Matthew Steeples takes a look at a £36 million Kensington mansion formerly owned by disgraced business tycoons Alan Bond and Lord Black; its former chatelaine was known for stating “I have an extravagance that know no bounds”
Sir Winston Churchill’s daughter Mary Soames once described the buccaneering businessman and media tycoon Lord Black of Crossharbour as “London’s biggest bore unhung” whilst his wife, Lady Black – better known as the author and journalist Barbara Amiel – was suggested to be just a “rich bitch” by Sarah Sands in a “case for the defence” article in the Independent in October 2006.
“Poster boy for the 80s” turned fraudster and jailbird Alan Bond (1938 – 2015) was an English-Australian businessman equally Marmite-like in being liked or loathed and now a Kensington mansion owned for a time by both subsequently disgraced businessmen is once again for sale.
14 Cottesmore Gardens, formerly known as 12 – 14 Cottesmore Gardens, was purchased by Alan Bond’s Satellite Group for £7 million in the 1980s and sold by administrators of that business to Conrad Black and his wife for the knockdown sum of just £3.5 million in 1992.
Plain old Mr and Mrs Black (as they then were) lavished further millions – some of which came from the company Hollinger International, Inc., which ultimately resulted in their downfall – on the double fronted 19th century mansion and used it for entertaining on a lavish scale. Guests, including the likes of Prince and Princess Michael of Kent, Joan Collins, Margaret Thatcher, Henry Kissinger, Jimmy Goldsmith, James Hanson, Arnold Weinstock, Jacob Rothschild, Peter Mandelson and Tony Blair, were said to flock to the parties they gave there, but in 2005 these gatherings of upto 400 people at a time came to an almighty end.
Forced to sell at a bargain basement price of just £13.1 million on an ask of £17.5 million as the Canadian born billionaire faced jail time in America, Lord and Lady Black’s tenure was over and the residence saw its “arriviste torch” passed to Juan and Adriana Villalonga, a couple described as “a Mexican telecom czar and his beauty-queen wife.” Of what came next, The Globe And Mail’s Paul Waldie pointedly penned in February 2007: “[They] quickly erased many of the features that the Blacks prized.”
Once again for sale as of April 2023, the value of 14 Cottesmore Gardens has again been deemed to have substantially risen. Knight Frank offer the 12,310 square foot, five-storey residence at a punchy price of £36 million and laud it as “imposing” and “presented in good order throughout.” They add that a “pre-planning consultation” has found that further accommodation could be added that would take the internal space to more than 15,000 square feet; business barons with deep pockets only need apply.
Editor’s Note – Unlike as is the case in many publications, this article was NOT sponsored or supported by a third-party. Follow Matthew Steeples on Twitter at @M_Steeples.
Pictured Top – 54-foot wide 14 Cottesmore Gardens is described by selling agents Knight Frank as “offering lateral living so often requested but so hard to find in central London.” They neglect to mention that with its hedges cut back to the minimum, the place actually looks extremely forlorn.
Flamboyant Lord and Lady Black dressed as Cardinal Richelieu and Marie Antoinette for a party at Kensington Palace in 2000. For a time, the couple employed 17 butlers (if Tom Bower is to be believed) and had two private jets and homes – aside from the 19th Cottesmore Gardens mansion – in New York, Palm Beach and Toronto. “Guests packed into their parties at Cottesmore Gardens,” Bower remarked in his 2006 book the couple, adding: “Amiel was a big spender… Under the control of senior butler Andrew Lightwood, second butler Peter Wilson and a succession of third butlers, Amiel’s life in Kensington had become what her constantly changing staff called ‘bizarre.’ Each recruit was taken by Lightwood on an introductory tour of the house, ending on the roof. ‘Make sure the landing lights are on at all times,’ instructed Lightwood solemnly, ‘because Madame takes off from here on her broomstick looking for cats. She needs the lights to guide her return.’ His face would crack into a smile. ‘Most important, take care that she never sees you. She hates seeing any of us.’ Amiel’s eccentricity demanded that her staff hid whenever she approached, diving into cupboards if necessary, and never entered her quarters when she was present. Every day, all the bed linen was changed and subjected to ‘the penny test.’ A coin was dropped onto the sheets. If it failed to bounce they were not drawn sufficiently tight. Every cushion was arranged to a precise pre-ordained position, and each towel placed exactly as Amiel had predetermined. ‘Andrew!’ she screamed down the telephone on one memorable occasion, ‘the towels are in the wrong place!’ Lightwood, as Amiel knew, was in New York, but he was expected to telephone the staff in the house in London to rectify the error. ‘You f**king pillock!’ she yelled at another member of staff for reading her ‘Daily Mail’ before it was delivered to her.”Barbara Amiel Black (or ‘Lady Black’ as she prefers to be known) in her drawing room at Cottesmore Gardens (pictured). Of her, Sarah Sands on Lord and Lady Black in the ‘Independent’ in October 2006 opined: “Conrad and Barbara in their monstrous, glamorous way, knew how to throw parties. The talk was of geo-politics and hemlines. Nowadays, we scorn their extravagance and doubt the source of their wealth with prune-faced hindsight. Meanwhile, everyone is sucking up to Russians…. Barbara would disingenuously begin her midnight calls to me by saying in her low, breathy voice: ‘I hope I am not disturbing you.’ She would then offer little glimpses of her own home life. I remember her mentioning that Conrad Black was upstairs playing with his fleet of toy gun ships in the bath… I remember her examining an exhibition of doll’s houses at the Chelsea Flower Show and sighing how restful it would be to live in this cosy little home. How she envied people in small houses. The burden of wealth was one of her more dangerous fantasies. At one of her Gatsby-style parties in Kensington, she flinched at the elaborate canapés on offer: ‘Really, all I want is a sausage,’ she said, piteously. Then, she ran a hand down her inconceivably expensive dress and whispered: ‘I hate these parties, I am so shy.’ Later, I was invited to her boudoir, where she lay on cushion surrounded by her women friends. She was Kensington’s Cleopatra, surrounded by maidens such as the designer and Forte daughter Olga Polizzi, the political thinker Tessa Keswick and the writer Miriam Gross.”The very same drawing room at 14 Cottesmore Gardens today. The décor is now somewhat more modern and less ‘classical country house-ified.’ It’s certainly more Soho Farmhouse than Alberto Pinto in style; it is currently a space that the former Meghan Markle would feel more at home than say, perhaps, the likes of Lord and Lady Black’s chum Ghislaine Maxwell and her fellow noxious nonce Ponzi scheming paedophile boyfriend Jeffrey Epstein. Mr Pinto was responsible, it should be noted, for the designs of most of Epstein’s residences.The front elevation of 12 – 14 Cottesmore Gardens during the era it was owned by Lord and Lady Black.Multiple entries for Lord and Lady Black during the time they owned 14 Cottesmore Gardens appeared in the ‘Little Black Book’ address book often attributed as being that of the friends and associates of Jeffrey Epstein, but that featured more of the contacts of Ghislaine Maxwell in fact. In October 2020, Barbara Amiel took revenge on the pension pot plunderer’s padeophile sex trafficker daughter by featuring her in her “score-settling” memoir ‘Friends & Enemies: A Life in Vogue, Prison, & Park Avenue.” Maxwell had “dumped” Lady Black when Lord Black was being investigated for fraud. She wrote of their last meeting: “We were friends – so putting on my ‘So good to see you’ face, I headed for her. She bolted. Turned that sharp tight little turn when you really want to get away. And that was it.” Of the clear lover of plastic surgery Lady Black, in October 2020, Sarah Sands remarked in ‘The Mail on Sunday’: “She had a bohemian, almost masculine, view of opportunistic sex. She describes, for instance, accompanying an early love in his white Triumph sports car ‘in which once or twice I had performed fellatio to the fascination of passing truck drivers, all for fun.’”After getting out of the clink in 2012, Lord and Lady Black decided to go back on the ‘razzle-dazzle’ and posed for photographers before heading back to London to party with friends. In May 2019, the rambunctious peer arrogantly announced he’d be returning to the House of Lords after President Donald Trump pardoned and praised him. Commenting, of this pardon, Lord Black declared: “I’m not bitter… Officially in the United States, I’ve never been charged and I won in the end. It was a war and there are casualties in wars. I lost the time, I lost a lot of money, but as you can see my standards of living isn’t bad… The truth is, these, last 15 years, I haven’t been as interested in British politics as I was before – in the Thatcher years. It could be quite interesting again, in fact it is as of right now – it’s very interesting… It’s my good fortune that at a time when it is feasible, it happens – by happy coincidence – that it is a time of great fermentation in British public affairs.” Surprisingly, he doesn’t seem to have turned up on occasions since.The previous owner of 14 Cottesmore Gardens, Alan Bond (1938 – 2015), will forever be remembered as “Australia’s most notorious corporate criminal.” Born in Hammersmith, London, Bond’s first crime occurred when he was charged with theft aged 14 in Fremantle in Australia and whilst he is remembered for bankrolling the successful challenge for the 1983 America’s Cup, it is for causing the then biggest corporate collapse in Australian history that he will be go down in history. Former Miss Mexico Adriana Abascal López-Cisneros (at the time Adriana Villalonga) bought the house in 2005. She divorced the Spanish businessman Juan Villalonga in 2009 and married the French businessman Emmanuel Schreder in Ibiza in June 2013. In August 2014, the magazine ‘Quién’ featured the model and television presenter on its cover and at that time she described her new husband as “the love of my life.”Madrid born Juan Villalonga became the joint owner of 14 Cottesmore Gardens with his then wife Adriana Abascal – the couple were married between 2000 and 2009 – in 2005. He is listed on Companies House as being a director of the now dissolved Medikidz Foundation at the address between August 2009 and November 2013. Married since 2011 to a photographer named Vanessa Von Zitewitz, Mr Villalonga was a partner at McKinsey & Company in the 1980s, CEO for Credit Suisse First Boston and Bankers Trust in Spain in the early 1990s and CEO of Telefónica from 1996 to 2000. He was named as one of the best performing chief executive officers in the world by ‘Harvard Business Review’ in 2010 and is also linked to addresses in Monaco.
The Names & Numbers – 14 Cottesmore Gardens (formerly known as ’12 – 14 Cottesmore Gardens’), Kensington, London, W8 5PR, United Kingdom
April 2023 – Offered for sale for £36 million ($44.4 million, €40.9 million or درهم163.2 million) through Knight Frank. Valued on Homipi at an upper sum of £28.558 million ($35.250 million, €32.440 million or درهم129.456 million).
2009 – Mr and Mrs Villalonga divorce and subsequently Adriana Abascal married Emmanuel Schreder, a French businessman, in Ibiza in June 2013.
2005 – Sold by Lord and Lady Black for £13.1 million ($16.2 million, €14.9 million or درهم59.4 million) to Spanish businessman Juan Villalonga Navarro and Mexican model, Miss Mexico winner and television presenter Adriana Abascal López-Cisneros Villalonga.
