The Steeple Times

Tag: $20 million

  • Cheaper Than Fiction – A Bargain in The Boltons

    Cheaper Than Fiction – A Bargain in The Boltons

    Cheapest, smallest house on the best side of one of London’s most sought after streets, The Boltons, comes up for sale; the tardis like building was home to novelist-politician Jeffrey Archer and his scientist wife Mary in the 1970s

    • No. 24a The Boltons is one of the smallest houses on “the fourth most expensive street in Britain,” but it is still anything but insubstantial at 3,123 square feet.
    • The tardis-like Victorian townhouse is wedged between two mansions and was converted from a coach house for Aston Martin racing team driver Noël Cunningham-Reid in 1960.
    • Novelist-politician Lord Archer and his scientist wife Dame Mary owned the property between 1972 and 1976.
    • The couple were forced to sell the house after Jeffrey Archer supposedly “lost over £400,000 in a bad investment” in the summer of 1974.
    • Jeffrey Archer subsequently made a fortune as a novelist and then after a glittering career in politics, was jailed in 2001 for perjury and perverting the course of justice.
    • The house was sold again subsequently for £3.8 million in 2007 and is now for sale for £6.5 million; the average price of houses on the street is £32.5 million according to Zoopla.
    • Other residents of The Boltons have variously included Arab royals, Madonna and Sir William Gilbert, one half of Gilbert and Sullivan.

    In May 2017, we featured 6 The Boltons after its asking price was slashed from £39.5 million to ‘just’ £30 million, whilst in April 2015, a more modern house at the upper end of the street named One Boltons Place sold for £51 million on an asking price of £55 million. More recently in January 2018, when 22 The Boltons was sold to a British family for £40 million that sale was described as “one of the biggest deals in the last 12 months… a notable one.” Its asking price had been an even more punchy £57.5 million.

     

    The Boltons was developed in the 19th century by the architect George Godwin (1813 – 1888) on 11.5 acres of land previously used as market gardens. The oval shaped street consists of 13 Italianate style houses on the “favoured” western crescent and 15 more in addition on the “less sought after” eastern side. In the centre, there is a communal garden and the church of St Mary The Boltons and whilst many residents employ private security, a number of the mansions are locked up, unloved and unoccupied also.

     

    Now, an opportunity has arisen for someone to not “buy the worst house on the best street,” but instead “buy the cheapest house on the best side of the best street” in the form of what initially appears as a narrow townhouse wedged between two very much larger semi-detached villas. No. 24a The Boltons is actually deceptive as it not only widens as it goes backwards, but also provides a very surprising 3,123 square foot of usable accommodation over four floors.

     

    Cheaper Than Fiction – A Bargain in The Boltons – Cheapest, smallest house on the best side of one of London’s most sought after streets comes up for sale; the tardis like building was home to novelist-politician Jeffrey Archer and his scientist wife Mary in the 1970s – 24a The Boltons, London, SW10 9SU, Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea, United Kingdom for sale for an asking price of £6.5 million ($8.2 million, €7.3 million or درهم30 million), a figure 71.1% higher than the 2007 sale price through estate agency Knight Frank.
    The entrance hall opens into a library area and a feeling of space is provided by a glass enclosure around the upward staircase.
    Cheaper Than Fiction – A Bargain in The Boltons – Cheapest, smallest house on the best side of one of London’s most sought after streets comes up for sale; the tardis like building was home to novelist-politician Jeffrey Archer and his scientist wife Mary in the 1970s – 24a The Boltons, London, SW10 9SU, Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea, United Kingdom for sale for an asking price of £6.5 million ($8.2 million, €7.3 million or درهم30 million), a figure 71.1% higher than the 2007 sale price through estate agency Knight Frank.
    The drawing room space beyond has a vast window looking out westwards onto the gardens of the houses of The Little Boltons beyond.
    Cheaper Than Fiction – A Bargain in The Boltons – Cheapest, smallest house on the best side of one of London’s most sought after streets comes up for sale; the tardis like building was home to novelist-politician Jeffrey Archer and his scientist wife Mary in the 1970s – 24a The Boltons, London, SW10 9SU, Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea, United Kingdom for sale for an asking price of £6.5 million ($8.2 million, €7.3 million or درهم30 million), a figure 71.1% higher than the 2007 sale price through estate agency Knight Frank.
    The lower ground floor dining kitchen is surprisingly bright and has a double height ceiling in part.

