A promoter of “causes many of us now take for granted,” Catford born campaigner and humanist activist Barbara Smoker believed in surviving “on her wits” and “making an extra bit on the horses.” She once “embark[ed] on a crusade around the neighbourhood, telling all the kids that there was no Santa Claus… [so that she could prove to them] they were being made fools of, and I was only saving them from this indignity” and amongst her many other pronouncements was to announce that “an eternity in heaven – that would be hell.” Pro-alphabet reformist Smoker also claimed to have manufactured the first ‘Make Love, Not War’ badges and in 2013 gave the following advice in The Oldie: “Don’t always be obedient. Obedience is overrated. You’ve got to work out your morality for yourself, not do everything you’re told. Obedience can be more of a vice than a virtue.” Amongst her written works were My Godforsaken Life and Good God! A String of Verses to Tie Up the Deity.
Montreal born “archetypal billionaire,” “fashion mogul” and “Ferrari fanatic” Lawrence Stroll arranged £536 million of funding to save Aston Martin, much of which came from his own very, very deep coffers, in early 2020. Without him, the firm that has manufactured James Bond’s favourite motorcar since 1913 would likely have gone bust for the eighth time after a disastrous flotation “that left the city shaken, not stirred” in 2019. According to Bloomberg, he’s famous for “[taking] over a brand that’s either niche, or in trouble, or both, and beef it up for half a dozen years. Then exit with a tidy profit,” but given his personal interest in both vintage and F1 cars (he led the consortium that bought the Force India F1 team in 2018) this “petrolhead” may allow passion to rule profit for once. Father of two Stroll is based in Geneva and has homes in London, New York, Quebec and on Mustique. He counts Michael Douglas and Sarah, Duchess of York amongst his friends and once remarked of people complaining about his cars and helicopters: “I can appreciate that some people are opposed to noise. And I can understand their desire for tranquillity, in which case they should not move in next to racetracks, airports or ski hills.”
Empty Gothic church in Kelso, Scotland for sale for just £130,000; it was home until 2006 to the conspiracy theorist Dean Warwick – who collapsed and died on stage at a UFO conference in Blackpool mid speech
“Alternative energy pioneer” Dean Warwick (1944 – 2006) believed 9/11 was a “farce.” This controversial crackpot claimed he had been trained in the military to bring down the Twin Towers using satellite waves in the mid-1960s and that he also categorically knew exactly who JFK’s murderer was.
Whilst “going on and on and on” at Probe International’s paranormal conference in Blackpool, Lancashire on 7th October 2006 about these matters and “children having their skin eaten whilst they were still alive in the New Forest” and about how he knew who the “real” killers of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman were also, Warwick supposedly announced: “Bear with me for a moment.” He then “leaned with his left elbow on a nearby table with his right arm across his body, and then fell flat on his face. Shortly afterwards he was pronounced dead.” Fellow conspiracy cranks (including David Icke) later claimed: “This was an Intelligence agency ‘hit’ using an ELF (Extremely Low Frequency) weapon,” but this was never ultimately proven true.
Warwick had, for about twenty years, lived in the heart of the national hunt racecourse town of Kelso in the Scottish Borders. Here, along with his actress wife Jean, he occupied in a Gothic church and now that building, North Trinity Church is once again for sale.
After Dean Warwick collapsed on stage in Blackpool, Lancashire on 7th October 2006, one fellow conspiracy theorist present observed: “When Dean collapsed on the floor a woman witnessed a man with dark hair slip out of the hall. She followed this man who then proceeded to walk down the stairs whistling merrily to himself, get into a car and make a phone call. He was then seen laughing down the phone to whoever he was speaking to. Who walks out of a hall whistling happily to themselves and then starts laughing down the phone after a man has just collapsed and stopped breathing on stage?”Bulgarian businessman Kirk Kirchev paid £80,000 for North Trinity Church, Kelso in November 2018 and intended to use £35,000 of his mother’s savings to restore the building.