October 2004 – Placed for sale for £17.5 million ($21.6 million, €19.9 million or درهم79.3 million) according to NZ Herald.
January 2004 – Valued at £14 million ($17.3 million, €15.9 million or درهم63.5 million) according to The Globe And Mail. At the time, the “mansion” in “the upscale Kensington neighbourhood” was described as having “10 bedrooms, 6 bathrooms and a swimming pool.”
Featured also in The Guardian in an article by Chris Tryhorn. Quoting Lord Black, he shared: “At a certain price, anything is for sale. [It has] been shown to people in the not-too-distant-past.”
Going further, Tryhorn added: “Artwork from the 18th and 19th centuries lines the walls, and there is plenty of storage space for the extensive wardrobe and shoe collection of Lord Black’s wife, Barbara Amiel, who famously declared once that her ‘extravagence knows no bounds.’ … It was originally two homes and one of the two original front doors is now a ‘deliveries’ entrance. He has used it in the past to host dinners with butler and maid service that was part-paid by Hollinger.”
Also in 2004, in a profile in The Spectator, Peter Oborne wrote:
“Every year the Blacks threw two parties, one at Christmas and one summer event, at their double-fronted 11-bedroom mansion in Cottesmore Gardens. Everybody who mattered at the time went: Margaret Thatcher, Henry Kissinger, Jimmy Goldsmith, James Hanson, Arnold Weinstock, Jacob Rothschild, royalty, the playwright Tom Stoppard.”
“Some of these, injudiciously as it turned out, agreed to join the main Hollinger board. The luckier ones – Peter Carrington, Robert Salisbury – got away with being made directors of TheTelegraph. As the Tories faded out, Labour ministers started to arrive, the indefatigable Peter Mandelson, David Blunkett and other ministers eager to ingratiate themselves with the Tory press. Prince and Princess Michael of Kent were assiduous in attendance. In London, the Nineties belonged to the Blacks. They were London’s most glamorous power couple.”
“There had been a time when both Blacks had kept their feet on the ground. This ceased to be the case. One evening Barbara Black rang Charles Moore panic-stricken from her Kensington home. There had been a last-minute drop-out from one of the famous Black dinner parties. ‘I’m short of a woman,’ she told Moore. Moore surveyed the newsroom. His gaze alighted on the journalist Eleanor Mills, by chance the stepdaughter of the Cabinet minister Tessa Jowell.”
“An hour later, hastily groomed, made-up and brushed, Mills was sipping pre-dinner drinks in Cottesmore Gardens. Then disaster struck. A male guest, Max Fisher, dropped out. Mills was approached by Conrad Black. ‘Finish your drink and skedaddle,’ he told her. Barbara Black then told her to go to the kitchen and out through the servants’ door, where the driver would pick her up and take her home.”
2001 – Conrad Black is elevated to a life peerage in the United Kingdom at the suggestion of Tony Blair. He sat on the Conservative benches in the House of Lords until 2007 as The Right Honourable The Lord Black of Crossharbour KCSG, but took a “leave of absence” between 2012 and 2019.
28th May 1996 – The Royal Borough of Kensington And Chelsea ordered that 12 – 14 Cottesmore Gardens “shall be known and described” simply instead as 14 Cottesmore Gardens.
Mid 1990s – The Blacks set about renovating 12 and 14 Cottesmore Gardens with the help of J. E. Evans Associates. Of the work in October 2006, The Sunday Times shared a segment of Tom Bower’s 2006 hatchet job Conrad and Lady Black that read: “Amiel vowed to create a palace that would attract celebrity worshipers of a power couple. Part of the first floor was to be removed to create a huge ground floor reception area.”
1992 – 12 and 14 Cottesmore Gardens sold by the administrators of the affairs of Alan Bond through estate agents Savills to media tycoon Conrad Black and his Watford born journalist wife Barbara Amiel Black for “well under the asking price” for a sum of £3.5 million ($4.3 million, €4 million or درهم15.9 million).
Mr Bond had been granted mortgages valued at £16.2 million ($20 million, €18.4 million or درهم73.5 million) on the property by Bell Satellite Services on the property along with two others at 4 and 16 Belgrave Mews in London, SW1 previously according to a report published by Financial Review in March 1990.
1991 – Rented to an American businessman for £6,000 per week ($7,400, €6,800 or درهم27,200 per week).
1990 – Placed in the hands of administrators of Mr Bond’s and placed for sale through Savills for a bargain basement sum of £3.8 million ($4.7 million, €4.3 million or درهم17.2 million) according to Financial Review.
1980s – Sold to Alan Bond’s Bell Satellite Group for £7 million ($8.6 million, €8 million or درهم31.7 million).
Circa 1905 – Walter Tapper is said to have “designed a library with handsome Arts and Crafts plasterwork (now removed) at the rear of the building.”
1869 – In their current marketing blurb, Knight Frank suggest: “There has been a house on the site of 12 – 14 Cottesmore Gardens since at least 1869. The current house has been altered, extended and most notably joined over the subsequent century and a half. With the local planning department strongly opposed to further amalgamation of homes, opportunities to acquire a house of this width will be rarer still in the future.”
1850s to 1860s – Built “under the direction of David Howell, of Serjeants Inn, Fleet Street.” Mr Howell was described in 1853 as an “articled clerk to a solicitor, lately carrying on business as a solicitor.” The architecture was lauded as: “Designed in a bold classical manner, with rather fleshy consoles and modillions… and bands of Vitruvian scroll between the bases of the ground-floor windows.”
