Category: OPULENCE & SPLENDOUR

Private island on the Thames that was owned by the first owner of The Savoy Hotel and inspired Gilbert and Sullivan for sale for £800,000 less than it was sold for in 2013

A 145 metre by 45 metre private island on the River Thames at Weybridge is currently for sale for £3.2 million.

 

Comprising of the 1.9 acre island itself and coming also with 0.74 acres of land on the mainland that provides parking for about 45 cars, D’Oyly Carte Island is accessed by a private footbridge.

 

Previously known as ‘Folly Eyot,’ a house was built there circa 1890 by Richard D’Oyly Carte (1844 – 1901), an English talent agent, theatrical impresario, composer and hotelier best known for bringing together the dramatist W.S. Gilbert and the composer Arthur Sullivan. Carte intended the building as an annexe to The Savoy, but after being refused a drinks licence took up residence there along with a pet crocodile.

 

Extending to 7,210 square foot, the now Grade II listed property – now known as Eyot House – appeared habitable when last sold in 2013. It is now in a somewhat decrepit state and is being marketed as requiring “full modernisation.” The vast building is described as featuring 13 bedrooms, 5 bathrooms and verandas and naturally, given its builder’s involvement in music and opera, includes also a ballroom.

 

Agents Chase Apartments suggest also that, after restoration, it could make “a country retreat or boutique hotel.”

 

The Numbers – D’Olyly Carte Island, Weybridge, KT13

 

June 2019 – For sale for £3.2 million ($4.1 million, €3.6 million or درهم15million) through Chase Apartments of Chalk Farm.

 

September 2013 – For sale for £4 million ($5.1 million, €4.5 million or درهم18.7 million) through Churchods and Savills.

 

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Outdoor parking space in South Kensington for sale for the same price as a Welsh farmstead

One could argue the property market has gone completely nuts when an uncovered, leasehold parking space in Roland Way, SW7 goes on sale for the same price as a Grade II listed detached farmhouse with a range of stone built barns in the Ceiriog Valley in Wales.

 

Admittedly Wern Tower Farm at Pontfadog, near Llangollen is in need of complete renovation, but given it is set in what agents Bowen Son and Watson call “a beautiful rural location,” one can see the potential of what could be created on the 0.5 acre plot that is being sold by the Myddelton Estate.

 

In trying to justify the “key features” of the 972 year lease offered for the single parking space, its agents, Marler & Marler boast that it is in a gated mews and describe it is “private.”

 

£175,000 ($223,000, €197,000 or درهم817,000) is the sum sought for each of the properties. We know which we’d prefer.

 

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1985 Cadillac Seville to be auctioned; its lower estimate is just under £10,000; the perfect car for any hip-hop or ‘Dallas’ devotee

A second generation Cadillac Seville – known to hip-hop fans as a “slantback” – will be sold as part of the four day RM Auctions’ 2019 Auburn Spring sale in Auburn Auction Park, Indiana at the end of this month.

 

A true example of angular 1980s American automotive design and termed an “internationally-sized” Cadillac, the 1985 Seville offered features a 4.1-litre V8 engine, automatic transmission, memory seats, windows, steering and breaks, cruise control and air conditioning. It has a typically lavish grey velour interior and comes with a new factory leather interior kit included.

                                  

The kind of thing that a cast member of Dallas could have been seen driving and stylised with such features as its razor-edged bustle-back rear end, the car’s design was supposedly influenced by the English coachbuilder Hooper & Co.’s 1950s ‘Empress Line.’  

 

RM Sotheby’s offer the car – which has covered just 27,400 miles and is listed as having been involved in an accident by CARFAX – with no reserve and an estimate of £9,500 to £12,600 ($12,000 to $16,000, €10,700 to €14,300 or درهم44,100 to درهم58,800). The event runs from 29^th May to 1^st June.

 

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Victorian farmhouse transformed into an Anglo-Baroque-style masterpiece by Robert Adam complete with a lion from Chuchill’s garden on the roof for sale

Eccentric homes are only going to ever appeal to eccentric people and that is perhaps why “strawberry coloured” Eastwood Farm at Herstmonceux in East Sussex has not sold in six years.