Recorded as having changed hands in August 2014 for the sum of £45,000, the 6,877 square foot building was again sold in November 2018 for about £80,000 to a Bulgarian businessman named Kirk Kirchev. Of his purchase, in December 2019 talking to Borders TV, the camping tent manufacturer turned face mask retailer remarked:
“I saw the church online and thought this is amazing… It was very cheap, nobody wanted to touch it, the windows were boarded up… When I got in, it was dark, scary with pigeons circling in the main hall, but I could see that it had the soul, the spirit, the sort of magic, that, that bought me.”
“I’ve done 90% of the work I needed, I’ve made it usable. It’s still retaining its derelict and magical look… People think I’m crazy: It’s a given, but I think this place needs someone crazy to take it on because otherwise it will simply fall apart.”
“[When it’s finished” I hope it’ll be a great venue and the focal point of the town. It has a lot of potential as a gathering place for people. I am kind of surprised why people don’t see this because it’s right in the middle of town, it’s got car parks all around, it’s great for a venue and all it needs is a little bit. I think people like the character and all it needs is to be made safe and legal and certified and all that.”
Standing on a site extending to 0.4 acres, Mr Kirchev plainly has decided not to proceed further with his project to find another use for this former religious building. North Trinity Church is now on the market for £130,000 through agents Ballantynes and could be used for residential or commercial purposes. No doubt, however, local residents very much hope another Dean Warwick type doesn’t turn up with yet another conspiracy theory; that, indeed, would be even worse than the shameful local councillors who proposed pulling down this beautiful Category B listed building last November.
The Names & Numbers – North Trinity Church, East Bowmont Street, Kelso, Roxboroughshire, Scotland, TD5 7JH, United Kingdom
April 2020 – For sale for £130,000 ($163,000, €150,000 or درهم597,000) through agents Ballantynes.
November 2018 – Sold to Bulgarian born Kirk Kirchev for £80,000 ($100,000, €92,000 or درهم367,000).
December 2017 – Offered for sale as a “development opportunity” for £75,000 ($94,000, €86,000 or درهم344,000) by Edwin Thompson.
August 2014 – Sold for £45,000 ($56,000, €52,000 or درهم207,000).
2011 – A community organisation, The Future Kelso Group, attempted to convert the church into a community hub. These plans did not come to fruition.
2006 onwards – The building “fell into disrepair” after the death of the New Zealand-born conspiracy theorist Dean Warwick during a UFO conference in Blackpool on 7th October 2006 aged 62. The building had been home to him and his actress wife, Jean, for “over 20 years.”
1885 – 1886 – Built to the designs of architect John Starforth for use as the Kelso United Presbyterian Church on the site of a previous church that was built in 1788. Prominent features are said to “include a four-stage angle buttressed tower over the gable porch to the southern end of the building; lanceted belfry; gabled transepts: and decorative detailing to ridge tiles to main roof. The tower is flanked by two-storey circular stair towers with slated conical roofs, each with side entrances.”
Unmodernised ‘set’ in “rule-ridden” Albany, Piccadilly that was the London home of eccentric antiques dealer and ‘King of Chelsea’ Christopher Gibbs for sale; tour the home of the man who got Princess Margaret high on hash
Expelled from Eton “for being generally totally impossible,” antiques dealer Christopher Gibbs (1938 – 2018) was not a man one would have imagined would have liked the idea of living in a place with archaic rules. This “peacock pied piper to society in the Swinging Sixties” whose “drug consumption awed even Keith Richards,” however, surprisingly chose as his London base Albany in Mayfair and now his former residence is for sale.