More photographs of the £36 million mansion…
An entrance hall where power and privilege have most certainly mingled previously.The 54-foot wide drawing is lauded by selling realtors Knight Frank as “arguably the best room in the house” and “double aspect.” They add: “[It has] six windows overlooking the street and additional views over the private garden to the rear.”The columns where Barbara Amiel Black once posed for photographs remain, but the subsequent owners eliminated much of the 1990s ‘brash’ that had been installed by a Watford born woman whose excess clearly offended so many.This dining room, where Conrad Black hosted presidents and prime ministers, is now somewhat diminished. The table for eight looks completely out of place and a future owner would do well to install something a little grander.A double height entertaining space was installed at the insistence of the loftier-than-lofty Lady Black in the 1990s and it remains today. However, it is now currently being used for more casual affairs such as Netflix viewing rather than being the scene of something that you’d more likely find in the ‘House of Cards’ in fact.A new owner might reinstate the grandeur of the past; sadly, however, this seems unlikely and the purchaser is more likely to be a footballer or Internet tycoon than a super-connected business tycoon.This currently very dark and very depressing study would most certainly not appeal to the very clearly very, very bright yet very, very pompous The Right Honourable The Lord Black of Crossharbour KCSG – a man who is said to count Julius Caesar and Napoleon Bonaparte as “his military heroes.” Of him in July 1997, Mark Honigsbaum in the ‘Independent’ remarked: “Although Black’s grandfather had briefly been a business partner of Harold Harmsworth, the original Viscount Rothermere, it was from his father, George Montegu Black Jr, that Black learned the art of corporate warfare, the importance of historical perspective and that gambling provides a disappointing rate of return compared to the Dow Jones index… The young Conrad was precocious. At the age of eight he sank his life savings of $60 into a single share of General Motors. He also became obsessed with Napoleon, and would astound his father’s friends by reeling off details of campaigns. Another story has him washing dollar bills and hanging them out to dry on a line outside his father’s home in Toronto. The last is apocryphal – Black says he slipped in the mud and was cleaning his change – but the image of the young capitalist, wise beyond his years, is accurate. His childhood tutor, the historian Laurier LaPierre, once asked Black why he always seemed to have the air of someone waiting for something to happen… A few years ago, for instance, the rumour went round Fleet Street that Black had bought Napoleon’s preserved penis at an auction. Black denied it, but many remain convinced that Bonaparte’s body part sits in Black’s collection of military curios… Black is no philanderer and is devoted to his second wife, the former ‘Sunday Times’ columnist Barbara Amiel. They are said to be intellectual soul mates and the parties at their four-storey mansion in Kensington are famous for bringing together a cross-section of the great and good.”One could not imagine the likes of the late great Baroness Thatcher, for example, liking the idea of sitting in this extremely depressing and dark waiting area. A new owner would do well to obliterate a décor scheme that could have only been favoured by a completely colour blind banker.A room currently described as a ‘cinema room’ measures 28’6” by 21’6” and is situated at the rear of the house. One can imagine Conrad Black having sat here for hour upon hour watching historical dramas about Napoleon with the likes of chums such as the acclaimed historian Andrew Roberts, the gambling tycoon John Aspinall and the politician and diarist Alan Clark, but a new owner will be more likely next showing episodes of ‘Succession’ – based on ‘The Telegraph’ tycoon’s rival Rupert Murdoch – than viewing historical works one most definitely suspects.Dining whilst the staff cook would NEVER have been on the agenda in the era that pomposity reigned whilst Lady Black was chatelaine of 14 Cottesmore Gardens.A 2,000 square foot entire floor fit for a tycoon… The master bedroom suite of the house takes up the entirety of the second floor of the building. It incorporates not only the principal bedroom, but also a “his” dressing room and a “her” dressing room as well as a sitting area, a bathroom, a shower room and storage rooms. It has direct lift access and is bigger than the average Brit’s entire house.A dressing room in the house where Barbara Black opened up to ‘Vogue’ and displayed “closets overflowing with dazzling evening gowns, designer handbags and 100 pairs of Manolo Blahnik shoes. ‘I have an extravagance that knows no bounds,’ she famously declared. Unfortunately for Lady Black, the article was closely perused at investment company Tweedy, Browne, a Hollinger International shareholder.”This playroom certainly did not exist in the era that Lord and Lady Black owned the property. It would be more likely crammed with books or stuffed with Manolo Blahnik shoes than toys from Toys ‘R Us. A new owner may likely reinstate it as an additional bedroom or office or games room perhaps.The pool room measures 43’9” by 26’9” and is no doubt where Lady Black spent many an hour relaxing.The garden to the rear was where Lord and Lady Black hosted their annual summer party (with guests “spilling” into their drawing room also). In surprisingly Tardis-like fashion, the duo were able to supposedly squeeze in upto 400 guests at such occasions. Amongst those said to have enjoyed hospitality there were Joan Collins and of such, magazine publisher Nicholas Coleridge wrote: “If you get a kick out of milling about with present and former prime ministers, cabinet ministers, minor royals, dukes, editors, vastly rich Americans, distinguished historians, gossip columnists, playboys and lots of pretty ‘it’ girls, then this was the place to be.”The existing floor plan of the property illustrates the vast scale of the building offered. A buyer, Knight Frank observe, has additional options and “a pre-planning consultation has been carried out with RBKC by leading architects Studio Indigo.” They add: “[It] would completely reconfigure the house adding an additional basement floor and taking the internal space to more than 15,000 square foot. The resulting house would have a 40-foot by 41-foot south-facing rear garden.”A plan of the site as presented in 1996 when 12 and 14 became known just as 14 Cottesmore Gardens.
