Unusual river barge and motor yacht combo owned by “quite possibly the most interesting man in the world” Peter de Savary for sale; it is currently moored at Cadogan Pier in Chelsea
A businessman who formerly owned both Land’s End and John o’Groats is selling his yacht for £2.5 million ($3 million, €2.7 million or درهم11.1 million).
Purchased by Peter de Savary in March 2017, ‘Savvy’ (formerly named ‘Tigre D’Or’) has a replacement value of £9.1 million ($11 million, €10 million or درهم40.3 million) and was built in steel by the Hakvoort Shipyard in 2004 for another Englishman who wished to cruise the waterways of Europe.
Lauded as “outside the norm” and “offering something different,” the boat – which is currently moored at Cadogan Pier in Chelsea – is 97’7-feet in length and accommodates six in three cabins and has space for four crew in two cabins also. It has a large reception room and also includes several outdoor seating areas.
Peter de Savary
Of the boat, thrice married de Savary – a man once described as “quite possibly the most interesting man in the world” by Luxury Living International – remarked in December 2017:
“Savvy is the most luxurious, stylish and well-equipped yacht that I have ever owned. This yacht is totally unique and I am unaware of anything comparable at all. She certainly turns lots of heads. Her level of luxury is delightful and, as she has diesel electric power, can be driven in a silent fashion with almost no vibrations.”
“Unlike most yachts in the Mediterranean or the U.S.A., she is inexpensive to operate. Savvy is very economical for fuel costs, and dockage within the canals and rivers is very cheap.
“Once I had made my decision to take ownership of the then Tigre d’Or, we moved quickly so as to start the 2017 season by Easter. Since then, along with my family, we have enjoyed cruising through Holland, Belgium, France and finally my last cruise, in Germany. I have spent in excess of sixty days aboard. Unlike most yachts you can enjoy her all year. The countryside and villages all summer and cities in the depths of winter: Paris, Amsterdam, Brugge, Basle, Vienna, etc. etc. She can navigate the Thames as far as Oxford and would always make a perfect floating pied-à-terre in many European cities.”
Savvy is for sale through agents River Homes and given the fact that Britain is currently facing a coronavirus lockdown, here is the perfect place to hide it out and sail away.
Angry caravan owner complains to local newspaper after he and his sardine tin are told to move on
Nobody sane would wish to spend their holidays in a glorified sardine tin, but now “upset” caravan owners at the Low Wood, Haverthwaite site are distraught at being evicted.
Moaning pensioner Lloyd Smith complained this week to The Westmorland Gazette about the matter. Pictured standing aside his scruffy looking metal box in his equally awful parka, the Queensbury resident bleated:
“It’s all very upsetting. It’s been a lifetime of enjoyment… I can’t understand this… I’ve been caravanning for more than 60 years. The essence is that caravanning has been a way of life. It’s terribly sad that it has come to an abrupt end in such a way for myself and friends.”
He retchingly continued:
“I have not heard of a caravan site closing. I very much doubt there will be alternatives for the caravans.”
As our regular comment maker Rod from Australia would say: “Yes there is. Send in the bloody wrecking ball.”
New contributor and classic cars enthusiast Theodora Ong covets roadsters with wings, curves and chrome at the London Classic Car Show 2020
If you dashed over to this year’s London Classic Car Show (LCCS) at Olympia, you may soon be planning to sell-up your everyday new car, to snap up a new-old motor for weekend cruising instead. Those who do so, succumb to full-on sensory satisfaction. Throw caution to the wind about the hazards of our congested London-town, secure garaging, and knowing when your car attains hallowed historic status. Your newly acquired chrome-y classic soon becomes an all-consuming passion.
From the £70 million worth of kaleidoscopic-coloured classic, vintage, prototype and magnificent marques at the LCCS, here’s The Steeple Times’ hotlist of top five pin-ups. They promise retro allure rather than just tarmac-burning brawn, as you glide up alongside your fellow road sharers at the lights. This is just your starters for inspiration.