“A hermitage; quiet as a lagoon, secluded from the roar of Piccadilly” according to the author Sheila, Countess of Birkenhead in her 1958 tome Peace in Piccadilly, Albany – which is only ever referred to as ‘The Albany’ by the extremely ill-advised – quintessential dandy Gibbs lived in the building for “more than half [his] life.” Whilst also owning properties including Davington Priory in Kent – which he later sold to Bob Geldoff – and a “mystic hangover” home in Tangier, it was here that this ‘King’ of “distressed bohemian” style found a place that offered him: “Perfection for a singleton, an oasis of serenity in the frenetic heart of West London.”
This curious “cloistered world” has numbered Sir Isaiah Berlin, Alan Clark, Lord Byron, William Gladstone, J. B. Priestley, W. Somerset Maugham and Terence Stamp amongst those who have passed its vetting committee of trustees and Gibbs – a man who legendarily got Princess Margaret so high on marijuana that she had to go to hospital – even embraced its “no pets, no children, no whistling, no noise and absolutely no publicity” policy.
Antiques dealer Christopher Henry Gibbs, (29th July 1938 to 28th July 2018), son of The Hon. Sir Geoffrey Gibbs KCMG and Lady (Helen) Gibbs CBE, was called the ‘King of Chelsea’ due to his ability as the ultimate connector. He put the Rolling Stones together with Prince Rupert Loewenstein (whom became their business manager) and he persuaded his friend John Paul Getty, Jr. to donate £50 million to the British National Gallery in 1985.Christopher Gibbs by Robert Mapplethorpe and with Mick Jagger and Marianne Faithfull.Christopher Gibbs pictured in his bathroom at L6 Albany, Albany Courtyard, Piccadilly, Mayfair, London, W1J 0AZ; the bathroom as it is today is in need of “some updating” according to agents GreenHunt.‘Set L6’ circa 2013, as furnished then by Christopher Gibbs.
Photographed there by the curmudgeonly Victor Watts on a daybed that allegedly belonged to Lord Tennyson, described the home he created in an article for The New York Times’ ‘Style Magazine’ in April 2013:
“I had the place to myself and proceeded to make it my own in the accustomed style: sober mahogany, Oriental rugs, family pictures. I’ve continually reordered these rooms, distilling, paring, pruning, as chaste as my voluptuous nature allows.”
“So enraptured with my Albany life did I become that, reason deserting me (not for the first or last time) I gave up a spacious Bond Street gallery where I had my antiques shop and took one at the back of Albany, a small if elegant space with an entrance into the building, another onto the street and best of all a door into the underground passage – a quiet, invisible stroll home.”
“I love returning from Morocco, where I now spend much of my time, seeing the friendly porters at the door, hearing the clip-clop of feet on the Rope Walk, seeing the old-timers sitting in the little ivy-lined garden, sunning themselves by the little bronze statue of Antinous and the fountain, regularly invaded by the ducks from St. James’s Park – and enjoying sudden glimpses into other people’s lives through uncurtained windows, the hours marked only by the clock chimes of St. James’s Church, accompanied by the more uptempo tinkling of the clock at Fortnum & Mason, our local grocers.”
“At this point, when I am in London, I can’t imagine staying anywhere but Albany – all the more reason, perhaps, to clam up, maintain the longstanding omertà (or I should say discretion) that has held sway for centuries now, and count my blessings.”
Gibbs’ former home, ‘Set L6,’ is situated on the second floor in Albany’s Courtyard. It extends to some 1,178 square foot and includes a hall, reception room, kitchen, bedroom and bathroom. On the third floor, a separately accessed studio space has a shower room and kitchenette and of the property, the selling agents remark: “Whilst capable of immediate occupation, [it] does require the bathrooms being upgraded.”
Sold for just £60,000 ($75,000, €69,000 or درهم275,000) leasehold in March 2019 (presumably the term must have been very much towards its end), agents GreenHunt listed ‘Set L6 Albany’ on Zoopla first in May that year. Now, in April 2020, it remains for sale, but is instead listed on Primelocation. They seek £925,000 ($1.2 million, €1.1 million or درهم4.2 million) and offer it on a new 20-year leasehold with an upfront premium and a peppercorn ground rent.
