Category: OPULENCE & SPLENDOUR

Luxury and the arts From houses to cars and from Hockney to van Dyck, a profile of the best and the worst

A Chummy Tourer

Dinky 1925 Austin Seven ‘Chummy’ Tourer to be sold at Bonhams’ Beaulieu sale for less than it cost to buy and restore

A delightful little 1925 Austin Seven – known rather endearingly as a ‘Chummy’ Tourer – is to be sold at the Bonhams Beaulieu sale in Hampshire on 1^st September.

Produced between 1923 and 1939, Austin Sevens were a huge success because they were “simply constructed, economical and easily maintained by the home mechanic.” They “brought motoring within the financial reach of the man in the street” and by the time production ceased, over 290,000 had been made.

The canary yellow car to be offered was purchased by the current owner in 2013 and restored between 2015 and 2017 at an additional cost of £20,000 ($25,700, €22,100 or درهم94,300). It features a rebuilt engine, gearbox, front and rear axels, steering and brakes and has been driven just 400 miles since recommissioning.

An estimate of £19,000 to £25,000 ($24,400 to $32,100, €21,000 to €27,600 or درهم89,600 to درهم117,900) has been set for this little beauty. What better way could one think to take to the open road?

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August 25, 2018
A Funicular Feat

Highest asking price ever for a property on Lake Tahoe is sought for a compound complete with two glass funiculars; it could be yours for £60 million

Situated on 5.14 acres and having 525-foot of frontage to Lake Tahoe in Nevada, a 16,232 square foot mansion complete has gone on sale.

Built between 1997 and 2016, ‘Crystal Pointe’ on Crystal Bay is formed by a main residence, guest house and caretaker’s apartment linked to its lower level boat house and oversized 4-car garage by two impressive hillside traversing funiculars on heated tracks. It has a total of 8 reception rooms, 8 bedrooms, 14 bathrooms, 13 fireplaces, a 10-seat cinema and a 1,687 bottle wine cellar.

The various elements of the compound are connected via furniculars as well as steps

One of two furniculars

Stuart and Geri Yount built the property between 1997 and 2016

Offered on behalf of building product tycoon Stuart Yount – CEO of Fortifiber – and his wife Geri, the property is designed to enjoy full views of the lake from sunrise to sunset. It stands in landscaped gardens with ponds and waterfalls that feature some pretty dramatic animal sculptures and adjoins US service forestry.

Chase International seek £59.1 million ($75 million, €66.1 million or درهم275.4 million) as Mr and Mrs Yount now wish to downsize to a smaller residence.

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August 16, 2018
A Perfect Estate

Diverse 2,000 acre Suffolk riverside estate for sale for £31.5 million; it has been owned by the same family since the 19^th century and produces an income of some £500,000 per year

A vast Suffolk estate – just 120 miles from London – has gone on sale for £31.5 million ($40.1 million, €35.3 million or درهم147.4 million) either as a whole or in upto 21 lots through agents Knight Frank.

Owned by Sir Guy and Lady Quilter and originally part of a larger 8,000 acre property, the 2,177 acre Sutton Hall Estate, near Woodbridge has been in the same family since the early 1900s. It has 3½ miles of frontage to the River Deben and is divided between 1,432 acres of irrigable arable land served by two large reservoirs, 375 acres of mature woodland and 242 acres of grazing and parkland.

Centred around a 6,084 square foot Grade II listed Georgian house with eight bedrooms, the estate also comes with eleven further farmhouses and cottages, numerous outbuildings, a keepered sporting shoot and a private quay.

Crops grown on the property include wheat, winter barley, potatoes, sugar beat, rape, vining peas, carrots, parsnips and onions whilst the selling agents comment: “For those looking to create an even more diversified business, the environmental and agricultural opportunities are boundless.”

In remarks to Knight Frank’s 2018 Rural Report, Sir Guy Quilter recently stated:

“We feel very lucky to have had the opportunity and I’m really proud of what we’ve achieved, but it feels like we’ve done as much as we’re comfortable doing without changing the nature of the estate.”

“You have to feel completely comfortable running a place like this because you can get it wrong very easily. History is littered with estates that have turned to dust within a generation.”

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August 14, 2018
A Magnificent Mammoth Mansion

Grade I listed Jacobean prodigy house in Hampshire for sale for £10 million; it allegedly is haunted by 14 ghosts and comes with planning permission to create a mammoth 57,000 square foot single residential home

In April 2017, The Steeple Times featured the sale of a vast New Jersey mansion named Darlington. Offered for the sum of £37 million, that property remains for sale but now the English Jacobean prodigy house on which it was modelled has also been placed on the market.