 

Now anything but like a farmhouse in its appearance, the property on offer is the result of the encasing of a simple Victorian house within a new structure that is variously described as “Anglo-Baroque-style” and “French chateau-like.”

 

The conception of the late Freddie Stockdale (1947 – 2018), a decidedly eccentric British opera impresario who founded the now defunct Pavilion Opera in 1981, in conjunction with the architect Professor Robert Adam FRIBA of ADAM Architecture, ‘Eastwood’ as it is now more simply referred to was constructed between 1995 and 1996.

 

“Built on foundations that would support the Empire State Building,” according to a report in The Telegraph and doubled from its original size, Eastwood is in fact still rather petite in the accommodation it offers. In spite of having 4,078 square foot of space internally and 6 reception rooms, 8 bedrooms and 5 bathrooms, most of them seem sadly quite frankly poky.

 

Of it, selling agent Will Peppitt of Savills, variously told journalists:

 

“It will definitely make you smile… The architecture is fantastic, the house is both dramatic and handsome; it just looks drop-dead gorgeous.”

 

“On the outside it looks like a stately home but inside it’s really a comfortable family home. These big stately homes often have massive maintenance costs and are an enormous space to look after, but this is a mini stately home – all of the benefits but with none of the hassle.”

 

Eastwood Farm stands in 32.4 acres and now has an asking price of £2.45 million – a figure over a million less than when it launched to the market in 2013.

 

The Numbers – Eastwood Farm, Chilsham Lane, Herstmonceux, Hailsham, East Sussex, BN27 4QH

 

May 2019 – Reduced in price to £2.45 million ($3.1 million, €2.8 million or درهم11.4 million).

 

April 2018 – For sale for £2.75 million ($3.5 million, €3.1 million or درهم12.8 million).

 

April 2013 – For sale for £3.5 million ($4.4 million, €4 million or درهم16.3 million).

 

1995 – Freddie Stockdale paid £300,000 ($381,000, €342,000 or درهم1.4 million) for the rundown Victorian farmhouse on the site.

 

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Grade I listed 12^th century deanery that has housed 62 deans for sale for the first time ever; it could become a most remarkable home

An 18,000 square foot, Grade I listed building that has been home to 62 deans of Wells Cathedral over 800 years is offered for sale for the first time ever.

 

The Old Deanery, which adjoins the Cathedral Green and overlooks Wells Cathedral itself, has been used as the diocesan offices since the 1940s and stands in a Tudor herb garden that was originally planted by Dean William Turner, “the father of English botany,” and restored between 2003 and 2010.

 

Divided into four wings and features accommodation over three floors, the house, in spite of its most recent function as offices, retains many original features. Jacobean paneling, gargoyles on the parapets, glittering stained glass and Georgian shuttering abound and now an individual seeking to create a truly palatial home is in with a chance to turn this historic structure into such.

 

Lodestone Property offer The Old Deanery with a guide price of £2.5 million ($3.2 million, €2.8 million or درهم11.7 million) and seek best and final offers by 12 noon on Thursday 12^th September 2019.

 

The Diocese of Bath & Wells is selling because the building provides poor disabled access, has a limited number of meeting rooms and has been deemed costly to repair, maintain and run. They intend to use funds raised from the sale to construct new 16,000 square foot diocesan offices elsewhere in the city.

 

“Despite the rich history of the Old Deanery, its location, and the fondness in which we hold it, the building was not functioning effectively as a modern, welcoming office and meeting space, due to lack of investment. Action needed to be taken.”

 

Of the sale, Nick May, the diocesan secretary, told the Church Times:

 

“The diocese fully appreciates the building’s historical significance, and the fondness in which it is held by many local people, as well as staff who work there, and is committed to ensuring any sale is approached and handled sensitively.”

 

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Grade II* listed Kentish manor house for sale along with 258 acres of land; its asking price has been reduced by over £1 million

Twyssenden Manor, near Goudhurst in Kent spent much of the 20^th century in use as a youth hostel, but after being purchased by its current owner, a “successful businessman who, in the late 1990s, decided to abandon his City career in favour of a quieter life in the country,” in 2002 was restored to its former glory.