Living in the building is not just the preserve of those with deep pockets. Peviously, in 2014, we featured ‘Set A5 Attic Albany’ – which was just £395 per week ($494, €454 or درهم1,800 per week) – whilst for those looking for something grander currently, a second and third floor freehold set is currently available through Sotheby’s International Realty for £4.95 million ($6.19 million, €5.69 million or درهم22.73 million). It extends to 1,890 square feet, is described as “meticulously refurbished” and includes an especially impressive drawing room.
Christopher Gibbs quoted:
“[I’ve always attracted] the grand and the raffish and the fast and the chic.”
“[I am] monumentally narcissistic.”
“I am a bit snooty… I do make exceptions, but very few.”
“We are here to learn, and my goodness I have a lot to learn.”
“[I was expelled from Eton for] Rabelaisian antics – illicit drinking, pantry raids of other boys’ rooms – that sort of thing.”
“Taste is something you catch – like measles or religion.”
“I like things in their natural state – people especially. As life goes by, that’s what I admire: objects and people that are unmonkeyed with, that are themselves, not trying to be something else.”
“I’m not interested in creating a dazzling impression of richness. We can make do with surprisingly little in life. It is best to have a few things which are really nice. I don’t approve of the mean look, but I do approve of the spare look, where every little bit is telling.”
“Being a shopkeeper, I used to sell things, sometimes.”
“I definitely suffer from the blown-mind syndrome… The only thing I’ll say in my favour, is that I was practically the only person I knew who actually went to work at nine o’clock in the morning, whether I’d been up to eight o’clock or not, because I had a job, my own business, and I realised that, if I didn’t, I wouldn’t have any of those things.”
“[I] help people make nice cosy homes where they are going to live happy, beautiful lives.”
“[I] encourage friends to dig into their heirlooms, to wear old clothes, to turn their backs on ugliness and conformism.”
“Collectors today want a good car, a good sound system, and a huge pink heart painted by Damien Hirst with dying butterflies on it which costs £400,000. Yet for much less you could buy something completely fascinating made 300 years ago.”
Quotes about Christopher Gibbs:
“Taste is difficult to define, but his is absolute perfection” – Min Hogg, founding editor of World of Interiors.
“[He was] like an 18th century English parson who knew more about Etruscan vases than anyone at the British Museum” – Sir John Richardson, July 2018.
“I’m here to learn how to be a gentleman” – Mick Jagger of his then neighbour Christopher Gibbs whilst at a dinner party at his house.
“He was very flash… Sometimes he just wore tight jeans or fancy dress, like the others; but mostly his tastes were elaborate; suits with double-breasted waistcoats and cloth-covered buttons, and velvet ties, and striped Turkish shirts with stiff white collars, and cravats. Above all, he had a passion for carnations and was forever buying new strains, pink-and-yellow, or green-ink, or purple with red flecks” – Nik Cohn, author of Today There Are No Gentlemen, January 1971.
“Part Montesquieu, part Beau Brummel, and part Baudelaire… [Christopher Gibbs was a] well-born Renaissance man with an unmatched eye for aesthetics and a talent for friendship and the mot juste” – Hamish Bowles, international editor at large for Vogue, July 2018.
“Christopher was almost single-handedly responsible for making English antiques, and English heritage, look ‘cool’ again” – James Reginato of Vanity Fair, July 2018.
“A connoisseur of the weird and the wonderful” – Christopher Mason of The New York Times, September 2000.
“[He was an] acid-tripping ex-roué once known as the King of Chelsea” – Bitter words from the ex-Daily Mail ‘journalist’ and poison pen James Delingpole, executive editor of Breitbart.
“[The] avatar of Swinging London” – A more kind description from Sam Roberts of The New York Times.
