Category: OPULENCE & SPLENDOUR

Ex-Bear Stearns banker places £47.7 million New York mansion for sale at a sum 1,123% higher than its 1996 sale price – all profits from the sale to go to charity

 

A third of the width of an NFL football field, 11 13 West 10^th Street in Greenwich Village, New York was until recently the home of the actress Margaret Whitton (1949 – 2016) and her ex-Bear Stearns banker husband Warren Spector.

 

Owned by the Ladies Christian Union from 1919 until 1994 and by the New York University Law School from 1994 to 1996, when it was sold to a “blogging venture capitalist” named Fred Wilson for $3.9 million (the equivalent of £4.8 million, $6 million, €5.7 million or درهم22 million today), this 16,560 square foot, 23 room Greek Revival mansion was bought by Spector and his wife on a $37.5 million listing price (the equivalent of £46.5 million, $58 million, €54.9 million or درهم213 million today) in 2006.

 

 

Now for sale for £47.7 million ($59.5 million, €56.3 million or درهم218.5 million) in the wake of Margaret Whitton’s death, representatives for Spector have announced that “100% of the profits from the sale will go to charity”.

 

Offered by Brown Harris Stevens, the 7-floor house – which datres to 1847 and was originally built for the Wall Street financier known as the originator of the railroad bond system Richard H. Winslow (1806 – 1861) – includes 8 bedrooms, staff quarters, a 2,500 bottle wine cellar, a music room, movie theatre, gym and greenhouse.

 

Spector, who had been tipped as Bear Stearns’ “next chief executive” and was its second largest shareholder before the firm’s collapse and acquisition by JP Morgan Chase in 2008, is said to have “hosted frequent concerts and fundraisers for a variety of different charities and non-profits” in the building.

 

Christie’s to auction the contents of the homes of the gloriously bonkers late Lord St John of Fawlsey and his late partner this Wednesday

 

The Rt. Hon. The Lord St John-Stevas of Fawsley, PC, FRSL (born plain old Norman St John and also known as Norman St John-Stevas, 1929 – 2012) was a “renowned name dropper” and true eccentric. He wrote only in purple ink, hated the use of modern words and purposely mispronounced them, counted Oxford, Cambridge, the University of London and Yale as his alma mater and nicknamed Margaret Thatcher “TINA” on the basis of her “There Is No Alternative” rhetoric.

 

Self described as “celibate” and “chaste”, St John-Stevas, whose marriage to his male partner of in excess of fifty years came about in 2009 purely to avoid death duties, served in the cabinets of both Heath and Thatcher but believed the latter to “see everything in black and white [whilst the] universe [he inhabited] is made up of many shades of grey”. Of him, one critic joked: “If he cannot have power, he must have the trappings” and as Master of Emmanuel College, Cambridge between 1991 to 1996, he even rewarded Mohammed Fayed with a ‘Harrods Room’ and an honourary membership of the College in exchange for a substantial donation.

 

 

His life, later surmised as a “camp performance” in an obituary in The Guardian, was certainly gilded. St John-Stevas had homes in London and Northamptonshire and hobnobbed with royalty, Rupert Murdoch and the religious elite. He owned a cassock that supposedly belonged to the Blessed Pius, liked to quote Pope John XIII and “brought a touch of Oscar Wilde to public life”.

 

In the wake of the death of St John-Stevas’s partner, merchant banker Adrian Stanford, in 2016, Christie’s are to sell several hundred items from the couple’s homes this Wednesday, 22^nd February, at their South Kensington auction house.

 

Highlights of the sale include:

 

Lot 20 – A collection of eight red leather dispatch boxes inscribed during the time of Lord St John-Stevas of Fawsley’s time as Chairman of the Royal Fine Art Commission and Minister of State for the Arts. He is remembered for “injecting a bit of panache and excitement” into each. Estimate: £1,500 to £2,500 ($1,872 to $3,120).

 

Lot 38 – A 19^th century polychrome-painted altar for private use in the manner of A. W. N. Pugin depicting St Joseph, The Virgin Mary, St Helena and St Aloysius. Estimated at £2,000 to £4,000 ($2,486 to $4,972), this is where St John-Stevas is said to have spent many hours in quiet reflection. One room in his house, according to The Telegraph, was “virtually a shrine to Pius IX”.