    Laid out currently to give 3 reception rooms, 4 bedrooms and 4 bathrooms, the “highly unusual house with off-street parking” includes a 50-foot long interconnecting entrance hall, library and reception space on the ground floor. At the rear, that opens to a partially double height dining kitchen below measuring 36-feet in length.

    Originally used as a coach house to No. 24, in 1960, a year after the main house was converted into five flats, No. 24a was extended and turned into a house in its own right. Two storeys were added to the designs of architects Knapton & Deane on the instructions of an Aston Martin racing team driver named Noël Cunningham-Reid (1930 – 2017) and what resulted was a three-storey, two bay residence.

     

    No. 24a was home to Jeffrey and Mary Archer in the 1970s and the street features in the spectacularly successful novelist’s 2008 bestselling work A Prisoner of Birth and his 2015 ‘Clifton Chronicles’ series novel Mightier than the Sword. It was whilst living here that the couple’s two sons were born and they supposedly only sold what Dame Mary later described to a court in 2001 as their “lovely” home after “hugely incautious” investments almost bankrupted them. “We’ve explored the further reaches of ‘for better and for worse’ than most couples,” the solar power conversion expert subsequently added.

    Agents Knight Frank seek £6.5 million or £2,081 per square foot for 24a The Boltons and whomever buys it will certainly be able to laud that they live in one of the best addresses in London without it being a work of fiction. In Hyacinth Bucket-esque fashion, however, they won’t, of course, bring up that they actually live in the cheapest and smallest house there.

    The Names & Numbers – 24a The Boltons, London, SW10 9SU, Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea, United Kingdom

    • July 2020 – For sale for an asking price of £6.5 million ($8.2 million, €7.3 million or درهم30 million) through estate agents Knight Frank, a figure 71.1% higher than the 2007 sale price.
    • March 2007 – Sold for £3.8 million ($4.9 million, €4.2 million or درهم17.6 million).
    • 1972 to 1976 – Home to Lord Archer and Dame Mary Archer DBE, then known as Mr Jeffrey and Dr Mary Archer. Their sons, James and William, were born during this period in 1972 and 1974.

     

    Other Notable Residents of The Boltons

    Between 1999 and 2006, Madonna owned a house in The Boltons and other well-known residents have included Sir Julian and Dame Paddy Ridsdale.

    • 8 The Boltons – Douglas Fairbanks Jr.  KBE (1909 – 2000), actor, lived there in the 1950s with his wife Mary Lee Hartford, former wife Huntington Hartford, the A&P supermarket heir.
    • 14 The Boltons – Otho Stuart (1863 – 1930), Shakespearean actor-manager, lived there, exact dates unknown.
    • 19 The Boltons – The Rt. Hon. Anthony Crosland (1918 – 1977), Labour Party politician, author and one-time lover of Roy Jenkins, lived there, exact dates unknown.
    • 20 The Boltons (also known as ‘The Grove’) – Colin MacInnes (1914 – 1976), author, lived there, exact dates unknown. For a time in the 20th century, the building also served as Our Lady’s Convent along with 21 The Boltons.
    • 24 The Boltons – Sir William Gilbert (1836 – 1911), playwright and one half of Gilbert and Sullivan, lived in the house between 1877 and 1884 and wrote  six  of  his  best  known  comic  operas  there beginning  with The Sorcerer in 1877, HMS Pinafore in 1878, The Pirates of Penzance in 1879, Patience in 1881, Iolanthe in 1882 and Princess Ida in 1884. Gilbert moved from No. 24 The Boltons in 1884 to a newly built house nearby at No. 39 Harrington Gardens.
    • 29 The Boltons – Used as an infant school for fifteen years after the Second World War.