“Christopher Gibbs: the man who brokered £50 million Getty grant to the National Gallery – and fed Princess Margaret hash brownies” – Huon Mallalieu of The Art Newspaper, July 2018.
The entrance hallway of ‘Set L6’ has a fireplace.The master bedroom of ‘Looking into the reception room.The somewhat basic kitchen is definitely in need of an upgrade.The view from the set.Albany’s famous ‘Rope Walk’ – Of it, Gibbs commented: “So ingrained is the sense of decorum that even to utter a friendly hello to a neighbor as we pass on the stone stairs or the covered outdoor canopy, known as the Rope Walk, might be violating a taboo, as if a few words of small talk could break the spell of privacy we Albanians prize so deeply. (A nod suffices, a hat raised to a lady.)”Residents have access to the most peaceful outside spaces.The third floor space included in the sale is arranged as a long, thin studio room.It has a small kitchenette.And a somewhat dated shower room.A plan indicating how ‘Set L6’ is currently arranged.A plan of the third floor studio space.
A Shackleton Award winning campaigner who “fights miscarriages of justice and demands reform,” practicing solicitor Emily Bolton is married to Reprieve founder and one of “Britain’s most powerful civil rights lawyers,” Clive Stafford Smith. This Dorset born stonemason’s daughter, herself, founded the Centre for Criminal Appeals in the UK in 2011 after previously representing wrongfully convicted prisoners in the United States through the George Soros funded Innocence Project in New Orleans. She is a graduate of the University of Melbourne and Tulane University and her work trying to highlight the flaws in the 2011 convictions of the ‘Freshwater Five’ fisherman is clearly illustrative of her tenacity and dedication. Bolton’s sterling efforts in this regard were quite correctly highlighted in an April 2020 in-depth analysis of this most likely bungled case in the Guardian and in 2017, she tellingly commented: “Human beings make mistakes, and no system has more human parts than the criminal justice system. If it can’t identify and rectify its mistakes, it is doomed to repeat them.”
Vast Knightsbridge penthouse for sale for 27% less than in 2012 but extraordinarily 6,900% more than in 1999
Constructed between 1961 and 1962 by builders Gilbert Ash, Collier House is not the most attractive structure in Knightsbridge externally. Whilst retailers Reiss and Nespresso – lucky residents get George Clooney’s ugly ‘mug’ stuck on the façade as a bonus (excuse the pun) – occupy the ground floor, the top floor ‘space’ was sold for the creation of a two-storey penthouse in 1999 for £230,000.
The exterior of the building in which the sixth and seventh floor penthouse is situated – Collier House, 163 – 169 Brompton Road, Knightsbridge, London, SW3 1PY.The ground floor of the building is occupied by Reiss and Nespresso. A large image of actor George Clooney dominates the frontage of the latter.
Developed to provide a 4,615 square foot duplex over two floors, the apartment is currently on the market for the considerably higher figure of £16 million through agents Merchants Row. It includes 2 reception rooms that are some 70-foot in length in total, a bar area, a media room, 5 bedrooms and 5 bathrooms and comes with wrap-around terraces with skyline views towards Harrods and the Brompton Oratory.
From October 2014 to July 2019, the penthouse was the registered office of Elaph Publishing Limited. Founded in 2001 by Othman Al Omeir – a man “considered close to King Salman of Saudi Arabia” – Elaph is described as “the first daily Arabic independent online newspaper.” It has at various times been banned in both Saudi Arabia and Yemen and its former managing director was the EMMY award winning producer Nicholas Claxton.
The long leasehold penthouse, which was offered for the even more outrageous sum of £22 million in November 2012, has direct lift access to the sixth floor and comes with secure underground parking. It is subject to a service charge of £10,800 per year, has been offered to rent for £10,000 per week previously and what the agents neglect to mention is that it is situated directly above one of London’s most polluted stretches of road.