No. 1 – 1959 Mercedes-Benz 300SL Roadster
This Benz oozes a rogue-ish riviera chic. It is a somewhat understated evolution of the futuristic 300 SL gullwing. When launched in 1957 it was one of the most audacious and thrilling sports rides to be seen on the open road. This 1959 model from Hemmels is claimed to be the first ever sold to the UK and has clocked up only 36,000 miles. Expect these examples to be a desirable £1million+ buy.
No. 2 – 1933 MG J2
Here is a flawless red pre-World War II MG that assures you are owning a slice of genuine history. Its story is detailed by previous owners, and it is listed in a host of publications and owner’s club articles. Sit inside and you immediately connect with the streamlined design. It was clearly built to wrap round a gentleman driver (most MG drivers were back then). Dealer Graeme Hunt uses all its cars for sale to keep them running smoothly and offers this MG for £57,500.
No. 3 – 1954 Jaguar XK120
This immaculately restored cat belongs to man of style David Gandy. It’s been subject to 2,700 man-hours of rebuild to deliver a superlative road racer – and its story was a feature of the LCCS. Its 3.4-litre inline six-cylinder XK engine cuts it at 225bhp. Marvel at new interior design finishes commissioned by the owner. The modish patina of warm tobacco leather contrasts with the tough impenetrable black shell.
Recently, a Ferrari 250 GTO gained the status of the highest priced vehicle ever sold at auction for £37.5m. But if we’re setting our Steeple Times budget at a more modest £100K, then we’d choose to drive away the pair of sleek ’60 two-seaters that follow below in the forthcoming Coys auction sale at the LCCS.
Dramatically sleek yet solid, this Lancia has a 2.8-litre V6 engine fed by triple twin-choke Weber carburettors to deliver over 150bhp. Drool over its distinctive Superleggera body [a build system which helps enable this innovative aluminium body shape]. Being fashioned slightly longer and 7cm taller than the GT model, means a more commanding ride. Only 300 were built. Consider these Lancias a snip alongside similar Astons and Maseratis.
This friendly-faced retro-mobile claims just one owner from 1963 until 2017, as a company car for the HR manager at Harrods – there’s a clue in the Harrodian Car Club badge it bears. Today it’s all style and restraint. Back then, this more pumped out Superminx convertible was ritzy one-upmanship over the standard Minx on the neighbour’s drive.
And what would we do with our change from £100K?
Splash out on luxe accessories. We’re eyeing up some British ’20s silver hip flasks across town at the Pullman Gallery. One is crafted in the shape of a car radiator; another like a mini petrol can. That’s for your destination drinking of course.
Knightsbridge ‘cage’ in an underground car park for sale for the same price as a 6 bedroom former farmhouse in 1 acre in Scotland
In Kincardineshire, you’ll get a 4,090 square foot 19th century farmhouse that has most recently been used as a hotel for £375,000 ($484,000, €448,000 or درهم1.8 million). In Ennismore Gardens, Knightsbridge, you’ll simply get a 215 square foot underground ‘caged’ parking space.
In Scotland, Savills offer stone-built and harled Old Sauchieburn at Luthermuir. It includes 4 en-suite bedrooms, 2 attic rooms, a 2-bedroom cottage, a brick-built barn and various other outbuildings. Externally, aside from gardens and ample parking there are also two paddocks.
In Knightsbridge, Nicolas Van Patrick don’t say much about the single parking space they offer other than it is “well located [and] has the added benefits of a long leasehold, a daily garage porter and CCTV.”
‘Gothic box’ in Chelsea where theatrical designer Sophie Fedorovitch was accidentally gassed to death for sale for £2.95 million
Nicky Haslam wrote fondly of 22 Bury Walk – commonly known as “the Gothic Box” – in his memoirs Redeeming Features. Of what he terms a “romantically dotty little folly,” he recalls spending “one of the most extraordinary periods of [his] youth” there with its then owner, “the equally romantic” Simon Fleet.
Featuring a plaque to the theatrical designer Sophie Fedorovitch (1893 – 1953) – whom died there as the result of a gas leak – the property is now for sale for £2.95 million through Russell Simpson.
The 1,231 square foot detached cottage includes 2 reception rooms, 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. It is described as “charming and entirely unique.”