    Facebook: @TheSteepleTimes

    Instagram: @TheSteepleTimes

    Twitter: @SteepleTimes

    Cheaper Than Fiction – A Bargain in The Boltons – Cheapest, smallest house on the best side of one of London’s most sought after streets comes up for sale; the tardis like building was home to novelist-politician Jeffrey Archer and his scientist wife Mary in the 1970s – 24a The Boltons, London, SW10 9SU, Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea, United Kingdom for sale for an asking price of £6.5 million ($8.2 million, €7.3 million or درهم30 million), a figure 71.1% higher than the 2007 sale price through estate agency Knight Frank.
    The kitchen itself is dominated by a central island unit.
    Cheaper Than Fiction – A Bargain in The Boltons – Cheapest, smallest house on the best side of one of London’s most sought after streets comes up for sale; the tardis like building was home to novelist-politician Jeffrey Archer and his scientist wife Mary in the 1970s – 24a The Boltons, London, SW10 9SU, Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea, United Kingdom for sale for an asking price of £6.5 million ($8.2 million, €7.3 million or درهم30 million), a figure 71.1% higher than the 2007 sale price through estate agency Knight Frank.
    A lower ground floor room described as a “snug” is used presently as a space to watch television.
    Cheaper Than Fiction – A Bargain in The Boltons – Cheapest, smallest house on the best side of one of London’s most sought after streets comes up for sale; the tardis like building was home to novelist-politician Jeffrey Archer and his scientist wife Mary in the 1970s – 24a The Boltons, London, SW10 9SU, Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea, United Kingdom for sale for an asking price of £6.5 million ($8.2 million, €7.3 million or درهم30 million), a figure 71.1% higher than the 2007 sale price through estate agency Knight Frank.
    The first floor consists of a master bedroom suite with a bedroom with an undemised balcony, a dressing room and a shower room.
    Cheaper Than Fiction – A Bargain in The Boltons – Cheapest, smallest house on the best side of one of London’s most sought after streets comes up for sale; the tardis like building was home to novelist-politician Jeffrey Archer and his scientist wife Mary in the 1970s – 24a The Boltons, London, SW10 9SU, Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea, United Kingdom for sale for an asking price of £6.5 million ($8.2 million, €7.3 million or درهم30 million), a figure 71.1% higher than the 2007 sale price through estate agency Knight Frank.
    The dressing room itself.
    Cheaper Than Fiction – A Bargain in The Boltons – Cheapest, smallest house on the best side of one of London’s most sought after streets comes up for sale; the tardis like building was home to novelist-politician Jeffrey Archer and his scientist wife Mary in the 1970s – 24a The Boltons, London, SW10 9SU, Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea, United Kingdom for sale for an asking price of £6.5 million ($8.2 million, €7.3 million or درهم30 million), a figure 71.1% higher than the 2007 sale price through estate agency Knight Frank.
    One of two bedrooms on the second floor.
    Cheaper Than Fiction – A Bargain in The Boltons – Cheapest, smallest house on the best side of one of London’s most sought after streets comes up for sale; the tardis like building was home to novelist-politician Jeffrey Archer and his scientist wife Mary in the 1970s – 24a The Boltons, London, SW10 9SU, Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea, United Kingdom for sale for an asking price of £6.5 million ($8.2 million, €7.3 million or درهم30 million), a figure 71.1% higher than the 2007 sale price through estate agency Knight Frank.
    The other second floor bedroom.
    Cheaper Than Fiction – A Bargain in The Boltons – Cheapest, smallest house on the best side of one of London’s most sought after streets comes up for sale; the tardis like building was home to novelist-politician Jeffrey Archer and his scientist wife Mary in the 1970s – 24a The Boltons, London, SW10 9SU, Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea, United Kingdom for sale for an asking price of £6.5 million ($8.2 million, €7.3 million or درهم30 million), a figure 71.1% higher than the 2007 sale price through estate agency Knight Frank.
    There are two bathrooms and two shower rooms in the house.
    Cheaper Than Fiction – A Bargain in The Boltons – Cheapest, smallest house on the best side of one of London’s most sought after streets comes up for sale; the tardis like building was home to novelist-politician Jeffrey Archer and his scientist wife Mary in the 1970s – 24a The Boltons, London, SW10 9SU, Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea, United Kingdom for sale for an asking price of £6.5 million ($8.2 million, €7.3 million or درهم30 million), a figure 71.1% higher than the 2007 sale price through estate agency Knight Frank.
    The floor plan shows how the tardis like building gets bigger as you go further back into it.
    Cheaper Than Fiction – A Bargain in The Boltons – Cheapest, smallest house on the best side of one of London’s most sought after streets comes up for sale; the tardis like building was home to novelist-politician Jeffrey Archer and his scientist wife Mary in the 1970s – 24a The Boltons, London, SW10 9SU, Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea, United Kingdom for sale for an asking price of £6.5 million ($8.2 million, €7.3 million or درهم30 million), a figure 71.1% higher than the 2007 sale price through estate agency Knight Frank.
    The situation of 24a The Boltons is on the “favoured” western crescent of this ritzy street.
  • Made In Deception – Gulbenkian and Philbrick

