Vast “architecturally rich” Knightsbridge apartment for sale for £8.5 million
A Knightsbridge triplex with a truly extravagant interior has gone on sale for £8.5 million ($10.9 million, €9.7 million or درهم39.9 million).
Spread over the ground, basement and first floors of a Grade II listed portered building in Pont Street, SW1X, the apartment has an impressive drawing room, a dining room, a study, 4, bedrooms, 4 bathrooms. It extends to 3,791 square foot and benefits from its own private entrance door and internal lift.
Offered by agents Russell Simpson, the property is within a semi-Dutch, semi-Queen Anne style building that dates to the 1870s. Its architecture was later termed ‘Pont Street Dutch’ by Sir Osbert Lancaster CBE (1908 – 1986) and was also referenced as being typical of “tall sparingly decorated red brick mansions for very wealthy occupants” by Sir Nikolaus Pevsner CBE (1902 – 1983). Whether an incoming purchaser will buy-to-live or, as is so often the case in this area of money park London, buy-to-leave remains to be seen.
£9.4 million of art stolen in New York; owner hadn’t checked on his collection in months and separately was involved in an incident where he kicked a child in 2016 (and then fled to the Guggenheim)
On Friday, the New York Daily News reported that a 62-year old Upper East Side based inventor has been robbed of £9.4 million ($12 million, €10.7 million or درهم44.1 million) worth of artworks in a heist in December 2016 but strangely did not realise they’d gone until June 2017.
Dr William Pordy – a former kidney doctor turned the founder of OWNcones, a manufacturer of somewhat strange looking reusable ice cream cones – last checked on his swanky collection, which was being stored in Northern Boulevard, Sunnyside, on 25th October 2016 and then returned to discover they’d gone eight months later on 1st June 2017.
Of being robbed of twenty-two works that included masterpieces by Post-Impressionist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and minimalist painter Frank Stella, Pordy told the New York Daily News:
“They broke the locks and they stole everything, all my paintings. It’s awful. I’m upset because it’s worth a lot of money. Do you have $12 million? The point is that I had it and was going to sell them”.
Five works, plainly deemed not worth stealing, were left behind in the theft – which police now believe occurred on 30th December 2016 – and now, it transpires, in a totally unrelated incident, Pordy was convicted of misdemeanor disorderly conduct and given a conditional discharge after kicking a 6-year-old girl who accidentally brushed against him on the Upper West Side on 18th October 2016.
During the incident, though the child struck her head on the ground and passerby tried to restrain him, Pordy reportedly escaped and was later found in the Guggenheim Museum. Police sources reported: “He became irate and had to be tackled and handcuffed”.
Plainly this won’t be the end of this saga but there’s definitely one lesson to learn here: “Mind your art”.
Pictured above: Dr William Pordy (left) and an example of a work by Henri de Toulouse-Lautre (not from his collection).
Indication of booming realty market in San Francisco provided in the form of a Pacific Heights pad offered for sale for 1,503% more than it sold 20 years ago
A detached house in San Francisco’s Pacific Heights that dates to 1906 has gone on sale for a sum £9.8 million higher than it sold for in 1997.
Subject to a seismic upgrade and renovated in 2013, 2370 Washington Street is located in the popular Fillmore corridor and situated on a 50-foot wide lot.
Aside from 4 reception rooms, 2 kitchens, 6 bedrooms and 6 bathrooms, the 7,965 square foot house features a media room, a wine cellar, an elevator and a 4-car garage.
2370 Washington Street is offered for £8.2 million by agents Neal Ward Properties.
The Numbers – 2370 Washington Street, San Francisco
Sold for $655,000 in 1997 (the equivalent of $999,000, £785,000, €893,000 or درهم3.7 million today) in 1997.
Sold for $1.68 million in 2012 (the equivalent of $1.79 million, £1.41 million, €1.60 million or درهم6.57 million today).
Asking price of $10.5 million today (£8.2 million, €9.3 million or درهم38.6 million).
Penthouse with tower in prominent Knightsbridge landmark for sale for £8.25 million
A penthouse with a tower in a Grade II listed landmark triangular ‘flat-iron’ building on the border of South Kensington and Knightsbridge has gone on sale for £8.25 million ($10.51 million, €9.39 million or درهم38.62 million).