 

Lot 283 – A 213cm wide parabolic concave mirror adapted from a WWII German anti-aircraft searchlight. Estimated at £6,000 to £10,000 ($7,458 to $12,430), this was no doubt where St John-Stevas looked at himself in what he termed his “Cardinal crushed” – purple coloured – shirts. It certainly would suit the home of someone with a massive ego.

 

Lot 286 – A yellow Perspex and painted metal McDonald’s shop sign, circa 1990 is one of the most unlikely items on offer. Goodness knows why St John Stevas owned it but it comes with an estimate of £2,000 to £3,000 ($2,486 to $3,729).

 

Lot 288 – A French brass and tinted glass 1960s metamorphic drinks trolley. Estimated at £1,500 to £2,500 ($1,872 to $3,120), one can imagine this having been the location from which generous measures were regularly poured.

 

1977 Rolls-Royce Camargue originally owned by Sammy Davis Jr. to be auctioned

 

Thrice married, father of four Sammy Davis Jr. (1925 – 1990) led an exotic and varied life. Born in New York, he began his career in vaudeville at the age of 3, became a member of The Rat Pack with Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin in 1959 and died in debt to the IRS in 1990. Davis lost his left eye in a car accident in 1954, converted to Judaism in 1961 and publically endorsed Richard Nixon in 1972.

 

In January 1977, Davis and Sinatra ordered a brace of Rolls-Royce Camargues through Bill Harrah’s Modern Classic Motors in Reno, Nevada. Said to be gifts to one another, Davis’s car was presented in two tone Tudor red with a Mason’s black lower body with a Nuella black hide leather trim.

 

Sammy Davis Jr. kept the car for several years and then supposedly it a mafia boss in New York. At this time, it was painted completely black and blacked out windows were added before, subsequently, the car was sold to a buyer in the UK.

 

Presented in excellent condition, the 6.75-litre V8 car is to be sold by Bonhams at their Amelia Island auction at the Fernandina Beach Golf Club on 9^th March 2017. It is offered without reserve and with a guide of £31,000 to £37,000 ($38,000 to $46,000, €36,000 to €43,000 or درهم 142,000 to درهم 169,000) – a relative bargain given its price new was $148,000 (the equivalent of $593,000, £476,000, €558,000 or درهم 2.2 million today).

 

Grade I listed former court house reduced in price by 20% after owner is targeted by anti-English militants

 

Anglophobia is well known to be rife in certain parts of Wales and such organisations as Meibion Glyndŵr (Sons of Owain Glyndŵr), Mudiad Amddiffyn Cymru (Welsh Defence Movement) and the Free Wales Army targeted English residents and English owned businesses from the 1960s to the 1990s.

 

In spite of provocation from English people such as A. A. Gill – who in 1997 commented that the Welsh were “loquacious, dissemblers, immoral liars, stunted, bigoted, dark, ugly, pugnacious little trolls” –and Rod Liddle – who described the Welsh as “miserable, seaweed munching, sheep-bothering pinch-faced hill-tribes” in 2010 – peace has generally reigned in the time since but in Caernarfon in Gwynedd, an English property developer named Aaron Hill experienced exactly the contrary after buying a Grade I listed former court house.

 

In September 2014, 49-year old Mr Hill told Wales Online that vandals had smashed his windows 46 times, daubed graffiti across doors, attacked his car and urinated through his letterbox. He told the paper he had reported about 26 incidents to North Wales Police and remarked: “They said: ‘You need to f**k off where you belong. We don’t want you here. We’ll burn the place down’”.

 

 

Plainly having had enough, Mr Hill placed The Old Court House on the market for £650,000 ($814,000, €768,000 or درهم3 million) in September 2016. It has not sold and was reduced to £525,000 ($657,000, €620,000 or درهم2.4 million) earlier this month.

 

Offered by Beresford Adams, the property dates to 1296 and has partly restored by Mr Hill. It features 8 bedrooms, vast reception rooms and even comes with former prison guard and interview rooms. Somewhat strangely decorated also, the selling agents remark: “Due to this property’s location and size it would be ideal as a small boutique hotel or to be sub-divided into two or more dwellings”.