The Numbers – Collier House, 163 – 169 Brompton Road, Knightsbridge, London, SW3 1PY, United Kingdom
April 2020 – For sale for £16 million ($20 million, €18.4 million or درهم73.4 million) through agents Merchants Row.
November 2012 – For sale for £22 million ($27.5 million, €25.3 million or درهم101 million) through agents Wilfords.
July 1999 – “As then was” space for penthouse sold for £230,000 ($287,000, €264,000 or درهم1.1 million) according to Land Registry records.
Coronavirus has proved a double blow to restaurateur Keith McNally: First he got the virus himself and now his original restaurant has closed permanently due to it
Currently recovering from coronavirus himself, restaurateur Keith McNally sadly will not be able to fulfill a wish he made in November 2019 of having his last meal at his oldest restaurant, Lucky Strike. He’s just shut it for the final time and blamed the global pandemic for the French-American bistro’s demise.
Of why the “Soho staple” at 59 Grand Street, near West Broadway in New York – which opened in 1989 – has closed permanently, McNally told Eater:
“Due to the COVID-19 crisis, I was unable to find a way to make Lucky Strike work financially. This decision was particularly difficult since many of Lucky Strike’s wonderful staff have worked for me for over 20 years, and some of the customers have been coming since the day we opened: 31 years ago.”
In the same interview last year where he talked about having one last “steak au poivre medium rare” before going to meet his Maker, McNally waxed lyrical about Lucky Strike more generally and in conversation with Food & Wine’s Regina Schrambling commented:
“When I opened Lucky Strike, it was far easier to build a restaurant than nowadays. There weren’t these absurdly strict health rules that are designed as much to rake in money for the city as to make eating in restaurants safer.”
In spite of McNally openly sharing knowledge that Lucky Strike didn’t make a profit as long ago as 2016, he was honest about why he kept it open. “I like the staff…I am fond of all of them,” he stated, but now, sadly, for these pour souls, they’ve only got left GoFundMe left as a means of survival. Meanwhile, on Instagram, of why Lucky Meal had served its last meal, the “Restaurateur Who Invented Downtown’ concluded: “Greedy landlord during lockdown syndrome.”
ITV’s ‘Quiz’ has definitely left the public questioning the conviction of the ‘Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?’ £1 million cheat Major Charles Ingram in 2003, but what the programme did not reveal is actually more fascinating
“After all that, can we be sure the Ingrams were guilty?” asked The Telegraph’s Chris Bennion in his review of the final episode of the three-part hit, Quiz, and indeed the ending has achieved the inevitable and will likely reignite interest in a story that dates back to 2001.
For the few that may not remember what occurred, a Major Charles Ingram won the maximum prize of £1 million on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? on the 10th September 2001, the day before the 9/11 attacks on America. Ingram’s wife and her brother, Adrian Pollock, had previously each won £32,000.
Immediately after the jackpot was scooped, the programme’s production company, Celador, suspecting Ingram had cheated suspended payment of the winnings. The police were called in and ultimately, after a four week trial in March and April 2003 at Southwark Crown Court, the Ingrams and another contestant, a lecturer and their alleged accomplice, Tecwen Whittock, were convicted of “procuring the execution of a valuable security by deception.” All three were given prison sentences suspended for two years, fined £15,000 each and ordered to pay £10,000 towards prosecution costs. These sums were later reduced on appeal.
Whilst many will know that Ingram was then forced to resign his commission as a major after 17 years and that he and his wife appeared on countless television shows including The Weakest Link, sadly Quiz did not delve into other bizarre twists in this “eccentric” pair’s life in the time since their “fifteen minutes of coughing fame/shame.”
Aside from being bankrupted four times in the intervening years (most recently in 2019), the former army officer chopped three of his toes off in a freak lawnmower accident in September 2010. Ironically, the “cheat” and then resident of Easterton, Wiltshire did the injury when he “slipped on a rotten apple.” Of the incident, Ingram recalled “lying on the grass” and thinking: “Oh dear… I certainly won’t be mowing any lawns again soon.”
