Tag: 1915

Five of the Best – Bonhams’ Gentleman’s Library Sale

Harry Houdini’s escape prop sack to be sold alongside all manner of other unusual items on Valentine’s Day

On 14^th February, Bonhams will hold their ‘Gentleman’s Library Sale’ in Knightsbridge, London. Amongst the circa five hundred items to be offered are all manner of unusual items and here we choose five of the best:

Harry Houdini’s escape prop sack – £1,500 to £2,000

($2,100 to $2,800, €1,700 to €2,300 or درهم‎‎7,800 to درهم‎‎10,400; pictured above)

This green, oversized canvas sack was used by Harry Houdini (1874 – 1926) as a prop for tricks. It dates to around 1915 and comes with a poster for his ‘Metamorphosis’ act. Houdini’s brother, Theo, gave the item to a mutual friend after his death and it was last sold at Christie’s in 2011.

Australian silver and Kangaroo paw lighter – £800 to £1,000

($1,100 to $1,400, €910 to €1,100 or درهم‎‎4,200 to درهم‎‎5,200)

Possibly one of the most unusual cigarette lighters available, this unusual item was made by WD&Co Limited in 1910. It is 40cm long.

Australian throwing club – £150 to £250

($210 to $350, €170 to €280 or درهم‎‎780 to درهم‎‎1,300)

Dating to the 19^th century, 69cm long and made of carved and incised hardwood this dangerous weapon could certainly be used to see off a burglar. It was collected in the 1860s in Queensland, Australia.

Silver plated model battleship – £800 to £1,200

($1,100 to $1,700, €910 to €1,400 or درهم‎‎4,200 to درهم‎‎6,200)

This early 20^th century silver plated model battleship is 23cm high and comes with three pairs of cannons to the deck. It’d make a jolly addition to any desk.

Novelty Eiffel Tower clock – £800 to £1,200

($1,110 to $1,700, €910 to €1,400 or درهم‎‎4,200 to درهم‎‎6,200)

This 62cm tall gilt and bronze 19^th century clock is designed in the form of a model of the Eiffel Tower. It has a brass dial with Roman numerals.

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February 2, 2018
Britain’s Priciest Houseboat

Thames houseboat moored at Cadogan Pier in Chelsea goes on sale for extraordinary sum of £2.5 million

What could likely be Britain’s most expensive houseboat has gone on sale for £2.5 million ($3.3 million, €2.8 million or درهم12.3 million) – or the same sum as a 9-bedroom Queen Anne house in Wiltshire.

The main deck on the boat

7,174 square foot Ivy House in Corsham, Wiltshire could be yours for the same price as the ‘Flagship’

Described as “comparable to a high end property on land” by selling agents Knight Frank, 108-foot long ‘Flagship’ was built at the Van der Windt shipyard in Holland in 1915. She was used as to ferry general dry cargo until 1940 and refitted as a residence for an unnamed “leading restaurateur” in London in 1980.

Now completely redesigned and providing 3,405 square foot of internal space, ‘Flagship’ includes a vast open planning reception room, a ‘sky lounge’ and 4 double bedroom suites. It also comes with several terraces, air cooling, a Sonos multi-room audio system, a service lift and a fully fitted kitchen.

Mooring and maintenance costs associated with the vessel – which comes with a new 50 year leisure licence to remain at Cadogan Pier – amount to an additional £27,900 per year ($37,300, €31,600 or درهم137,000 per annum).

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December 7, 2017
Empire State of Knightsbridge

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.

June 10, 2017
Lady Ridsdale DBE (1921 – 2009, née Victoire Bennett)

Dame Paddy Ridsdale, as she generally known, was an intelligence operative, secretary to Ian Fleming during WW2 and the inspiration for the Bond character Miss Moneypenny.

A Conservative Party stalwart and married to Member of Parliament for Harwich from 1954 to 1992 Sir Julian Ridsdale CBE (1915 – 2004), Dame Paddy – or Vicky, as she was known to some – is best known for her role in ‘Operation Mincemeat’, a “famous caper” concerning a “man who never was” in 1943.

