grotty hotel room above Blackpool Football Club whilst repeated ex-wife Vicki is believed to remain at their Elizabethan style manor house, Claughton Hall in the nearby Lune Valley.
If you like gold and gaud, Quernmore Park Hall could be the house for you. The décor does not seem to have been updated during by the current owner and would not look out of place on the set of ‘Dynasty.’Convicted paedophile Stuart Hall with ‘Coronation Street’ actor William Roache (nicknamed ‘Cock Roache’ for boasting about having slept with over a 1,000 women and being involved in bizarre Druid rituals), convicted rapist Owen Oyston and four women. The three men were all for a time directors of Oystons Estate Agency – a firm that ceased to exist circa August 2019.
Owen Oyston falling into a swimming pool in a Granada Television advertisement in 1986 (watch from 2:58-minutes until 3:28-minutes) whilst offering a £120,000 prize to those prepared to sell their properties through his estate agency.
The Names & Numbers – Quernmore Park Hall, Quernmore, Lancaster, LA2 9HN, United Kingdom
February 2018 – Offered for sale for £3.25 million ($4.23 million, €3.86 million or درهم15.52 million) through MSW Hewetsons and Knight Frank.
June 2014 – Sold for £1.75 million ($2.28 million, €2.08 million or درهم8.36 million) to the Oyston family.
October 2009 – Offered for sale by Eileen and Howard Oldroyd.
1990 – Purchased by Eileen and Howard Oldroyd from William Francis Garnett. The couple founded the Blackpool based Oldroyd Publishing Group in 1974 – a firm that produces promotional materials for estate agents.
1842 – Sold to cotton merchant James Garnett and remodeled.
1794 – Sold to Charles Gibson of Preston. The present house was built on the site between 1795 and 1798 and stood in lands extending to 1,900 acres.
1675 – Passed to Sir Thomas Preston of Furness and then passed by marriage to Hugh Clifford, 2nd Baron Clifford of Chudleigh.
1630 – Sold by the Crown to Roger Downes of Wardley.
The Louche Life Of Owen Oyston
The thankfully since croaked paedophile Max Clifford was the PR for Owen Oyston for a time. In 1997, after being hired to represent him prior to the latter’s jailing, creepy Clifford remarked: “[Owen] Oyston is many things, including very arrogant, but he is not a rapist.”In 2013, the ‘Mirror’ reported that the tycoon’s magazine publishing firm, Ridings Publishing, lost £2 million in 2011 whilst his estate agency firm, Oystons Ltd, recorded losses of £300,000 in 2001 and £600,000 in 2010. His fellow directors at Ridings Publishing numbered the convicted paedophile Stuart Hall and the actor Bill Roache – who once said of abuse victims: “Everything that happens to us has been a result of what we did in previous lives.” After a rightful outcry from victims, Roache later apologised.In May 2018, during a court case between Owen Oyston and Valeri Belokon, the former was branded “vindictive,” “nasty” and someone who was now “hell bent on making life as bloody as possible for his wife” according to ‘The Blackpool Gazette.’ The paper added: “Mr Oyston owes £24 million to Valeri Belokon to buy back his shares in the club after Justice Marcus Smith ruled last year that Mr Oyston had ‘illegitimately stripped’ Blackpool FC of assets after it was promoted to the Premier League in 2010. It was found that the Oystons had unfairly prejudiced the Latvian, who accused them of ‘improperly’ extracting tens of millions of pounds from the club.” Whilst her husband was in jail between 1996 and 1999, Vicki Oyston (neé Burns) – who was married from 1964 to 1982 first and then again for a second time from 1988 (she again sought a divorce in 2018, it is unknown as to whether this has been granted) to now 88-year-old Owen John Oyston – ran Blackpool Football Club. In 2014, ‘The Sunday Times’ listed the family as being worth £100 million.Subsequently, one of the couple’s children, Karl Oyston (pictured front left), became chairman of Blackpool Football Club in 1999. He served in that role until 2018, but was loathed and detested by fans. The family owned the club from May 1988 to until February 2019 when the High Court appointed receivers and removed Owen Oyston and his daughter, Natalie Christopher, from the board.The hatred of Blackpool F.C. fans for the Oyston family became so intense that there were protests against them. The club was eventually acquired out of receivership in 2019 when locally born hedge fund owner Simon Sadler purchased a 96.2% share in the club. In 2021, the Segantii Capital founder commented: “Two years in, and I’m still full of awe and wonder at being the owner of my hometown football club. I know that it’s a great honour and privilege to be the custodian of Blackpool Football Club, and I will continue to do my bit to protect, cherish and nurture it for the future generations of fans to come.”The County Durham sewing machine salesman turned estate agent turned media magnate and football club owner is a decidedly eccentric sort. Aside from continuing to protest his innocence after serving three years in prison for the rape of a woman whose evidence was decidedly flimsy, flamboyant fedora wearing tycoon Owen Oyston married a former Miss Blackpool twice and kept bison in the park of his marital home, Claughton Hall in Lancashire’s Lune Valley.Grade I listed Claughton Hall itself was moved from the bottom of the hill to the top between 1932 and 1933. It remains the correspondence address of Vicki Oyston on Companies House records.