Bizarre Detroit house built of ‘Cotswold stone’ marketed for sale as a “19th century United Kingdom castle;” its price is 48% lower than when last sold in 2021 and its interior is beyond curious
Nicknamed ‘Motor City,’ Detroit is best known as the place where Henry Ford pioneered the use of production lines to mass manufacture automobiles. It had a population of 639,000 as of the 2020 census and is often cited for its connections with gangsters and violent crime.
Bizarrely, however, now a realtor is somewhat laughably trying to sell a dilapidated house built in 1925 in one of the ‘toniest’ districts in this place of plenty of no-go areas as a “19th century United Kingdom castle” of “elegance and grandeur.” It actually resembles something only maybe Morticia Addams might, as it is currently presented, love.
The residence does indeed feature a ‘Great Hall’ that is certainly not what one would expect to find in the midst of a housing estate. It certainly has character, but is more akin to being in a village hall than a residential dwelling. Of it, in a Facebook group discussing this and other properties, one comment reads: “That tiny fireplace in the giant, drafty room wouldn’t put a dent in a Michigan winter. That room needs four or six fireplaces. It looks so cold.”Many of the rooms are decorated in a very odd fashion and throughout the building someone once busied themselves randomly painting vines and creepers. They’re not exactly masterpieces.This particular room wouldn’t look out of place in a brothel or the home of the dastardly decorator and champagne swiller Dawn Ward.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GN_F9ykjxE
The marketing video shared by estate agent Matt O’Laughlin is accompanied by Pachebel’s Canon in D Major. Clearly, O’Laughlin sees the house as potentially usable as a wedding venue given that the accompanied canon has been one of the most used pieces of music at weddings since the 1980s throughout the western world.The rear yard of the house, with lots of exposed earth, most definitely gives off serial killer film set vibes. Goodness knows what’s buried here.Throughout the house are lots of odd-looking cupboards. One commentator on Facebook describes them as being “suitable for use perhaps by a child catcher.” Chilling, at the very least.Yet more examples of “child catcher cupboards.”Whilst the bathrooms are perhaps original in terms of their tiling and fitting, somebody oddly has decided to write text just beneath the ceiling. Whilst the full narrative here cannot be read, it includes: “Think but this and all is mended. That you have but slumber’d here…” Okay. Corridor areas do look especially creepy and dungeon-esque.The ‘Detroit Free Press’ advertisement from 19th September 1943 offering the house – then described at 19551 Burlington Road – for sale at an undisclosed price by an “owner anxious to sell.”
Priced currently at just £412,200 after having previously sold in October 2021 for the far punchier sum of £748,300, the 8,019 square foot property at 19551 Burlington Drive is situated in a district known as Palmer Woods. It includes 7 bedrooms, 6.5 bathrooms, a 4-car garage and stands on a plot that extends to 0.57 acres.
Described as being of “Cotswold stone” construction and “a one-of-a-kind estate” in spite of its small plot, the 3-storey building offered includes what the selling agent Matt O’Laughlin of Max Broock Realtors references as “soaring wood-beamed ceilings, long arched hallways, intricate custom millwork, and a great hall fit for a modern-day king and queen.”
The Palmer Woods sub-division itself extends to around 188 acres and has been home to everyone from presidents of motor corporations including Chevrolet, Chrysler and Dodge to politicians such as the 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney. For a time in the 1920s, a leading member of Detroit’s Purple Gang – a gang so feared that even Al Capone kowtowed to it – lived in a house there and more recently the former Detroit Pistons player John Salley was master of a 35,000 crib that was originally built by the Archdiocese of Detroit.
In March 2011, The Atlantic featured Palmer Woods in an article by Ta-Nehisi Coates titled ‘The Other Detroit.’ Whilst lauding it as a “really beautiful neighbourhood in the north-west portion of the city,” she pointedly referenced how when it was founded it was decreed that lots should “not be sold or leased or to be occupied by any person or persons other than that of the Caucasian race.” A clause, however, allowed: “This shall not be interpreted to exclude occupancy by persons other than of the Caucasian race when such occupancy is incidental to their employment on the premises.”
When 19551 Burlington Drive – also known as ‘The Souther Residence’ – was offered for sale in September 1943 by an “owner anxious to sell,” it was listed as having “servant’s quarters.” Thankfully, those bigoted restrictive covenants relating to servants were subsequently ruled unconstitutional in 1948 and subsequent black American residents of the area have included the popular Motown songwriter Lamont Dozier and Keith Ellison, the first Muslim congressman.
Editor’s Note – Unlike as is the case in many publications, this article was NOT sponsored or supported by a third-party.
Many more pictures of the wacky interior of ‘The Souther Residence’ follow at the end of this article.
The Names & Numbers – ‘The Souther Residence,’ 19551 Burlington Drive, Palmer Woods Plats, Detroit, Michigan, MI 48203, United States of America
1st January 2023 – Marked on Zillow.com as “listed by bank” with the lender “now selling it.”
12th December 2022 – Listed for sale for at a price -48.1% lower than sold for one year earlier for £412,200 ($495,900, €465,900 or درهم1.8 million) or the equivalent of £52 ($62, €58 or درهم228) per square foot. The selling agent is Matt O’Laughin of Max Broock Realtors and the taxes payable amount to £9,740 ($11,717, €11,013 or درهم43,031) per annum.