The Numbers – 22 Bury Walk, Chelsea, London, SW3 6QB
February 2020 – For sale for £2.95 million ($3.80 million, €3.52 million or درهم13.94 million).
August 1999 – Sold for £565,000 ($727,000, €674,000 or درهم2.7 million).
September 1998 – Sold for £377,500 ($435,700, €450,000 or درهم1.8 million).
Victorian country cottage in picturesque rural setting in East Sussex for sale for less than a new BMW 3 series saloon
A brand new BMW 3 series saloon will set you back approximately £35,000 ($45,000, €41,000 or درهم167,000), but for the same sum you could buy a Victorian cottage in 0.103 acres in a “pleasant rural location” in Uckfield, East Sussex.
Set to be offered at auction by Savills, what sounds at first like an utter bargain had to come with a catch: 1 Jubilee Cottages has been unoccupied for over twenty years and now it has collapsed. Offered thus as having “potential for [the] reinstatement of a semi-detached house or a detached house subject to requisite consents,” this may not be quite what it seems.
In August 2019, the cottage made the news after an attempt to gain planning permission to demolish it and its neighbour by Miss Astral De La Mare of the High Cross Estate was rejected by Wealden Council. The rejected plans had proposed for “an estate manor house [with] brick quoins, [the] estate crest in the gable and a reconstituted stone portico.” The submitted plans included relocating the property further away from the “fast and dangerous road where there have been recent fatalities” and turning the existing Jubilee Cottages site “to a native flower rich wild meadow.”
The site of what remains of one half of the cottages will be sold on 12th February at The Marriott Hotel, Grosvenor Square in Mayfair, London.
Pictured top: The cottage and its neighbour prior to one half collapsing.
Described by Historics Auctioneers as “unique” with styling that is a “little unorthodox, as with most things designed by Nubar Gulbenkian” the partly restored car has a new ash fame and has been subject to comprehensive fabrication work. Its current owner is mentioned as being “sadly not in the position to complete the work,” but much of what is required to complete the vehicle is thankfully included.
Of the Roller, speaking to the Mail Online, auctioneer Stewart Banks commented:
“Serene and stately are words that are rightly used to describe a Rolls-Royce motorcar of yesteryear.”
“The eccentric Nubar Gulbenkian, however, brought a whole new vocabulary and perspective when he penned this sensational one-off for Hoopers to create for him.”
“We are honoured to be offering this hugely important car for sale so the restoration can be completed and it can be seen and driven in all its original glory.”
Historics Auctioneers will sell the late Mr Gulbenkian’s creation on 7th March 2020 at Ascot Racecourse.
Some quotes from and about Nubar Gulbenkian:
Of his fortune:
“I’ve been retired all my life, but I’ve also been working hard all my life. A fortune does not look after itself, after all.”
Of his schooling:
“At Harrow, I played no games and had an unpronounceable name and quite soon I was recognised as something of an oddity, but I was accepted on my own terms.”
Of his religious beliefs (and his somewhat whacky eyebrows):
“During Lent I brush my eyebrows down. It’s an oriental religious custom that you must show outward signs of your sorrow.”
Of taking England as his home:
“I get along very well with all honest people. England’s a very fine country, but it takes a long time to learn to take the English. I tell all my foreign friends the first forty years are the hardest.”
When asked to state his “position in life” on a market research form, his answer was:
“Enviable.”
Of his view of his own lifestyle:
“I believe in comfort. I enjoy myself. I enjoy life. I enjoy everything I do.”
“If something is too much of a bore to do thoroughly and with zest, then don’t bother to do it at all.”
When asked whether he preferred old brandy or young women, horses or Rolls‐Royces and city life over country life, he answered:
“I prefer everything.”
On money:
“I have all of it I could possibly desire.”
On business:
“My father always said oilmen are like cats. You can never tell whether they are fighting or making love.”
Asked about his hobbies, he invented a word (coined from Greek):
“Pan taraxia… Keeping people on their toes.”
The well-known gourmet on dinner parties:
“The best number for a dinner party is two – myself and a damn good head waiter.”