Quernmore Park Hall – More Photos
Quernmore Park Hall has its own website on which it is marketed as being “perfect for a dream wedding, a romantic getaway, special occasions, corporate breaks and social family gatherings.” The site mentions also that it is “in the process of being licensed for civil ceremonies and even boasts its own chapel.”The main hall of the mansion has a domed ceiling and glazed cupola. It features plasterwork depicting swords and serpents in its four corners. This Victorian chintz packed sitting room resembles something you might find in ‘Waiting For God’ or a television adaptation of Catherine Cookson’s ‘The Girl.’Yet more Victoriana follows along with shagpile carpets in another reception room. Though this may appeal to pensioners, someone with the capability of paying £40,000 per month for a rental property these days – be they a tech titan or a EuroMillions winner – most likely would prefer something a little more contemporary.For those with religious predilections, there is even a private chapel at the property. It comes complete with shelves featuring statuettes and there’s even a throne style chair ideal for someone of great self-importance.Mr and Mrs Oldroyd clearly got a huge discount by bulk buying red shagpile. Strangely, in the billiards room, they didn’t go to town on curtains, however.The entrance hallway – painted in an especially sickly shade of yellow – has yet more statuettes including a pair clearly meant to resemble “ever so humble” butlers.Mr and Mrs Oldroyd decided to go for a patterned view shagpile for the staircase. Though they likely thought it classy, it would be more suitable for an office block in Oldham.The pattern would certainly not be helpful to anyone with a hangover.The full-height domed ceiling of the main hall was installed by Alexander Mills in 1842 at the instructions of “prosperous cotton merchant” William Garnett. He served as MP for Lancaster from 1857 to 1864. Five generations of Garnetts lived at the hall between 1843 and 1990.This modern kitchen has an appearance more suited to the home of ‘Keeping Up Appearances’s’ Hyacinth Bucket’s bungalow or the home of “the lovely” Debbie McGee than a Grade II* listed Georgian mansion.More appropriate in style to a house built in the 1790s is the old kitchen – listed in Knight Frank’s brochure as being “for informal entertaining.” It could prove useful to ‘Downton Abbey’ creator Julian Fellowes in a future period drama if some of the knickknacks were cleared away.Yet more clutter fills this 37-foot long ‘garden room.’ Someone might want to call in the perma-tanned peacock David Dickinson MBE to see if there are any gems amongst the junk. For those with a fetish for kitchens, the mansion has not one but four and also a room for dealing with fish, a bakery, a bread oven and a butchery in addition. Call in high-as-a-kite Nigella or the dreaded Mary Berry!A bedroom with 1990s fitted furniture that only the aforementioned Hyacinth Bucket would fall in love with.Other bedrooms – some given names such as ‘Strawberry,’ ‘Christmas,’ ‘Mushroom’ and ‘Hydrangea’ – have been a chintz look that would send Kelly Hoppen running for the hills. The wallpaper is more ‘council house chic’ than ‘country house class.’The only bathroom photographed in marketing material features especially naff ‘shell’ decorative touches. Given the vast size of the room, the minute shower looks a little out of place and one could imagine bathtub bonk loving Prince Andrew would be especially disappointed by this ‘four-piece suite.’The rear garden has been peppered with bushes that look like they could have been hand-delivered by E.T.A classic vista ruined by an out of place blue vase that, yet again, only Hyacinth Bucket could love.An aerial view shows the classic proportions of what could actually easily revert to being a classy country house with the help of the visitations of a fair few skips. This is a building that has “the bones” but needs to be stripped of the “brash” décor of Polly Urquhart of ‘Howards’ Way’ and made over more in the style of ‘Baroness