Created in 1991 to designs by Susan Walker Architects and involving the clever merger of two fourth floor flats as part of a £1.70 million scheme (the equivalent of £3.35 million, $4.27 million, €3.81 million or درهم15.68 million today), the 3,475 square foot apartment offered overlooks the Brompton Oratory and has a vista down the Brompton Road towards Harrods. It is within a building known as Empire House that was itself built between 1909 and 1916 to designs by Paul Hoffmann and was originally used by a German firm, the Continental Tyre Company.
Currently featuring a large reception room, a dining kitchen, 5 bedrooms, 5 bathrooms and a laundry on the building’s fourth floor, a tower with domed reception space from the sixth to the seventh floors and a private roof terrace on its fifth floor, the apartment comes with planning permission for internal rearrangement.
Held on a leasehold basis expiring 2142 and subject to a service charge of £20,550 per annum ($26,187, €23,391 or درهم96,211 per annum) according to agents JLL, a buyer will also have to pay a one-off charge of £12,054 ($15,360, €13,720 or درهم56,434) towards the cost of refurbishing the portered building’s lift.
London estate agents launch three properties priced over £25 million each on General Election day
Pundits may be referencing worrying times ahead in Britain’s post-Brexit economy, but London’s top tier estate agents have come out all guns blazing on General Election day and launched a series of jaw droppingly priced properties.
In Knightsbridge’s Lennox Gardens, SW1X – where a similar, though situated on the much more sought after first-floor, apartment was promoted for what then seemed an ambitious £27.5 million ($35.6 million, €31.7 million or درهم130.9 million) in 2015 – Savills showcased a 6,392 square foot second floor flat with a basement annex priced at an even more punchy price of £35 million ($45.4 million, €40.3 million or درهم166.6 million). Aside from 2 vast reception rooms, 5 bedrooms and 5 bathrooms, it comes with not only a fingerprint recognition security system but also 2 gymnasiums, a sauna, a steam room, a treatment room, a wine cellar and even a juice bar.
Elsewhere, this morning, on the UK’s top property portal, OnTheMarket.com, agents Knight Frank listed an apartment in Eaton Square, SW1W for £25 million ($32.4 million, €28.8 million or درهم119 million) whilst Aylesford announced the sale of a house in The Boltons, SW10 for £57.5 million ($74.5 million, €66.2 million or درهم273.8 million). Whether we get Corbyn or May, one is left with just one question: Will these super-prime properities flop or will they fly?
The main reception room of the £25 million Lennox Gardens apartment on the first floor of ‘The Lennox’, 31-33 Lennox Gardens, Knightsbridge, SW1xThe garden of the 2,188 square foot ground and basement apartment at 20 Eaton Square, Belgravia, SW1WThe drawing room of the 9,989 square foot 22 The Boltons, Chelsea, SW10
Gargantuan Mayfair aprtment goes on sale for £30 million; it has eighteen windows facing Hyde Park and is in a building designed by the architect of Broadcasting House
A vast maisonette, described as a “villa in the sky”, on London’s Park Lane has gone on sale for £30 million ($38.8 million, €34.6 million or درهم142.6 million) in spite of being in need of complete redecoration.
Split over the seventh and eighth floor of a portered building named Fountain House, the apartment offered extends to 6,897 square foot and includes 4 reception rooms, 2 kitchens, 10 double bedrooms, 2 staff bedrooms and 10 bathrooms. Its principle reception room is 38-foot long and its dining room is described as “easily sitting 22 guests”.
Houses on the site of Fountain House on 30th December 1930 (prior to their demolition)
Designed by George Val Myer (1883 – 1959), an architect best known for the BBC’s Broadcasting House, in conjunction with F. J. Watson-Hart and built by Sir Robert McAlpine & Sons between 1935 and 1938 on the site of demolished mansions, Fountain House includes around 60 residential units, offices, a fuel station and a car showroom.
On the market through Wetherell on a lease of 84 years, the service charge for the flat is £81,538 per annum ($105,584, €94,135 or درهم387,836 per annum).
Grade II* listed Kent townhouse for sale for just £166 per square foot; a similarly sized property in Knightsbridge would set you back £2,000 per square foot
A freehold 2,500 square foot detached 15th century timber framed house just 23 miles south of London has gone on sale for the lowly sum of £166 per square foot ($214, €191 or درهم787 per square foot).
92 High Street in the market town of Edenbridge, Kent – better known locally as both ‘Tanyard House’ and ‘Leather House’ – has been Grade II* listed since 1954 and is known to have been the site of a tannery from the 1660s until the 1960s. It was originally an open hall house, includes accommodation over three floors and comes with a garden to the front and a small courtyard to the rear.