In the war, Dame Paddy wrote love letters and telegrams that were planted on the body of ‘Major William Martin’, an invented, drowned naval officer, that was floated in the ocean off Spain. The body carried fictitious plans of a purported Allied invasion of Sardinia and Greece and formed part of a plot designed to deflect attention from the Allied landings in Sicily. Of it, she later remarked: “I was sent to buy clothes in all the best men’s shops and had to pose as his girlfriend. I had to go to post offices and rather loudly send this telegram to ‘my boyfriend’, hoping of course that somebody would overhear me”. In due course, the body was indeed found, the Axis powers completely taken in and “Mincemeat swallowed whole, hook, line, and sinker”. A BAFTA winning film directed by Ronald Neame, The Man Who Never Was, made about the deceptive scheme in 1956.

Dame Paddy was known as a “political hostess in the style of a bygone era”, lived in a mansion “sandwiched between a sheikh and a Saudi prince” in The Boltons for the majority of her adult life and is buried in the grounds of the church there. She had one daughter, became Lady Ridsdale when her husband was knighted in 1981 and was appointed Dame Commander of the British Empire (DBE) in her own right, for political services, in 1991.

Of her relationship with her one-time employer Fleming, she concluded: “Ian had so many girlfriends that I was not tempted to become one of them”.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xemGlAV6TAw

May 13, 2017
Gilded Glory

New York’s “last intact Gilded Age mansion” for sale for £38.75 million; it comes with a room that cannot be wiretapped

An Upper East Side “Beaux Arts palace on a small scale” described as “Manhattan’s last intact Gilded Age mansion” has gone on sale for £38.75 million ($50 million, €45.96 million or درهم183.65 million) with Douglas Elliman.

854 Fifth Avenue, Upper East Side, New York, NY 10065, United States of America

Offering 20,000 square foot of accommodation over nine floors, 854 Fifth Avenue stands opposite Central Park and between 66^th and 67^th Streets. It was built in 1905 for a stockbroker named Robert Livingston Beeckman and constructed by architects Warren & Wetmore at a cost of $60,000 (the equivalent of $1.6 million, £1.2 million, €1.5 million or درهم5.9 million today). The residence was landmarked by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission as a “superb example of the French classic style of Louis XV” in 1966 and to this day, the 32-room property retains original features including hand-carved balustrades of white marble, ceiling frescoes of angels and clouds, an original working stove and two of the city’s first private elevators.

Robert Livingston Beeckman (1866 – 1935), Emily Thorn Vanderbilt Sloane White (1852 – 1946) and Henry White (1850 – 1927)

Sold next to George Grant in 1912 after Beeckman – later 52^nd Governor of Rhode Island – abandoned New York to spend more time at his Newport estate, Lands End, for a then record sum of $725,000 (the equivalent of $18.3 million, £14.1 million, €16.8 million or درهم67.2 million today), 854 Fifth Avenue was then offloaded to Henry White and his heiress wife Emily Thorn Vanderbilt Sloane White for the much lower sum of $450,000 in 1925 (the equivalent of $6.3 million, £4.9 million, €5.8 million or درهم23.1 million today).

Twice married financier of New York’s Sloane Hospital for Women Thorn Vanderbilt Sloane White and her ambassador husband are said to have “added their own touches” to the mansion and after she died, 854 Fifth Avenue was sold to the then nation of Yugoslavia. It has served as a government building since and was most recently used as the Permanent Mission of Serbia and Mission of Serbia to the UN.

Bombed on 11^th July 1968 but thankfully subject to little damage in that attack, the mansion still to this day features a ‘Faraday Cage’ – a secret metal-padded room where officials could meet without the fear of being wiretapped – as well as bulletproof windows to its Central Park elevation.