Thrifty’s’ Burnham Westgate Hall.The setting is indeed private and when wealthy Preston lawyer owned the property, he had the nearby road moved so his home would not be visible to the “vulgar eyes” of unsuitable passerby.Naff statuettes installed in the gardens and suburban trelliswork might appeal to Alan Titchmarsh MBE, but, frankly, it’s time someone called in the Italian born Lady (Arabella) Lennox-Boyd – a nearby neighbour at Gresgarth Hall in Caton – to perform wonders on the topiary.The parkland beyond thankfully still retains some fine specimens.Will this “fully furnished” classical country house rent for £40,000? At this price, given its location, it seems highly unlikely. 99 Home’s marketing material references that: “Staff are employed and remain on hand to care for the house and gardens” and that “they have their own quarters,” but does this justify the pricing for a house that is 257 miles or 4 hours 52 minutes drive from central London?The site plan of the ‘mini estate’ shows that most of the land is woodland. In total, there are 23.23 acres of land and the main house and its ancillary accommodation extends to 26,681 square foot.
‘The Steeple Times’ selects five undesirable homes currently for sale that many would say would remain best avoided; they’ve all been in the news and they’re all connected to infamous names
Destined most certainly not to feature in Penny Churchill’s Downton Abbey-esque country house porn Country Life column or as an Evening Standard chi-chi ‘Homes & Property’ ‘House of the Week,’ we have selected five undesirable homes currently for sale.
In spite of the fact that one has a link to a recently deceased paedophile, two have been the scene of murders, one is supposedly haunted and the final was the setting for a bizarre nine year sleep, their prices seem somewhat crazy – but maybe some people will just love the idea of living with notoriety. Whether any of these undesirable homes sell for their asking prices, however, seems as likely as the case of Jack the Ripper ever being solved.
Paedo Palace – 9 East 71st Street, Lenox Hill, New York, NY 10021, USA
For sale for £69 million ($88 million, €74 million or درهم121 million) through Modlin Group.
Known as the ‘Herbert Straus House’ in polite circles, but now forever more likely to be remembered as ‘Jeffrey Epstein’s Paedo Mansion,’ this 28,000 square foot, 7-floor, 40 room mansion was home to the deceased bestie of Prince Andrew from 1996 until his incarceration and suicide in 2019.
Few details are shared on the listing other than to declare it of “gargantuan size and opulence” and “the largest single-family home in New York City.” Though the late Alberto Pinto’s design work at the property is lauded, there’s no mention of what Ghislaine Maxwell got up to there or the bizarre birthday parties with Christopher Mason.
Originally called ‘Oakleigh,’ this “striking Gothic Victorian villa” subsequently became known as ‘The House of Horror’ but has now been renamed ‘Devisdale House’ in an attempt to relieve it of a position in the ranks of undesirable homes.
In March 2005, Christopher Lumsden, a partner in the international law firm Pinsent Masons, killed his former Sotheby’s auctioneer wife Alison in the house in a “frenzied domestic attack in the master bedroom” according to The Sun. He stabbed her 30 times after she announced she was leaving him for another man and was amazingly jailed for just five years “after he was found guilty of manslaughter on the ground of diminished responsibility, claiming he had a depressive illness.”
‘Oakleigh’ subsequently “fell into rack and ruin” in spite of reports suggesting Lumsden may have inherited his wife’s fortune, but more recently it was purchased by a property developer. They have added an especially ghastly underground swimming pool, sauna, cinema room and triple garage and now pompous selling agents Jackson-Stops pretentiously laud the property as “incredible,” “striking” and “meticulously remodelled.” Christopher Lumsden, meanwhile, was released from prison after serving just two years of his jail sentence.