    Made In Deception – Gulbenkian and Philbrick

    As art fraudster Inigo Philbrick is arrested and dragged onto a private plane by the FBI, his on-off lover ‘Made in Chelsea’s’ Victoria Baker Harber shows no sympathy for victims; meanwhile fellow art conwoman Angela Gulbenkian has been deservedly detained in Lisbon

    • ‘Mini Madoff’ Inigo Philbrick, ex-Jay Jopling employee and on-off squeeze of gobby ‘Made in Chelsea’ participant Victoria Baker Harber, snared in Vanuatu, Oceania last Friday.
    • Philbrick had bizarrely spent his time as a fugitive from justice petting “abandoned” dogs.
    • Fellow socialite and art fraudster Angela Gulbenkian, whose victims include Chelsea based interior designers Percy Bass, snared on the same day in Lisbon.
    • She traded on her loose connections to one of the richest families in the world, the Gulbenkians. Connected foundations and museums consistently have denied any association with the German born crook.
    • The two con artists are unconnected in terms of their nefarious activities and victims named thus far, but their paths may likely have crossed given the social circles they operated in and around.

    ‘The Talented Mr Philbrick’ was how one art newspaper somewhat cornily lauded Inigo Philbrick in the wake of this dastardly double dealer being exposed as a Madoff of the art world. He was snared in Vanuatu in Oceania last Friday whilst on Tuesday in Lisbon, fellow trader-on-a-well-known-name Angela Gulbenkian was taken into “preventative detention” to be extradited back to the UK.

     

    Speaking to The Steeple Times on Friday, Jane Morris, managing director of acclaimed Walton Street interior designers Percy Bass remarked:

     

    “Angela Gulbenkian came to Percy Bass to get her flat decorated. We did the work, but never got paid. She forged a bank transfer note pretending to be part of the Gulbenkian Foundation. Percy Bass had a judgment against her, but she fled abroad.”

     

    Now, in addition and facing charges relating to a £1.1 million ($1.4 million, €1.2 million or درهم5 million) Kusama pumpkin sculpture and a £115,000 ($142,000, €127,000 or درهم522,000) Warhol print of Queen Elizabeth II and the theft of £50,000 ($62,000, €55,000 or درهم227,000) from a woman named Jacqui Ball, 38-year-old socialite Gulbenkian is ludicrously still claiming to be an “art collector” and linked to what she lists as the “Gulbenkian Private Art Collection” on Instagram. She is, in fact, even by her own admission, the owner of “just three works of art” and the daughter of an optometrist from Munich, Germany.

     

    Angela Ischwang (as this shameless swindler was born) supposedly moved to London in the early 2000s to study politics. She subsequently met and married Duarte Gulbenkian, the great-grand nephew of the one-time richest man in the world Calouste Gulbenkian, and went into the art business in around 2016.

     

    Listing herself as someone who “brokers high end arts works” through “valuable contacts,” this crooked conwoman – whose suggestions of links to the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation have been firmly denied by the trustees of those organisations – Gulbenkian is surprisingly linked to only one dissolved company, Doctor Duve Medical Skin Care Ltd. of Southwark Bridge Road, SE1.

     

    Charged in relation to the Kusama pumpkin sculpture and the money stolen from Ball in May last year, Angela Gulbenkian was released on unconditional bail in September 2019 after appearing at Southwark Crown Court. She then failed to appear in May 2020 and a European Arrest Warrant was issued for her arrest. Now, ‘Awful Ange’ – as an embarrassed former friend told us she now calls her – will be rightly returned to face her comeuppance and this time she’ll be unlikely to get bail.