October 2022 – Valued by Zestimate at £998,000 ($1.2 million, €1.1 million or درهم4.4 million).
26th October 2021 – Sold for a sum +142.4% higher than its 1994 sale price for £794,800 ($956,152, €898,400 or درهم3.5 million) or the equivalent of £99 ($119, €112 or درهم437) per square foot.
28th August 2014 – Listed to be sold by auction after being subject to a foreclosure by the Bank of America, N.A. The sum of the 1st mortgage amount was £748,300 ($900,008, €846,100 or درهم3.3 million). The name of the then “owner” was given as Evan Burkholder and a “trustee,” Trott & Trott, P.C. was also mentioned.
18th July 1994 – Sold for £327,900 ($394,500, €370,700 or درهم1.4 million) or the equivalent of £41 ($49, €46 or درهم180) per square foot.
19th September 1943 – Featured in the Detroit Free Press in an advert by Walsh, James & Wasey Co. They claimed the “owner anxious to sell” and listed the property as an “attractive English type Kentucky limestone residence” complete with 5 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms and servant’s quarters. They lauded the offering also as having “many other superior features.” No asking price was mentioned.
1925 – Built, according to Instagrammer, tour guide and architectural history enthusiast Jonathan Peters, for a Mr Chester Souther and his wife, Keturah.
In a post dedicated to the property on 12th December 2021, Peters shared:
“Mr Souther was vice president of the Norton Land Corporation as well as manager in the tax department for General Motors. Leonard B. Willeke was one of the Detroit area’s more talented and prolific residential architects of the first half of the 20th century, most known for his Arts & Crafts designs.”
“The Souther residence is Palmer Woods’ lone home to be completely faced with stone. Detroit and environs are no stranger to Cotswold, with several iterations of the style to be found in neighborhoods throughout the city and suburbs. The most notable example being the Cotswold Cottage in Greenfield Village, which was modified, disassembled, transported from the Cotswold countryside and rebuilt in 1929 – 1930.”
Notable Residents of Palmer Woods
Left to right – Residents of Palmer Woods have included variously included many considered amongst the ‘great and the good’ – amongst them Walter O. Briggs Sr., George Romney, Mitt Romney and John Salley.
Whilst other areas of Detroit, such as the Russell Woods district, counted The Supremes’ Diana Ross amongst the prominent names to have lived there, those ‘famous faces’ who’ve variously called Palmer Woods home have included:
John Ballantyne (1868 – 1937), financial advisor to the Dodge Brothers Motor Corporation and president of Merchant’s National Bank., resided for a time at 15750 Balmoral. He was born in Paisley, Scotland
Walter O. Briggs Sr. (1877 – 1952), automobile body manufacturer, philanthropist and owner of the Detroit Tigers baseball team from 1919 until his death in 1952. He built his 8,136 square foot residence in a ‘Tudor style’ in the area in 1925 along with a “rare carriage house.”
Joseph Burnstein has been described as “one of the smartest and toughest leaders of the Purple Gang.” He lived at 1920 Lincolnshire Drive for a time and for 49 years more recently, somewhat ironically, the building was home to a commanding officer of the Detroit Police Department’s Organised Crime Division. The Jewish led gang, also known as ‘The Sugar Gang’ and ‘The Purples,’ operated as bootleggers and hijackers in the 1920s and “even Chicago’s notorious Al Capone made peace with them and bought Canadian whisky from them rather than fight them for territory.” His surname is often misspelt as “Bernstein” and by the time of the gang’s fall in 1935, he and his cohorts no longer reigned over Detroit’s underworld, at least 18 gang members were dead and many others in prison.
Marvin E. Coyle (1887 – 1961), general manager and president of the Chevrolet Motor Company in the 1930s and 1940s, resided for a time at 19391 Suffolk. He was known around the world as ‘Mr Facts & Figures’ and referenced as “having decimal points in his blood.”
Lamont Dozier (1941 – 2022), part of the popular Motown songwriting team Holland-Dozier-Holland, is said to have lived in the district for a time. This thrice married, father of six co-wrote and produced 14 US Billboard number-one hits and 4 number ones in the UK.
Mike Duggan (born 1958), the 75th Mayor of Detroit (elected in 2013), is said to live in the district. He received national attention for becoming the first white mayor of the majority black populated city since the 1970s.
Charles Van Dusen, lauded as a “department store king,” is said to have lived in the district for a time.
Keith Ellison (born 1963) the first Muslim congressman, is said to have lived in the district for a time. He currently serves as the 30th Attorney General of Minnesota and is a member of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (DFL).
Brothers Alfred Fisher (1892 – 1963) and William Fisher (1886 – 1969), who ran the Fisher Body automotive company which was eventually absorbed into General Motors, both had homes in the district in the 1920s and 1930s at 1771 Balmoral Drive and 1791 Wellesley Drive respectively. The later was demolished after a fire in 1994.
K. T. Keller (1885 – 1966) president of the Chrysler Corporation between 1935 and 1949 and the company’s chairman from 1950 to 1956, resided for a time at 19366 Cumberland. He was also appointed by President Truman to serve as chairman of the President’s Advisory Committee on the Merchant Marine and the director of the Office of Guided Missiles after the Second World War.
William S. Knudsen (1879 – 1948), president of General Motors between 1937 and 1940 and an appointee of Franklin D. Roosevelt to head the War Mobilization Board during the Second World War, resided for a time at 1501 Balmoral. He featured on the cover of Time magazine in 1940 and was commissioned by Franklin D. Roosevelt to help lead the United States’ war material production efforts during the Second World War.