Earlier, yet not long after his Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? conviction in November 2003, Ingram was convicted of an entirely unrelated insurance fraud. Found guilty of obtaining pecuniary advantage by deception and of deception by trying to claim on that policy after an alleged burglary, the already disgraced son of a retired RAF wing commander added a two-year conditional discharge to his burgeoning rap sheet.
The Ingrams, now, but not revealed in the show either, are based in Maiden Bradley, Warminster and run a non-registered for UK VAT company that trades as ‘Diana Ingram.’ It sells Murano glass jewellery for prices ranging from £15 to £75 and of her wares, Mrs Ingram states: “Most products listed can be altered for shape, colour, length, etc., though prices may vary. I ship worldwide and nothing is too much trouble – I regularly offer personalised wrapping and buy and write birthday cards too!” No mention is made as to whether any kind of cheat sheets can be enclosed if requested sadly.
Charles Ingram, meanwhile, has kept himself busy on Twitter since September 2013 using the handle @gallantfive. He describes himself as: “English, Irish, European, Family, Labour, LUFC and proud remainer wanting a fairer world” and has over 7,100 followers. Whilst describing Quiz as “simply brilliant” and “terrifyingly accurate,” his family have plainly had a few visits from the media as a result of the show. Now represented by one Skye Redman at 89up, a firm that somewhat immodestly has self-appointed itself as “Europe’s biggest communications agency for great causes,” the ex-major this week tweeted:
“Media: Please #StayHomeSaveLives. In any event I assure you that doorstepping is wasting your time. My solicitor, Rhona Friedman, is available for comment via phone or video conferencing. For interviews please contact Skye Redman at 89up.”
After the conclusion of Quiz, Friedman told the Guardian: “I just know that they did not do it… I just feel very sorry for them.” She intends to file paperwork associated with the case in the summer “with hopes for a hearing at the end of the year,” and given the reaction of the public after the ending of this week’s dramatisation, one thing’s for sure: We’ve not seen the last of ‘The Coughing Major’ and his ever-so-earnest wife just yet.
Famous ‘Seven Sisters’ cottage in Montauk for sale for 30% less than in 2016; the ‘Gilded Age cottage’ was designed by Stanford White, an architect whose murder famously led to the ‘Trial of the Century’ from 1907 onwards
Montauk has variously been associated with part-time residents such as the playwright Edward Albee, the world’s largest Ponzi scheme operator Bernie Madoff and the artist Andy Warhol. It was a place that the Algonquian speaking Montaukett Native American tribe called home until one Arthur W. Benson (circa 1798 – 1889), the president of the Brooklyn Gas Light company, came along in 1879 and purchased 10,000 acres there for just $151,000 from the American government.
“Land baron” Benson soon after sold half his acreage to the Long Island Rail Road for $600,000 and then set about turfing out the natives and creating a “playground for the rich.” As part of his plan, he ordered the construction of seven “shingle-style” homes that came to form a 100-acre compound for use as a “private hunting and fishing retreat for him and his friends.” They became known as the ‘Seven Sisters’ and one of them is currently for sale through Sotheby’s International Realty.
Designed by Stanford White (1853 – 1906) – a “lauded architect” whom became more famous for being shot and killed by the deranged railroad heir Harry Thaw (1871 – 1947) – the property offered is said to be known as ‘Andrews House.’ It is more commonly listed, however, as 153 Deforest Road and its date of construction has been put at as early as 1879 and as late as 1888. The ‘cottage’ reportedly first belonged to Benson’s friend, a writer and one of the founders of both the bibliographic Grolier Club in Manhattan and the Society of Iconophiles, William Loring Andrews (1837 – 1920).