     

    Philbrick meanwhile – who was until recently subject to ‘Where’s Wally?’ like speculation since having disappeared off the face of the planet after last being seen with his brash Made In Chelsea motormouth on-off lover Victoria Baker Harber in Australia in late 2019 – was found last Friday in Port Vila, Vanuata, an island nation in the South Pacific.

     

    “Grabbed” by a mix of uniformed and ununiformed cops, the “startled” 33-year-old crook and estranged son of museum director Harry Philbrick – was “hustled” into a police car and taken to the local airport reported Artnet News on Wednesday. “A large Gulfstream jet was waiting on the tarmac” and this, “under instructions from the FBI,” flew him to New York.

     

    Facing allegations of theft, misappropriation, borrowing money against artworks he did not even own and selling overlapping shares of artworks, Ponzi-like pillock Philbrick had supposedly been hiding out in a “house of an expat who died in a tragic accident.” Bizarrely, he had been busying his days helping “abandoned” dogs and of him one local remarked: “He was always calling me about an animal he found.”

     

    Now in chains for his crimes against amongst others the Reuben family, Philbrick faces not only a real-life trial but also further exposure in the media. One-time friend, but ultimately a victim of the shameless scammer, art writer, curator and dealer Kenny Schachter this week wrote:

     

    “I have no doubt that Inigo will capitalize on our collective financial misfortune and turn it into a multimedia bonanza for himself. As far as my own movie and documentary projects, for which deals will be announced shortly, all I want and/or expect is that they make good on part of the money Inigo took from me.”

     

    Meanwhile last Sunday, dippy dope Victoria Baker Harber showed no regret for her association with Philbrick – a man who ferried her around in a private jet at the expense of others – in retweeting an attack on Schachter by someone named ‘Koogs’ on Twitter on 14th June. They opined: “Who quotes themselves?? Get over it! Your wife is a billionaire! Are you crying about cash or cock?”

     

    Though at around £16.2 million ($20 million, €17.9 million or درهم73.5 million) Inigo Philbrick’s total scam is far bigger than Angela Gulbenkian’s, the effects are the same for the victims of these high society crooks: May the authorities now chuck the book at this rotten pair of ratbags.

     

    Pictured top – Con artist Angela Gulbenkian appeared at Southwark Crown Court in September 2019 “in a blue dress decorated with silver stars and black Christian Louboutin high heels” according to ‘Metro’ (right); art fraudster Inigo Philbrick poses looking startled as television screen loving terror Victoria Baker Harber attempts to look sexually provocative.

     

    Facebook: @TheSteepleTimes

    Instagram: @TheSteepleTimes

    Twitter: @SteepleTimes

     

    Made In Deception – Gulbenkian and Philbrick – As art fraudster Inigo Philbrick is arrested and dragged onto a private plane by the FBI his on-off lover ‘Made in Chelsea’s’ Victoria Baker Harber shows no sympathy for victims; meanwhile fellow art conwoman Angela Gulbenkian has been deservedly detained in Lisbon.
    Aided by their surnames –Inigo Philbrick duped the art world and the use of the surname he shares with his estranged art curator father certainly aided him in his ‘endeavours’; Angela Gulbenkian traded on her connections to the legendary art collecting, billionaire Gulbenkian family also.
    Made In Deception – Gulbenkian and Philbrick – As art fraudster Inigo Philbrick is arrested and dragged onto a private plane by the FBI his on-off lover ‘Made in Chelsea’s’ Victoria Baker Harber shows no sympathy for victims; meanwhile fellow art conwoman Angela Gulbenkian has been deservedly detained in Lisbon.
    You’re snared! – A newspaper frontpage chronicling Inigo Philbrick’s detainment; social media users mocked the former fugitive with one joking: “OK bye now!”
    Made In Deception – Gulbenkian and Philbrick – As art fraudster Inigo Philbrick is arrested and dragged onto a private plane by the FBI his on-off lover ‘Made in Chelsea’s’ Victoria Baker Harber shows no sympathy for victims; meanwhile fellow art conwoman Angela Gulbenkian has been deservedly detained in Lisbon.
    The ultimate deceiver – In March, Angela Gulbenkian posted an image accompanied by the caption: “Life is art!” on her Instagram page. She hashtagged it with amongst other things #letsgofar and #successfulwomen, but neglected to add the truth about herself: “My life is the art of deception!” is what it should have read.
    Made In Deception – Gulbenkian and Philbrick – As art fraudster Inigo Philbrick is arrested and dragged onto a private plane by the FBI his on-off lover ‘Made in Chelsea’s’ Victoria Baker Harber shows no sympathy for victims; meanwhile fellow art conwoman Angela Gulbenkian has been deservedly detained in Lisbon.
    No sympathy for Philbrick’s victims – Victoria Baker Harber took to Twitter on 14th June to retweet an unpleasant comment mocking one of her on-off lover Inigo Philbrick’s victims, Kenny Schachter.
    Made In Deception – Gulbenkian and Philbrick – As art fraudster Inigo Philbrick is arrested and dragged onto a private plane by the FBI his on-off lover ‘Made in Chelsea’s’ Victoria Baker Harber shows no sympathy for victims; meanwhile fellow art conwoman Angela Gulbenkian has been deservedly detained in Lisbon.
    Living the high life – Inigo Philbrick liked private jets and swilling champagne in the company of amongst others Victoria Baker Harber; he’s now getting used to porridge.
  • Grubby Story Time With Fergie & Friends