On food in general:
“Gastronomy is an art as difficult to master as music or painting, and, for me, much more rewarding. I certainly get more pleasure from working out a menu, discussing the pros and cons of each dish with a chef who knows his business than I do from listening to the best of Beethoven’s symphonies.”
“I never eat bad food. If you wander into any restaurant and want something quick, quick in ten minutes, you’ll get a bad meal and bloody well deserve it.”
Of his sartorial style:
“In England a man cannot be seen around horses without his gloves and hat. One never wears a gray bowler unless he is with horses. It wouldn’t do. It would shock people’s feelings.”
Of the only occasions he would not wear the trademark dark blue orchid that he sported daily:
“When I am in France, on board a French ship or airplane, or at a French Embassy. It is the French custom, in France, for those who have been granted the Legion of Honor to wear the insignia of the order in their buttonhole. I feel it only courteous, to show the respect for the country which granted me the honor, to wear mine instead of an orchid.”
Of how he made his orchid dark blue:
“I dip a white orchid into a mixture of Stephen’s Ink and water – I have got the mixture virtually right by now – let it dry, then shake it out gently – and I achieve a very adequate dark blue orchid.”
On suing his father in 1938 after the elder Gulbenkian upbraided him for having charged a meal of chicken in tarragon jelly with asparagus tips costing £1.80 to petty cash:
“That was surely the most expensive chicken in history.”
(The case was subsequently settled out of court, but the father had to pay £70,700 or the equivalent of £4.7 million today in court costs and lawyers’ fees).
Of his friendship with John Paul Getty:
“Have I got only one Rolls-Royce? Oh come now. I’m not so rich as Mr. Getty, but I not so poor as all that! Mr. Getty asks my wife and me down for a meal at his house, Sutton Place, from time to time. There is always plenty to eat and drink, it is all of good quality, but he does not take such an interest in gastronomy as I do. But then, few people do.”
On taking up hunting shortly after turning 65:
“I’m a huntin’ man,” he said. “Say ‘huntin’ man,’ not ‘hunter.’ A hunter is a horse, not a gentleman. ‘Fancy Nubar Gulbenkian dressing that way,’ they’d say. ‘He should know better.”
On golf:
“It is more satisfying to be a bad player at golf. The worse you play, the better you remember the occasional good shot.”
On owning two remodeled Austin FX4 taxi cabs merged with the rear parts of horse-drawn Hackney carriages:
“I like to travel in a gold‐plated taxi that can turn on a sixpence – whatever that is!”
“I wanted my taxi dolled-up, more comfortable inside and more distinguished outside, without losing its mobility. People recognise it. After a party or an opening they come and tell me where it is and I don’t have to wait.”
On marriage in general:
“I’ve had good wives, as wives go, and as wives go, two of them went.”
Of his second wife, Dora Freeland (married 1928), he stated:
“I certainly cannot blame Doré for our marriage breaking down. It was entirely my fault that it failed. Being younger and more virile than I am now, I succumbed to other charms.”
His third wife, Marie Berthe Edmée de Ayala (married 1948), on their union:
“Of course, he’s a very difficult man to live with, but it’s worthwhile. Don’t you think that all the most amusing, intelligent men would be difficult to live with? Heaven forbid that I should have married a mollusk.”
When a friend from his Cambridge University days, George Ansley, was asked about Gulbenkian, he answered:
“Nubar is so tough that every day he tires out three stockbrokers, three horses and three women.”
A view of the car from the rear.The driver’s compartment.The passenger compartment (complete with much of what is required to finish the vehicle).Another interior shot.The car in better days (side).And from the front.A scale model of the vehicle.
Waterfront property in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire heads to auction for an extraordinarily low price
A property – if you can call it such – that extends to approximately 129.17 square feet in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire on the 20th February.
Described as a “flying freehold with [an] inaccessible room” wedged between two buildings, the 16th century space has been owned by Fenland District Council since 1966, but nobody seems to know what’s actually in there.
The “mystery room” is situated between 5 and 6 Nene Quay in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, PE13 1AQ, United Kingdom.