 

Consisting of a Grade II* listed 16^th century sandstone tower joining two older houses, this 8,445 square foot, 5 bedroom house has many period features and amongst them is a former chapel, a tower that was likely a confessional for a priest and several medieval murals portraying verses from the ‘marriage prayer,’ Psalm 128 also.

 

For sale since last September and now reduced in price by £1.05 million to £6.95 million, of The Twyssenden Estate, Will Peppitt of selling agents Savills told The Times:

 

“There are lots of medieval farmhouses, but this is different. You might think it would be dark with low ceilings, but this place has good ceiling heights. It was clearly a house of some importance.”

 

“There is an entire wall intricately decorated in a 17th-century fresco in what would have been the bridal chamber. It hasn’t been touched up, all the colours are original. It is now preserved behind a glass panel.”

 

Standing in some 258 acres of land, the estate is approached by a private road and includes formal gardens with what Country Life’s Penny Churchill describes as “picturesque ruins,” an all-weather Astroturf tennis court, a series of spring-fed lakes, Grade III permanent pasture and woodland. Completing the package is a 2 bedroom barn conversion, a gym, games room, domestic offices, garaging and a hunting lodge also.

 

The present owners have derived income from letting the farmland and a “family shoot” of duck, high pheasant and partridge have provided typically 11 days per season.

 

The Numbers – The Twyssenden Estate, Goudhurst, Kent, United Kingdom, TN17 2RG

 

May 2019 – Reduced to £6.95 million ($9 million, €8 million or درهم33.2 million).

 

September 2018 – For sale for £8 million ($10.4 million, €9.3 million or درهم38.2 million).

 

2001 – Sold for £2.2 million ($2.7 million, €2.4 million or درهم10 million).

 

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Is what could be Britain’s most expensive house for sale? If it is, the price could top £200 million and the buyer will come to own Central London’s largest truly private garden also

Rector’s houses are often grand but when what is now called The Old Rectory – or more simply 56 Old Church Street – in Chelsea became something on quite another scale when it was extended and refurbished by Collett and Champion between 1990 and 1994 in association with the Japanese businessman Norikazu Nemoto.

 

Grade II listed and featuring a Blue Plaque to the notoriously bigoted clergyman and writer Professor Charles Kingsley (1819 – 1875) – a man who described the Irish as “human white chimpanzees” and one whose novel Westward Ho! paved the way for the naming of the owning of the only settlement in Britain with an exclamation mark in its name – The Old Rectory was built circa 1725 on a site gifted to the church by the Marquis of Winchester.

 

Famous for having the largest truly private garden in Central London – which extends to two acres and which was also the place where the 1815 Battle of Waterloo was supposedly planned when rector George Valerian Wellesley, brother of the Duke of Wellington was in residence – The Old Rectory was transformed in the early 1990s with the addition of two wings.

 

Now said to have accommodation extending to 30,000 square foot, the property has been owned by Norwegian born John Fredriksen – formerly Norway’s richest man (until he abandoned his citizenship) since 2001. He paid around £40 million for the property but now with a somewhat vague advert appearing on the property website Primelocation.com from an obscure agent named Belgrave Lettings it seems it could be for sale.

 

In their listing, the firm describe “an enormous detached mansion in Old Church Street, London, SW3” with “huge gardens plus summer house.” Features – that giveaway the house’s identity – are said to include 8 double bedrooms “with a spectacular master, 8 bathrooms, [an] impressive swimming pool, cinema room, gym, double garage [and] underground parking for 12 vehicles.”

 

Whilst some might suggest such a property – given the only other detached house in that street that this could possibly be does not have an interior resembling the photograph of the hallway (pictured above) used in the marketing material, it can only be assumed this has to be The Old Rectory. A call to the agents by The Steeple Times, however, was met simply with the answer: “No comment” and the abrupt click of the phone.

 

Since a penthouse in the repugnantly vulgar (and mostly empty) money park that is One Hyde Park in Knightsbridge sold for £160 million in May 2018 (plus £23 million in stamp duty), if indeed The Old Rectory is for sale, it will surely fetch well north of £200 million.