    Grubby Story Time With Fergie & Friends

    ‘Randy Andy’s’ ex-wife Sarah Ferguson excels (again) in sharing videos of coronavirus bailout money grabber Sir Richard Branson’s son on her not so popular YouTube channel

    You’d have thought Sarah Ferguson – ex-wife and live-in comedy sidekick of he who doesn’t sweat (unless he’s in the Woking branch of Pizza Express or allegedly grubbing around  doing a bit of  groping in the mansion of a now dead paedophile) Prince Andrew – would have kept her gob shut for once, but no, as ever, this weird whackjob just could not help herself.

     

    On Saturday, in spite of stories circulating about the pugnacious pair being sued for £6.7 million after not stumping up what they owe on a £20 million Swiss ski chalet (as only these spendthrifts could be expected to do) and yet more tawdry revelations about Prince Andrew inappropriately paying £355,927 to his former private secretary via his PACT charity (strange that that shares a name with that of their “charity tin rattling” mate Baroness Meyer’s now-deservedly-also-closed-down “venture”), Sarah Ferguson decided to take to YouTube.

     

    Here, on her not especially popular channel (she has just 2,500 followers), she shared a video of the son of one of the most loathed individuals of the coronavirus lockdown, Sir Richard Branson, strumming on a guitar and reading a story (it must have been hard for him to sit on a very expensive private island doing that whilst daddy was out begging for yet more millions of public wonga).

     

    Grubby Story Time With Fergie & Friends – ‘Randy Andy’s’ ex-wife Sarah Ferguson excels (again) in sharing videos of coronavirus bailout money grabber Sir Richard Branson’s son on her not so popular YouTube channel.
    Sarah Ferguson seems to think reading stories to children on YouTube will help redeem her reputation; the investors and creditors owed millions quite rightly think otherwise.

    As part of her crassly titled “Fergie & Friends” (does she actually have any left?) stories series, Sam Branson read from a book titled: I Am Human: A Book of Empathy. Somewhat laughably, the tale about “finding my way and choosing my path” (something Fergie most definitely isn’t terribly good at) had only received 12 likes on YouTube by Monday morning and given any chance of forgiveness for the ‘Duchess of Dork’ – whom also is facing legal actions from Chinese investors whom she took over £500,000 from – is all but over, she’d perhaps have done better to have parked this particular episode.

     

    Also last week, self-declared “spokesperson, best-selling children’s author, businesswoman, wellness advocate, producer and global humanitarian” (is there anything she can’t turn her money snatching hands to?) Ferguson joined LinkedIn. God only knows why she took such a course of action as frankly no one in their right mind would employ this train wreck. Frankly, instead, the well-known toe sucking wastrel would have done better to have simply done something else: She should have given up on the idea of ‘work’ (not that she knows what such even is) and taken ‘Randy Andy’ and retired together Sotogrande. If she did that, perhaps poor old ‘Brenda’ might get out of supposedly once again having to pay off yet more of the on-off couple’s bills and the non-sweater could save a dime and enjoy yet another freebie on the golf course.