Currently used as three office suites, planning permission was granted in February to convert the building into to semi-detached houses. This attracted much controversy at the time, but a buyer could, equally, look at creating a much grander single-family residence. The catch? The property is adjoined by a vast and rather ugly car park.
Tanyard House will be auctioned by Savills on 19th June 2017 at the Marriott Hotel in Grosvenor Square, Mayfair, W1. An estimate of just £415,000 ($536,000, €477,000 or درهم1.97 million) has been set.
Vast “Italian style” oceanfront mansion in Orange County, CA relaunched for sale for £42.7 million; it has failed to sell at prices as high as £53 million
An 18,000 square foot barn of a residence described as “the finest oceanfront home in SoCal” has been relaunched to the market this month at a price 20% lower than when it was first listed in 2013.
Built in what is somewhat ambitiously termed an “Italian palazzo style” and featuring Spanish tile roofing, five imported European fireplaces and “terrazzo flooring evoking those in The Getty Villa in Pacific Palisades”, 2585 Riviera Drive stands on an acre plot in north Laguna Beach’s private Irvine Cove community. It is one of twelve oceanside homes in a gated, 24-hour-a-day guarded community and enjoys “spectacular views” of the Pacific and access to a private beach.
Constructed to the designs of the Warner Group over a period of eight years and completed in 2010, the house offered occupies half of a larger plot owned until 2002 by Joan Irvine Smith, a woman whose family had at one time been the main landowner in the area. It features not only 5 bedroom suites and 9 bathrooms but also a screening room with bar, a 10,000 bottle wine cellar with tasting room and a 6-car garage with hydraulic lift.
Within the grounds stands a guest house that was designed to be “a scaled back replica of Philip Johnson’s Glass House in Connecticut” and a 53-foot brass and glass waterfall made from materials salvaged from a Los Angeles bank. There are also 100-year old olive trees, a rose garden and a pool with cabana and spa.
An aerial shot of the site during constructionThe house today with the ocean beyond
“My wife and I love traveling to Northern Italy, particularly Bellagio and the lake country, where we’ve always admired the architecture… [But] I wouldn’t want [our house] to be construed as Tuscan in any way… Even though we built an Italianate palazzo, we wanted the flavor [sic] of mid-century design around us”.
“We wanted people to know they were stepping into an oceanfront property the moment they arrived”.
The Numbers – 2585 Riviera Drive, Laguna Beach
June 2002 – Land subdivided into three plots; 2585 Riviera Drive sold for sum of $10.5 million (the equivalent of £11.1 million, $14.3 million, €12.7 million or درهم52.5 million today).
July 2013 – Placed for sale for $65 million (the equivalent of £53 million, $68.2 million, €60.5 million or درهم250.6 million today).
May 2017 – Relaunched for sale for $55 million (£42.7 million, €49 million or درهم202 million).
Former artist’s studio in South Kensington for sale for a sum 229% higher than it achieved in 2007
Situated within a building known as ‘The Art Club’, a north facing former artist’s studio in Roland Gardens, SW7 is for sale for £2.3 million in spite of having just one bedroom on a mezannine level open to the flat’s main room.
Situated primarily on the ground floor, the 1,032 square foot apartment offered centres around a 33-foot long drawing room with a ceiling height of 14-foot and comes with a small kitchen and shower room. It is described by selling agents Winkworth as “offering exceptional volume” and includes such features as parquet flooring, specialist paintwork and a glass gallery.
The building – which is described as part of a pair of “undistinguished red-brick houses in the Queen Anne manner” by British History Online – was the home of the perfumer Stanley Coles of Molinelle Perfumes in the late 1920s and 1930s and the artist Frances E. Nesbitt (1864 – 1934) circa 1918.
The flat is offered on a sharehold basis with a lease of 999 years from 2000.
Georgian house in Emsworth, Hampshire complete with its own private dock for sale for £3.4 million
A symmetrical, yellow brick early 19th century house complete with its own private dock has gone on sale for £3.4 million ($4.4 million, €3.9 million or درهم16.1 million).
Grade II listed Wharf House in the small town of Emsworth stands in gardens of 0.72 acres and comes with a dock with a 45-foot capacity. It has tidal access to the Emsworth Channel, which leads to Chichester Harbour, and comes with a private slipway.
Wharf House itself provides 5,231 square foot of accommodation over four floors and features 3 reception rooms, an orangery, 6 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms. A double garage and garden room are to be found within the grounds and there is potential to add an outdoor pool.
Agents Strutt & Parker describe the property as: “A rarely available Georgian gem”.