William Loring Andrews, architect and murder victim Stanford White and Harry Thaw in a ‘gilded’ jail cell.The Andrews House, 153 Deforest Road, Montauk, New York, NY 11954, United States of America – a ‘Seven Sisters’ cottage that has seen its asking price reduced from £14.8 million in 2016 to £10.4 million in 2020.
Remodeled and expanded in 1992 by the well-known Hamptons architect Francis Fleetwood (1946 – 2015) and updated yet again in the 2010s, 153 Deforest Road today extends to some 3,800 square foot in total. The house stands on a plot of 2.3 acres and accommodation includes a sunken living room, dining room, library, 4 bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms and a second floor veranda “with mesmerising views that always inspire.”
In 2016, when priced at £14.8 million, Mansion Global remarked: “The property comes with plans for a future expansion by [the renowned classical] architect Allan Greenberg,” but plainly such has made little difference to attracting interest. Four years later, 153 Deforest Road’s asking price has been slashed to ‘just’ £10.4 million and rather strangely its interior colour scheme is entirely in a depressing shade of grey.
The artist and filmmaker Julian Schnabel, comedian and talk show host Dick Cavett are amongst others to have lived in ‘Seven Sisters’ houses. One, Tick Hall, was destroyed by a fire in 1997 and then completely rebuilt; what happens to the ‘Andrews House’ remains to be seen.
The Names & Numbers – The Andrews House, 153 Deforest Road, Montauk, New York, NY 11954
July 2019 – It is further reduced to £10.4 million ($12.995 million, €11.9 million or درهمX47.7 million) through Sotheby’s International Realty.
June 2018 – It is reduced to £12 million ($14.995 million, €13.7 million or درهم55.1 million) through Sotheby’s International Realty.
February 2018 – It is relisted for £13 million ($16.25 million, €14.9 million or درهم60 million) with Sotheby’s International Realty.
August 2016 – The house is listed for sale for £14.8 million ($18.5 million, €17 million or درهم67.9 million) with Douglas Elliman.
2012 – 153 Deforest Road is sold to a limited liability company for £5.6 million ($6.995 million, €6.4 million or درهم25.7 million).
1992 – 153 Deforest Road is renovated and remodeled by the Chilean born architect Francis Fleetwood (1946 – 2015) – a man described as a “popular East Hampton, New York–based architect [of] romantic country houses” by Architectural Digest in April 2015. Fleetwood’s well-known clients numbered Lauren Bacall, Calvin Klein and Paul McCartney and of them, he once told The New York Times: “They’d all love to be born into a grand old house that had been handed down through the generations… [And, he added, surely with a grin]… So would I.”
Between 1879 and 1888 – 153 Deforest Road was built as a home for the writer and librarian William L. Andrews (1837 – 1920). It formed part of a group of houses known as the ‘Seven Sisters’ and was known as ‘Andrews House.’
1879 – Arthur W. Benson (circa 1798 – 1889) successfully bids $151,000 or the equivalent of £3.2 million today ($4 million, €3.7 million or درهم14.7 million today) for 11,000 acres of land around Montauk in an auction. He then cleverly sold half the land for $600,000 or the equivalent of £12.8 million today ($16 million, €14.7 million or درهم58.8 million today) to the Long Island Rail Road and kept the remainder as his “private playground.” The legitimacy of the ownership of Benson and others of Montauk remains the subject of legal actions by the Montaukett Native Americans to this date.
Described in The Telegraph’sobituary of him as a “publisher, wit and author,” Michael Russell is best known for writing the spoof memoirs of J. R. Hartley – the charming mythical old man of Yellow Pages advert fame in the 1980s. Bournemouth born, Oxford educated and a father of three, Russell loved horse racing and fishing and was known for his “extremely shrewd judgement as to which books would sell in shops.” His one-man company produced over 500 books by the time of his death and amongst titles that were hits were Richard Spitzy’s How We Squandered the Reich – a book that described Hitler as being “like a cross between a head waiter and a chimney sweep.”