     

    Facebook: @TheSteepleTimes

    Instagram: @TheSteepleTimes

    Twitter: @SteepleTimes

     

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzFslpUsGyc
  • A Magnificent Mammoth Mansion

    A Magnificent Mammoth Mansion

    Grade I listed Jacobean prodigy house in Hampshire for sale for £10 million; it allegedly is haunted by 14 ghosts and comes with planning permission to create a mammoth 57,000 square foot single residential home

     

    In April 2017, The Steeple Times featured the sale of a vast New Jersey mansion named Darlington. Offered for the sum of £37 million, that property remains for sale but now the English  Jacobean prodigy house on which it was modelled has also been placed on the market.

     

    A Magnificent Mammoth Mansion – Bramshill House, Bramshill, Hook, Hampshire, RG27 8ND, United Kingdom – For sale for £10 million ($13 million, €11.2 million or درهم47.6 million) with 92 acres of land.
    Bramshill House, Bramshill, Hook, Hampshire, RG27 8ND, United Kingdom is for sale for £10 million

    A Magnificent Mammoth Mansion – Bramshill House, Bramshill, Hook, Hampshire, RG27 8ND, United Kingdom – For sale for £10 million ($13 million, €11.2 million or درهم47.6 million) with 92 acres of land.
    Darlington in New Jersey, USA was designed to look just like Bramshill

    A Magnificent Mammoth Mansion – Bramshill House, Bramshill, Hook, Hampshire, RG27 8ND, United Kingdom – For sale for £10 million ($13 million, €11.2 million or درهم47.6 million) with 92 acres of land.
    Bramshill was used as a police college from the 1950s until 2013 (the entrance pictured here is no longer included with the ownership of the main house)

     

    Used as a police college from the 1950s until 2013, Bramshill House, near Hook has permission to be returned to a single family residence with a colossal total size of 56,974 square feet. Described as “one of England’s great stately homes,” the proposed accommodation that could be created – after a supposed additional expenditure of £10 million on refurbishments on top of the £10 million asking price – would include 10 reception rooms and 10 bedrooms. Additionally, there would be a 126-foot long gallery, a cinema, gym, a wine cellar, a disco and even a chapel.

     

    Bramshill was built in the early 17th century by Baron Edward la Zouche (1556 – 1625), famed for his lone vote against the condemnation of Mary Queen of Scots, and is described as being of the Italian Renaissance style. It was later occupied by the 2nd Baron Brocket and the exiled King Michael and Queen Anne of Romania before being acquired by the British government in 1953.

     

    Sold in 2014 to property developers City & Country in 2014, the estate – then totaling some 262 acres – was sub-divided and now Knight Frank are the agents for the mansion and 92 acres of Grade I registered parkland.

     

    Bramshill – The Numbers

     

    August 2018 – For sale for £10 million ($13 million, €11.2 million or درهم47.6 million) with 92 acres of land.

     

    August 2014 – Sold to City & Country for £20 million ($25.9 million, €22.3 million or درهم95.2 million) with 262 acres of land.

     

    July 2013 – Marketed on behalf of the Home Department for £25 million ($32.4 million, €27.9 million or درهم119 million) with 262 acres of land.

     

    Instagram: @TheSteepleTimes

    Twitter: @TheSteepleTimes

     