George W. Romney (1907 – 1995), who was president of the American Motor Corporation and the 43rd governor of Michigan, owned a house in the district until circa 1952. He was father to 4 children including the 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney (born 1947) and the latter politician is described as having lived in Palmer Woods until he turned five.
In 1915, the family of the late senator Thomas W. Palmer (1830 – 1913) sold the 188 acres of land that now forms the district to one Charles Burton. He founded the Palmer Woods Company and hired a landscape architect, Ossian Simmonds, to design what has been noted as an “oasis of winding streets and irregular sized lots.” A summerhouse designed by the architects Mason & Rice for the Palmer family in 1885 is still to be found in Palmer Park.
One house in particular, ‘The Bishop Gallagher Residence’ at 19366 Lucerne Drive is considered the most notable residence in the area. It was built between 1920 and 1925, stands on a plot of 2.06 acres and consists of 20,030 square foot of “livable area.” The 62-room residence’s ‘notable names’ have included:
Bishop Wayne T. Jackson of Great Faith Ministries International and founder of the Impact Network, the largest African-American Christian television network in the USA, subsequently lived there from 1995. He sold it to a real estate developer for a sum said to be “more than” £2.1 million ($2.5 million, €2.3 million or درهم2 million) in 2017. Bishop Jackson was amongst those who gave benedictions at the inauguration of President Donald Trump on 20th January 2017 at the United States Capitol in Washington. He has 9 children and 26 grandchildren.
John Salley (born 1964), former Detroit Pistons, Miami Heat, Toronto Raptors, Chicago Bulls and Los Angeles Lakers basketball player, owned ‘The Bishop Gallagher Residence’ from 1989 to 1995. He subsequently appeared in the Luther Vandross music video Take You Out and in programmes ranging from the Weakest Link to I’m A Celebrity… Get Me out of Here! and is now known as a vegan activist and cannabis brand owner.
Various bishops and archbishops of Detroit including Bishop Gallagher, Cardinal Edward Mooney and Cardinal John Dewden lived in the property in the years after its construction.
More pictures of ‘The Souther Residence’ from its current realtor listing
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.
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.
Jeffrey Epstein’s Parisian paedo pad goes on sale just as the PM’s sister Rachel Johnson leaps to mucky madam Ghislaine Maxwell’s defence and her gyrating partner Geordie Greig gets ousted from the ‘Daily Mail’
First shared by crusading author Kirby Sommers on Twitter and subsequently mentioned by Bloomberg amongst others, the croaked paedophile Jeffrey Epstein’s apartment in the 16th arrondissement of Paris is now for sale.
The Sotheby’s International Realty listing image of Jeffrey Epstein’s dining room in Paris (top) and his butler, cook and driver Valdson Viera Cotrin consuming a meal there (below).
Crusading author of ‘Ghislaine Maxwell: An Unauthorized Biography’ Kirby Sommers was first to share the story of the sale of Jeffrey Epstein’s Paris home on 11th November. Illustrating her ability to discover relevant information that mainstream media bypasses as part of their clear laziness, Sommers also shared images of Jeffrey Epstein’s butler, cook and driver Valdson Viera Cotrin, in the apartment as evidence alongside creepy skulls amongst other things.The interior of Jeffrey Epstein’s Parisian residence was likely designed by the late Alberto Pinto, whom also worked on his now sold on £69 million ($88 million, €74 million or درهم121 million) 28,000 square foot Lenox Hill, New York “paedo palace” mansion (pictured here).
It includes a “huge entrance gallery [that] opens onto a double reception, a large office, a dining room, kitchen” and aside from upto 8 bedrooms, there is also a “beautiful fitness room” and two service studio on the top floors of the building.
Described by the selling agents as having “superb volumes” and ceiling heights of 16’4”, the ex-Epstein apartment overlooks the Arc de Triomphe and is listed as being in “impeccable condition” and having had been “completely redone by a famous, world renowed decorator.” No mention is made, however, of the last occupant-owner nor the September 2019 two-day search of the flat by French police. It is was also the supposed billionaire financier’s last place of residence as a free man before he jetted into Teterboro Airport, New Jersey from Paris on 6th July 2019.
Annual taxes on the palatial property, which is described as having a “security system” – without mention of whether any of Epstein’s notoriously creepy ‘blackmail cameras’ remain – amount to a staggering £28,500 ($38,395, €33,900 or درهم141,000).
Backing up her discovery with a picture of Epstein’s butler, cook and driver Valdson Viera Cotrin sat having a meal in the very same dining room pictured in Sotheby International Realty’s listing imagery, Sommers’ proof is clear. Of it she remarked:
“Epstein’s apartment in France is on sale. There are photos of his butler on Facebook with the same furniture. Sotheby’s is not disclosing the owner. But it is confirmed Epstein’s apartment. The same furniture. All there. Like a museum.”
“All of the furniture is still there. That is a sign, to me, that this too is a staged apartment. When someone passes away it is normal for the next of kin to take some of the furniture out because of sentimental reasons. Not the case in Jeffrey Epstein’s Paris apartment.”
In a further tweet, Sommers added:
“Of note with the skulls and brain tissue in Jeffrey Epstein’s Parisien kitchen. Epstein told some of his victims that he was a ‘brain surgeon.’ Takes on a new meaning with this insight into his belongings in one of his homes.”