 

The Numbers – The Old Rectory, 56 Old Church Street, London, SW3

 

2019 – For sale? Asking price unknown.

 

2006 – John Fredriksen pays £30 million ($39 million, €34.8 million or درهم143.2 million) for the neighbouring house, 58 Old Church Street.

 

2004 – Oligarch and Chelsea Football Club owner Roman Abramovich reportedly offered £100 million ($130 million, €116 million or درهم477 million) for the house even though it was not (allegedly) even for sale.

 

2001 – Sold to self-made Norwegian oil tanker and shipping magnate John Fredriksen for circa £40 million ($51 million, €46 million or درهم191 million)

 

1995 – Sold to Greek shipping and steel magnate Theodore Angelopoulos for £22 million ($28.6 million, €25.5 million or درهم105 million).

 

1994 – For sale for £25 million ($32.5 million, €29 million or درهم119 million).

 

A whole selection of imagery of The Old Rectory after its 1991 – 1993 renovation can be viewed on the website of Collett-Zarzycki by clicking here.

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Charming waterfront cottage in Suffolk riverside hamlet associated with sailing, smuggling, Arthur Ransome and ‘Lovejoy’ for sale

The sheltered anchorage of Pin Mill, on the southern banks of the tidal River Orwell, is somewhere that unsurprisingly has inspired artists and photographers and somewhere whose pub, The Butt & Oyster, has quenched the thirst of many a sailor also.

 

Tourists flock there to see the houseboats and wrecked vessels at this once busy landing point for ship-borne cargo and in the Second World War, it was also home to many landing craft used in the invasion of Normandy. Long associated with sailing and smuggling, Pin Mill has been home to Harry King & Sons boatyard and its 100 swinging moorings since 1898 and the acclaimed author Arthur Ransome had his largest yacht and its tender, the 35-foot long Selina King and 10-foot Swallow II, built there in 1938.

 

Despite offering Selina for service at Dunkirk in the war (she was rejected because of her small engine which was “only useful in calm”), Ransome’s association with the hamlet is definitely for what it is best known. It was here that he set We Didn’t Mean to Go to Sea (1937) and it was here that he anchored his boats from 1937 to 1939. He had previously declined an offer to sail from there with the bibliographer Walter Ledger in 1911 after being told by Oscar Wilde’s friend Robbie Ross that “Ledger had episodes of homicidal mania.” Later, he commented: “[I] always regretted that I did not sail with him, for he kept his Blue Bird at Pin Mill, and, if I had gone, I should have known that charming anchorage twenty years earlier.”

 

The setting for several other novels and films, Pin Mill was a location in Lovejoy in 1993 and now an “idyllic” 17^th century waterfront cottage there has come up for sale there.

Offered at a price of £600,000 ($777,000, €695,000 or درهم2.9 million), 4 bedroomed Sam’s Cottage is being marketed by agents Jackson-Stops and extends to 1,521 square foot. It is described as “well laid out” and comes with a “pretty part-walled, lawned garden,” a rear courtyard and parking for three cars.

Pin Mill is 7 miles from Ipswich and trains from there to London Liverpool Street take just 70 minutes.

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1965 Mercedes-Benz ‘Grosser’ owned by ‘Peak Practice’ and ‘Emmerdale’ actor Gary Mavers to be auctioned

Liverpool born actor Gary Mavers – best known for playing GP Andrew Attwood in Peak Practice between 1995 and 2000 and also the sinister child abuser Gordon Livesey in Emmerdale from 2015 to 2016 – is selling his 1965 Mercedes-Benz 600 SWB ‘Grosser’ at auction next month.

 

A rare right-hand drive example, Mavers’ ‘Grosser’ was delivered new to Australia and is described as having been “meticulously maintained. It has covered 120,000 miles and featured in an article titled “No Drama” in Mercedes Driver magazine in April 2019.

 

An estimate of £75,000 to £85,000 ($97,000 to $110,000, €87,000 to €98,000 or درهم356,000 to درهم403,000,.) has been set for this “collectable classic.” It will be sold by Silverstone Auctions at Heythrop Park in Oxfordshire on 11^th May.

 

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