Last week, of the property, Tristan Harper of Douglas Elliman told The Real Deal:

“Everything is virtually intact. Whoever buys it will own a piece of New York history. [The six individuals who have already expressed interest in purchasing 854 Fifth Avenue are] all extremely high-net-worth individuals of different backgrounds”.

Once bordered by houses of a similar scale, 854 Fifth Avenue is now adjoined by two behemoth-like apartment complexes. It stands sturdy and represents a little reminder of the glorious era of Carnegies, Rockefellers, Vanderbilts and Whitneys.

April 28, 2017
Sculpting a Residence

Former residence of sculptor with Liz Hurley as a neighbour for sale in Chelsea

The self-described ‘actress’ and diva Liz Hurley is probably the most famous ‘name’ living in cherry tree lined Redcliffe Road, SW10 but a slightly more talented former resident was a sculptor named Alice Lindley-Millican (married in 1917, died November 1930). Her former home, one of just four houses built as artist’s studios in the street, is now for sale.

Liz Hurley in the street with her then partner Shane Warne

Presented today as a family home and completely reconfigured, the 3,322 square foot freehold residence became home to Mrs Albert Millican – as she was widely referred to – circa 1915. It has accommodation over four floors complete with a dramatic curved staircase between the ground and lower ground floors and 3 reception rooms, 4 bedrooms – including one with a vast window that would also make it suited to be used as an artist’s studio still –and 3 bathrooms. A conservatory breakfast room leads onto a cleverly designed landscaped garden whilst the selling agents, Strutt & Parker, remark that “this [is a] much loved family home offering exceptional entertaining space”.

Given the house is priced at £5.45 million ($6.6 million or €6.1 million) it is most certainly out of the realms of most artists.

October 26, 2016
No regrets

Idyllic former home of Édith Piaf for sale for £3.5 million (more…)

April 30, 2016
Eli Wallach (1915 – 2014)

One of the finest ever “method actors”, Eli Wallach was a star of the stage and screen between 1945 and 2010 and once had to ask the director John Hutson for advice on how to play a drunk because he was a strict teetotaler. Brooklyn born and the son of a sweet shop owner, Wallach once stated: “The big secret in acting is listening to people” and added: “As an actor I’ve played more bandits, thieves, warlords, molesters and mafioso than you could shake a stick at”. In his final big screen appearance as Julius Steinhardt in Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps in 2010, he used “ominous whistling” when he forgot his lines.

September 23, 2014
Sir Adrian Carton de Wiart VC, KBE, CB, CMG, DSO (1880 – 1963)

This British Army officer served in the Boer, First World and Second World Wars. He was shot in the face twice in WWI and lost his left eye and was shot once through the skull, hip, leg, ankle and ear. In 1915, he lost his left hand and tore off his own fingers after a doctor refused to amputate them. Sir Adrian Carton de Wiart also survived two plane crashes, escaped capture twice, was branded a “model of chivalry and honour” by Winston Churchill and won a VC in WWII. Of the 1914 – 1918 conflict, he later wrote: “Frankly, I enjoyed the war; it had given me many bad moments, lots of good ones, plenty of excitement and with everything found for us”. Aside from his military might, Evelyn Waugh modeled the character of Brigadier Ben Ritchie Hook in his Sword of Honour trilogy upon this twice married, Oxford educated aristocrat and in retirement he is said to have enjoyed indulging in “pursuing salmon and snipe”. In male company he is described as having been “a delightful character [who] must hold the world record for bad language”.

August 26, 2014
Price vs. Patience

Stonebrook Court Manor: The sale of a Californian mansion where it’s more about patience than price

Stonebrook Court Manor in California’s Los Altos Hills has been on and off the market since January 2008. Its owner, a “television executive turned Internet investor” and investment banker named Kelly Porter, though said to be “in no hurry to sell”, has reduced his asking price from £28.1 million ($45 million) to £16.8 million ($27 million) through Arthur Sharif & Associates. (more…)

September 23, 2013