Elsewhere this morning in The Spectator, the Prime Minister’s sister Rachel Johnson disgraced both herself and her brother with a shockingly tawdry revelation about the pair’s interactions with the currently incarcerated alleged mucky madam.
At a time when their very own father, Stanley, is under scrutiny over his supposedly “handsy” behaviour towards women including Caroline Nokes MP, Rachael Johnson wrote:
“It’s hard not to feel a batsqueak of pity for Ghislaine Maxwell – 500 days and counting in solitary confinement. I intersected briefly with her at Oxford.
“As a fresher I wandered into Balliol JCR one day in search of its subsidised breakfast granola-and-Nescafé offering and found a shiny glamazon with naughty eyes holding court astride a table, a high-heeled boot resting on my brother Boris’s thigh.”
“She gave me a pitying glance but I did manage to snag an invite to her party in Headington Hill Hall. I have a memory of her father, Bob, coming out in a towelling robe and telling us all to go home.”
“I’m sure fairweather friends would not reveal they went to a Ghislaine Maxwell party: as Barbara Amiel’s brilliant memoir Friends and Enemies proves, you only know who your real chums are when you’re in the gutter.”
Pictured top (left to right) – An especially creepy statue of a boy dominates the entrance hallway to the apartment, the exterior of the building and its late owner Jeffrey Epstein.
Listing images of the interior of Jeffrey Epstein’s apartment in the 16th arrondissement area of Paris, France on Avenue Foch follow:
Chinese billionaire gets planning permission to expand a £210 million Knightsbridge house to create a ludicrously large single family 62,000 square foot ‘McMansion’
This morning the Guardian reported that the most expensive house ever sold openly in the UK is to be visited by a wrecking ball and reconstructed after Westminster city council granted planning permission to extend it from 60,000 square foot to 62,000 square foot.
2 – 8a Rutland Gate in Knightsbridge, SW7 first featured on our pages in May 2013 when offered for sale unofficially for the extraordinary sum of £300 million.
Rivalled only by the likes of The Old Rectory in Old Church Street, Chelsea, SW3 in terms of its stature as an ultimate ‘McMansion’ in central London, the gargantuan house was originally created between 1985 and 1987 at the behest of Rafic Hariri, a billionaire former Prime Minister of Lebanon.
Described in a recent planning application as currently “heavily dilapidated,” Cheung sought and gained permission to “undertake works of repair, refurbishment and alteration to return the building into beneficial use as [his] London family home.”
Presently a 7-storey building, 2 – 8a Rutland Gate consists of 45 rooms, a swimming pool, underground parking and several lifts. It has bulletproof windows, views of Hyde Park and has been empty for over ten years.
Redevelopment will result in the creation of an extra floor and in spite of the disruption construction will no doubt cause in the neighbourhood, the Guardian remarked: “Cheung [will] not be obliged to contribute to the construction of any affordable homes in the borough.”
When completed Cheung’s “palazzo palace” will be 8,405% larger than the average UK home – which measures just 729 square foot.
The 62,000 Square Foot McMansion – 2 – 8a Rutland Gate, London, SW7 1AYThe 62,000 Square Foot McMansion – The mansion was stripped of its contents in 2015.The 62,000 Square Foot McMansion – Amongst items removed were 24 marble bathrooms and Murano glass chandeliers.
The Names & Numbers – 2 – 8a Rutland Gate, London, SW7 1AY, United Kingdom
July 2020 – After planning is secured for redevelopment of the buildings into a single-family ‘McMansion,’ estimates are suggested that the eventual value of the finished building will be as high as £500 million ($687 million, €582 million or درهم2.5 million).
January 2020 – Sold to Hong Kong based property tycoon Cheung Chung-kiu (張松,nicknamed in China as ‘Chongqing’s Li Ka-shing’) for £210 million ($289 million, €245 million or درهم1.1 billion), a sum 30% lower than the original asking price.
July 2015 – 1,323 items from the house – including everything from gold-plated waste paper bins to bidets – sold at auction by ProAuction.
Commenting at the time in response to a ludicrous claim by the Daily Mail that the sale would achieve £50 million ($68 million, €58 million or درهم252 million), auctioneer Mark Flynn remarked: “At the end of the day, my perspective is that this is second-hand furniture, albeit very luxurious furniture, and where it comes from is neither here nor there… We would be disappointed if we didn’t achieve £450,000 ($618,000, €524,000 or درهم2.3 million) in total.”
December 2014 – Loan of £55 million ($76 million, €64 million or درهم278 million) secured to fund the cost of stripping out the property by Omni Capital Partners, a financial services company owned by favourite property developers of billionaires, brothers Christian and Nick Candy.
2012 – Offered for sale for £300 million ($412 million, €349 million or درهم1.5 billion) following the death of the Crown Prince.
2005 – “Given” to the then Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, Sultan bin Abdulaziz (1928 – 2011) after the death of Hariri.
1985 – 1987 – Converted from four individual houses into one single ‘McMansion’ residence by British architectural firm Yorke Rosenberg Mardall (YRM).
1982 – Transferred into the ownership of the Yunak Corporation, registered in the Dutch Antilles tax haven of Curaçao, and subsequently used as the London residence of the billionaire former Prime Minister of Lebanon, Rafic Hariri (1944 – 2005).
Mid 19th century – Built as a terrace of four house, 2 Rutland Gate and 4 – 8a Rutland Gate, in the Italianate style.
The 62,000 Square Foot McMansion – Members of the public have been left asking: “Does one family really need a house this colossal?”
