An analysis of the results of the Christie’s Out of the Ordinary and RM Auctions Battersea sales (more…)
Tag: 1999
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Drugs and Dents
A Cumbrian mansion built by opium traders and more recently used by cannabis growers comes to the market for just £1.5 million
Built by the well-known Dent family, who made their fortune trading both tea and opium, Flass is a vast 23,000 square foot Palladian mansion on the outskirts of the village of Maulds Meaburn in Cumbria. Ironically it was also the setting for one of the country’s biggest drug raids in May 2012. (more…)
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Archibald Hall (AKA Archibald Thomson-Hall, Roy Fontaine, the Killer Butler and the Monster Butler, 1924 – 2002)
A bisexual conman, thief and serial killer who targeted the aristocracy. Hall was born in Glasgow and took elocution lessons during his first of many stints in jail. He variously pretended to be an Arab sheikh, a Lord and Sir George Aylwen and claimed to have had affairs with Lord Boothby and the playwright Terence Rattigan. He published his autobiography, The Perfect Gentleman, in 1999. In it, this crooked murderer stated: “There is a side of me, when aroused, that is cold and completely heartless”. -
Game, set and match
One of Westchester County’s finest houses comes to the market
Westchester is a gilded county. It’s a place that has variously been home to John D. Rockefeller, Vera Wang, Ralph Lauren, P. Diddy and Martha Stewart and one that the rich and famous adore. With the sale of a “modern-day masterpiece” created by the “noted architect” Ralph Mackin, one could now acquire one of “Westchester County’s grandest estates”. (more…)
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A house that hasn’t sold in 14 years
‘Cotswold style’ mansion dramatically reduced in price after 14 years on the market
Americans love all things British and they especially love to replicate our architecture. In the Northern Californian town of Hillsborough, a fine example is a 35,000 square foot mansion named The Tobin Clark Estate. (more…)
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A Front and a half
A coastal estate in a spectacular setting on the White Cliffs of Dover
Known as The South Foreland Estate, an 11.5-acre parcel of land overlooking the English Channel at The Front, St Margaret’s Bay in Kent includes a main house, three further residences and a decommissioned lighthouse that was used in a film starring Oliver Reed. (more…)
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Downturning
A home worthy of any ‘Downton’ devotee is marketed for £6,500,000 less than it was previously promoted for in 2008
With Downton Abbey back on our screens, Brits are waxing lyrical about life in country houses whilst our American cousins are already bemoaning that they won’t get to see the latest series until January. Any fan with deep enough pockets could live out their fantasy if they were to purchase Thornhill Park at Stalbridge in Dorset. (more…)
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Stoddart Stars
John Stoddart features at forthcoming STRARTA Art Fair at the Saatchi Gallery
A new art fair is launching at Chelsea’s Saatchi Gallery from the 10th to the 13th October. Amongst those whose works will be showcased is a favourite of The Steeple Times, photographer John Stoddart. (more…)
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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…)
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Wentworth Miller III
British born, American raised, Miller rose to fame in the Fox Network series Prison Break. A Princeton graduate, the actor turned screenwriter used the pseudonym Ted Foulke to write Stoker and Uncle Charlie and came out as gay in August 2013 in a letter posted on GLAAD’s website where he declined to attend a film festival in Russia on the basis of the country’s treatment of homosexuals. In his letter he boldly stated: “I cannot in good conscience participate in a celebratory occasion hosted by a country where people like myself are being systematically denied their basic right to live and love openly”.