Bramshill House, Bramshill, Hook, Hampshire, RG27 8ND, United Kingdom is for sale for £10 million

Darlington in New Jersey, USA was designed to look just like Bramshill

Bramshill was used as a police college from the 1950s until 2013 (the entrance pictured here is no longer included with the ownership of the main house)

Used as a police college from the 1950s until 2013, Bramshill House, near Hook has permission to be returned to a single family residence with a colossal total size of 56,974 square feet. Described as “one of England’s great stately homes,” the proposed accommodation that could be created – after a supposed additional expenditure of £10 million on refurbishments on top of the £10 million asking price – would include 10 reception rooms and 10 bedrooms. Additionally, there would be a 126-foot long gallery, a cinema, gym, a wine cellar, a disco and even a chapel.

Bramshill was built in the early 17^th century by Baron Edward la Zouche (1556 – 1625), famed for his lone vote against the condemnation of Mary Queen of Scots, and is described as being of the Italian Renaissance style. It was later occupied by the 2^nd Baron Brocket and the exiled King Michael and Queen Anne of Romania before being acquired by the British government in 1953.

Sold in 2014 to property developers City & Country in 2014, the estate – then totaling some 262 acres – was sub-divided and now Knight Frank are the agents for the mansion and 92 acres of Grade I registered parkland.

Bramshill – The Numbers

August 2018 – For sale for £10 million ($13 million, €11.2 million or درهم47.6 million) with 92 acres of land.

August 2014 – Sold to City & Country for £20 million ($25.9 million, €22.3 million or درهم95.2 million) with 262 acres of land.

July 2013 – Marketed on behalf of the Home Department for £25 million ($32.4 million, €27.9 million or درهم119 million) with 262 acres of land.

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August 7, 2018
Ratty on The River

A dream house for ‘The Wind In The Willows’ character Ratty; Devon boathouse for sale for £2.5 million

A Devon house that could be perfect for anyone sharing Kenneth Grahame’s character Rat’s view that “there is nothing — absolutely nothing — half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats” has gone on sale for £2.5 million ($3.5 million, €2.9 million or درهم12.9 million).

The Boathouse at Kingswear features “unrivalled views of the River Dart and open sea” beyond and is described by selling agents Savills a “iconic.” It incorporates 2,456 square of internal accommodation over five floors and is built from oak, slate and stone.

Aside from 4 bedrooms, the property also features a 32’ by 19’5” open plan kitchen-dining-reception space and a 24’2” by 23’8” garden room. For the sailor, there is a boat store, private slipway, a DHA licenced running mooring and direct access to the foreshore whilst those simply want to relax, could just idle away the hours in the property’s gardens and on its terraces.

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April 20, 2018
A Place In Andalucia

Spectacular hacienda near Seville for sale for £3 million

Anyone who has watched the somewhat cringeworthy television programme A Place In The Sun expects a Spanish holiday home to be somewhat beyond vulgar, but in The Palacio, near Seville, a buyer could purchase something truly spectacular.

Restored over the last five years, this traditional hacienda or small estate stands on nine acres of Andalusian olive groves and centres around a 12,900 square foot traditional house with seven large bedroom suites. It is approached by a tree-lined avenue, has two swimming pools and is situated in a part of Spain that “enjoys over 300 sunny days a year and mild, frost-free night-time temperatures.”

Aylesford International seek £3 million ($4.3 million, €3.5 million or درهم15.9 million) for the property and advise buyers to factor in a further 10% to 15% for “additional fees and taxes.”

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April 15, 2018
A Cut Cost Chalet

Britain’s weirdest home for sale for a sum 61% lower than the £13 million sum asked for it in 2016; it has been repossessed and comes with a 69-foot long indoor beach

In October 2016, The Steeple Times featured what could quite possibly be Britain’s weirdest home. Offered then for £10 million, The Chalet at East Molesey in Surrey has now been repossessed and is being marketed for just £5 million – or a sum 61% lower than its initial asking price of £13 million in August 2016.

Now marketed by Savills on behalf of LPA Receivers, the Grade II listed chalet was imported from Switzerland in 1882. It includes an indoor 69-foot man-made beach filled with 40 tonnes of sand, a dining room with an especially vulgar 18-seat Swarovski crystal table and a kitchen with just what any budding Mary Berry couldn’t live without – five Gaggenau fridges.