A Killer Castle – Pencoed Castle, Pencoed Lane, Llanmartin, Newport, Gwent, Wales, NP18 2ED, UK
For sale with a guide price of £950,000 ($1.2 million, €1 million or درهم1.7 million) by auction on 17th September 2020 through Allsop.
Pencoed Castle dates to the 13th century and in the time since one can imagine all sorts has gone on there. Most recently, in 2016, a then 56-year-old businessman Peter Morgan strangled his girlfriend of three years, a 25-year-old personal escort named Georgina Symonds, in a bungalow in the castle grounds. The married multi-millionaire was sentenced to life with a minimum term of 25 years in prison and with that the estate found itself joining the ranks of undesirable homes.
Wales Online report that “it is not known if Mr Morgan still owns the property,” but for less than a million pounds, a buyer could get themselves not only the castle (which could be turned into 12 dwellings and offices also), but also a former farmhouse, two bungalows and 64.8 acres of land. Previous plans to turn the site into a Disneyland-style theme park called Legend Court came to nothing and of the property a local cryptically remarked: “This place’s recent history is very dark.”
Axing a Ghost – Maplecroft, 306 French Street, Fall River, Massachusetts, MA 02720, USA
For sale for £696,000 ($890,000, €751,000 or درهم1.2 million) through Century 21 The Seyboth Team.
Sold last for £469,000 in February 2018 and £386,000 in November 2014, Maplecroft is described by realtor Suzanne St. John as “a Queen Anne Victorian Mansion,” but many would consider it fitting instead of a listing on a roster of undesirable homes. It was built in 1887, extends to 3,935 square foot and includes 7 bedrooms and 4 bathrooms.
The allegedly haunted residence, which stands on a plot of 0.31 acres, is notable as the post-prison home of one Lizzie Borden (1860 – 1927) – a woman who was the main suspect in the 1892 axe murders of her father and step-mother. Accused, tried and acquitted, Miss Borden inherited a fortune, bought Maplecroft and when she died of pneumonia her wake was held in the parlour.
The current owner also owns the house where the murders were committed and runs it as a ‘murder house B&B.’ He had intended to convert Maplecroft into something similar, but COVID-19 (and perhaps the spirit of Lizzie Borden) got in the way.
A Nine Year Sleep – Sleepy Cottage, 1 School Lane, Turville, Henley-On-Thames, Buckinghamshire, RG9 6QX, UK
For sale for £750,000 ($960,000, €810,000 or درهم1.3 million) through Savills.
Strictly speaking, our final choice in our roster of undesirable homes, has had only a gruesome past in a fictional sense given that it sits in a village used in Midsomer Murders. Nobody in their right minds – if such a place did really exist – would want to reside in any of Midsomer’s locations given the risk of ending up brown bread would be so high, but the innocent sounding name of this cottage makes it worthy of mention.
Used also in the perfectly harmless series Goodnight Uncle Tom and the BBC sitcom The Vicar of Dibley, 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom Sleepy Cottage is also noteworthy as it was most famously home to ‘The Sleeping Girl of Turville.’
Of this enigma, selling agents Savills remark:
“Ellen Sadler, who lived in the cottage with her family when in 1871, aged eleven she purportedly fell into a deep sleep from which she could not be roused for nine years. The case attracted international attention from newspapers, medical professionals and the public. She became a tourist attraction for the village, and her family made considerable money from visitors’ donations.”
“Rumours exist that among the elder Turville residents that Royalty even took an interest in her. The Prince of Wales, the future King Edward VII, visited her and laid his hands on her which people in those days believed would cure the sick.”
“As the years went on and with no sign of Ellen waking, speculation grew that her illness was caused by her mother, an issue that was never resolved. In late 1880, soon after her mother’s death, Ellen awoke. She later married and had at least five children.”
Undesirable Homes Currently For Sale – Pictured top: Jeffrey Epstein’s initials were prominently displayed at the entrance to 9 East 71st Street whilst the entrance hallway beyond aimed to impress with its classical grandeur. Goodness knows how many unfortunates passed through this space on their way on their way to be abused by the late Mr Epstein and his mucky madam Ghislaine Maxwell.