Featuring a window at the front and a boarded up access hatch at the rear, this bizarre offering is to be sold by William H. Brown. The guide price is £100 ($130, €118 or درهم478) and of it, the firm’s East Anglian auction manager, Victoria Reek, told the Eastern Daily Press:
“We think it would make an ideal store room for a market stall holder, but it gives you no access rights, it really is just a room at the moment [that] you can’t get into.”
For those not fearful of Coronavirus and given the limited space offered might not allow for the fitting of a kitchen, the room is situated next to an establishment named the Tasty China restaurant. Their food, however, isn’t exactly Michelin worthy and of it online, one Kelly Phelps remarked: “Everything was the same colour which was very dark brown and really dry, next morning hubby and I lived on the loo.”
Asking price for the hideously coloured ex-Katie Price ‘Barbie Rosa’ pink Range Rover slashed; no mention made by sellers as to whether it’s been cleaned up
On her uppers and allegedly struggling to keep her now infamous “mucky mansion” in Horsham, West Sussex, Katie Price’s former pride and joy, her now repossessed 2016 Land Rover Range Rover has had its price slashed.
Presented in Price’s favourite colour, ‘Barbie Rosa’ pink, the 4.4-SDV8 ‘Urban’ kit clad automatic car has covered 52,306 miles and reportedly originally cost £75,000 ($99,000, €89,000 or درهم362,000). At the time and prior to taking delivery of her “pink peril” in Milton Keynes in December 2016, Price enthusiastically told The Sun: “[Here’s] my new beast… Woooo delivery of my new beast tomorrow… Not long until I see my car… what colour do you reckon I’ve done it… I’m excited.”
Last October, prior to the 4×4 being repossessed, according to The Argus, Price was less enthusiastic about the car than she had been in 2016. The mother of five remarked: “I always get pulled over in it so I just don’t drive it and I’m going to get rid of it… It’s in the garage… I never drive it.”
Subsequently, in October 2018, the glamour model and author of six autobiographies was found in the vehicle “very drunk” by police officers. She was said to have been found in a “slumped out position with blood shot eyes, slurring her speech” and the car itself was supposedly covered in vomit.
The ‘Mucky Madam’ Katie Price unveils her Range Rover in 2016.Miss Price even took to hugging the motor.
In pictures in 2016, featured above, thrice married Miss Price (AKA ‘Jordan’ and born Katrina Infield) posed for publicity shots unveiling the vehicle. It is not known whether the motor was gifted to her or whether she received a discount on that basis, but late last year it was bought at a fire sale auction by Saxton 4×4 of Chelmsford, Essex. Originally the firm priced the Range Rover at £60,000 ($79,000, €71,000 or درهم289,000), but now the price has been cut to £50,000 ($66,000, €60,000 or درهم241,000) – a sum some 241% higher than a similar car with a “non-famous owner,” according to Motoring Research.
Aside from having interior mood lighting, 12v accessory sockets and a centre cooler storage box, little mention is made of the condition of the ride in the marketing description online though a spokesman for Saxton 4×4 commented in December: “[It’s] a piece of tabloid history.”
Speaking of the vehicle, a “witness” who’d visited the dealership told The Sun in November 2019: “We couldn’t believe how filthy it was” whilst we’d add: “Will someone be getting a Priceless bargain or will they just end with an mighty mess?”
The former porter’s lodge is a perfect space to paint.
Situated within Chelsea Studios, a hidden enclave artistic community founded by an Italian sculptor and architect named Mario Manenti in 1925, the property is presented in a style that can certainly be described as “bohemian.” It includes a charming reception room with a balcony, a conservatory space used as a dining kitchen, one bedroom and a bathroom. Accessed separately, the former porter’s lodge has been refashioned as a space to create art and beyond that are communal gardens shared with other residents.
£950,000 ($1.2 million, €1.1 million or درهم4.6 million) is sought for the property through agents Marsh & Parsons.
A smaller one bedroom apartment in the complex is available through Winkworth for £625,000 ($820,000, €739,000 or درهم3 million). It extends to 596 square foot and is situated on the lower ground floor.