Extending to 5,478 square foot in total, The Chalet also comes with a number of private moorings on the River Thames.

The Chalet, Hampton Court Road, East Molesey, Surrey, KT8 9BP – The Numbers

March 2018 – £5 million ($6.9 million, €5.6 million or درهم25.3 million).

October 2016 – £10 million ($13.8 million, €11.2 million or درهم50.7 million).

August 2016 – £13 million ($17.9 million, €14.6 million or درهم65.9 million).

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March 4, 2018
Bentley or Bail?

1986 Bentley Continental convertible originally owned by notorious fraudster Asil Nadir to be auctioned

A 1986 Bentley Continental convertible with coachwork by Mulliner Park Ward that was first owned by the dodgy businessman Asil Nadir is told be sold at auction in March.

The Tudor red with black leather interior car – registration C704 EUV – has 32,000 miles on the clock and an extravagant extra – an ebony wood dashboard.

Finally sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2012 after 17 years on the run for stealing £29 million and subsequently released in 2016, Nadir was the ultimate symbols of 80s excess and greed. With an office on Berkeley Square and a country mansion in Rutland, this crooked Turkish-Cypriot father of four was even given engraved with the words: “Don’t let the buggers get you down” by the MP Michael Mates after the police first arrested him. He was truly an example of the “couldn’t give a f**k” generation and thankfully, along with such others as Owen Oyston and Robert Maxwell, such individuals are now consigned to the realms of soap operas like Dynasty and Howards Way.

Bonhams will sell the ex-Asil Nadir car at their Goodwood Members’ Meeting sale on 18^th March. It is offered with an estimate of £55,000 to £60,000 ($76,000 to $83,000, €62,000 to €68,000 or درهم278,000 to درهم304,000).

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March 1, 2018
A Rolls for an Estate

Quirky 1995 Rolls-Royce estate car for sale for just shy of £100,000; it’s perfect for picnics and conveying posh pooches

A 1995 special edition Rolls-Royce Flying Spur converted to an estate car in recent years from a Silver Spur III with just 25,000 miles on the clock is currently for sale for £99,000 ($138,000, €112,000 or درهم508,000).

Redesigned by West Coast Customs for an American music company executive circa 2011 for use in California, the vehicle offered features a “raked roof-line” and is finished in British Racing Green with light green over. It has just 25,000 miles on the clock, a tan leather interior and a boot with acres of space for dogs, picnics and goodness knows what else.

The 6.8-litre, turbocharged V8 engine, automatic, right-hand drive car – one of just 134 Silver Spur III’s – is offered by Desmond J. Smail of Olney, Buckinghamshire, England.

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February 24, 2018
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle did NOT live here

San Francisco condominium with a plaque that falsely claims Sir Arthur Conan Doyle lived there for sale for £2.6m; it was actually home to a whackjob doctor who believed he could cure any disease

Offered last for £1.779 million ($2.495 million, €2.010 million or درهم9.163 million) in 2012, 2151 Sacramento Street in San Francisco’s Pacific Heights has just been brought to the market by the well-known and often eccentrically dressed realtor Joel Goodrich for £2.637 million ($3.698 million, €2.979 million or درهم13.581 million).

Adorned with a plaque that reads: “This house, built in 1881, was once occupied by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle,” the apartment offered is one of four within a Beaux-Arts building that replaced the original structure in the 1920s. It extends to 2,528 square foot and includes 2 reception rooms, 4 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms, 3 parking spaces and a south facing roof deck.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859 – 1930) and the plaque to him at 2151 Sacramento Street; he actually stayed at The Clift Hotel during his brief visit

Dr Albert Abrams (1863 – 1924) was facinated with curing vibrations and came up with radionics and the theory of spondylotherapy; here he is pictured with his pointless invention

Just as in Britain with Elizabeth I – a woman who, it seems, slept in virtually every bed in the land – the truth about Conan Doyle’s association is much more mundane. The author and creator of Sherlock Holmes did visit the then owner of the property, one Dr Albert Abrams, whilst on a short visit to San Francisco in 1923 but actually only for a few hours.

Conan Doyle is noted for having supported Abrams, a controversial professor of pathology at Stanford University and the inventor of a whackjob device named a dynamizer, when others turned there backs on him. His claim to fame was that his contraption could analyse a single drop of blood and then transmit a cure back by radio waves. As with many others of that time, this hocus-pocus was eventually discounted as utterly outrageous and Abrams was in turn branded: “The dean of twentieth century charlatans.”

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February 19, 2018