    A Magnificent Mammoth Mansion – Bramshill House, Bramshill, Hook, Hampshire, RG27 8ND, United Kingdom – For sale for £10 million ($13 million, €11.2 million or درهم47.6 million) with 92 acres of land.A Magnificent Mammoth Mansion – Bramshill House, Bramshill, Hook, Hampshire, RG27 8ND, United Kingdom – For sale for £10 million ($13 million, €11.2 million or درهم47.6 million) with 92 acres of land. A Magnificent Mammoth Mansion – Bramshill House, Bramshill, Hook, Hampshire, RG27 8ND, United Kingdom – For sale for £10 million ($13 million, €11.2 million or درهم47.6 million) with 92 acres of land.A Magnificent Mammoth Mansion – Bramshill House, Bramshill, Hook, Hampshire, RG27 8ND, United Kingdom – For sale for £10 million ($13 million, €11.2 million or درهم47.6 million) with 92 acres of land.A Magnificent Mammoth Mansion – Bramshill House, Bramshill, Hook, Hampshire, RG27 8ND, United Kingdom – For sale for £10 million ($13 million, €11.2 million or درهم47.6 million) with 92 acres of land. A Magnificent Mammoth Mansion – Bramshill House, Bramshill, Hook, Hampshire, RG27 8ND, United Kingdom – For sale for £10 million ($13 million, €11.2 million or درهم47.6 million) with 92 acres of land.A Magnificent Mammoth Mansion – Bramshill House, Bramshill, Hook, Hampshire, RG27 8ND, United Kingdom – For sale for £10 million ($13 million, €11.2 million or درهم47.6 million) with 92 acres of land. A Magnificent Mammoth Mansion – Bramshill House, Bramshill, Hook, Hampshire, RG27 8ND, United Kingdom – For sale for £10 million ($13 million, €11.2 million or درهم47.6 million) with 92 acres of land.A Magnificent Mammoth Mansion – Bramshill House, Bramshill, Hook, Hampshire, RG27 8ND, United Kingdom – For sale for £10 million ($13 million, €11.2 million or درهم47.6 million) with 92 acres of land.A Magnificent Mammoth Mansion – Bramshill House, Bramshill, Hook, Hampshire, RG27 8ND, United Kingdom – For sale for £10 million ($13 million, €11.2 million or درهم47.6 million) with 92 acres of land.A Magnificent Mammoth Mansion – Bramshill House, Bramshill, Hook, Hampshire, RG27 8ND, United Kingdom – For sale for £10 million ($13 million, €11.2 million or درهم47.6 million) with 92 acres of land.

  • A Modern Beauty

    A Modern Beauty

    “One of Britain’s finest 20th-century country houses” has been placed for sale for £20 million; it comes with 530 acres and was built by the late businessman Sebastian de Ferranti in the 1980s

     

    One could imagine being in the early 18th century or in Italy even on first taking a look at the Palladian style Henbury Hall, near Macclesfield in Cheshire. However, as Moliere said: “One is easily fooled by that one loves” and in reality this 12,496 square foot beauty was actually constructed between 1980 and 1986.

     

    The vision of the buccaneer businessman and patron of the arts Sebastian de Ferranti (1927 – 2015) and based upon Palladio’s Villa Rotunda at Vizenza, the 6-bedroomed main residence stands on the site of an earlier mansion demolished in the 1950s. It was designed by the architect Julian Bicknell in conjunction with Felix Kelly and David Mlinaric, was constructed by Tarmac Construction and is faced with warm-toned limestone from north east France. The estate also includes a Grade II listed dower house, five further houses and cottages, a Grade II listed and stable block and courtyard.

     

    A Modern Beauty – Henbury Hall Estate, Henbury, Macclesfield, Cheshire, SK11 9PJ, United Kingdom – For sale through Savills – Built by and former home of Sebastian de Ferranti
    The late Sebastian de Ferranti

    A Modern Beauty – Henbury Hall Estate, Henbury, Macclesfield, Cheshire, SK11 9PJ, United Kingdom – For sale through Savills – Built by and former home of Sebastian de Ferranti
    Henbury Hall during construction

    A Modern Beauty – Henbury Hall Estate, Henbury, Macclesfield, Cheshire, SK11 9PJ, United Kingdom – For sale through Savills – Built by and former home of Sebastian de Ferranti
    A depiction of the original Henbury Hall in 1707

    A Modern Beauty – Henbury Hall Estate, Henbury, Macclesfield, Cheshire, SK11 9PJ, United Kingdom – For sale through Savills – Built by and former home of Sebastian de Ferranti
    The front elevation of the current Henbury Hall with parkland beyond

     

    Aside from 12 acres of immaculate gardens with a series of lakes, there is a 200 year old landscaped park, woodland, agricultural land, a beautifully designed swimming pool, a tennis court and a polo field.

     

    Selling agents Savills offer the Henbury Hall Estate as a whole for a guide price of £20 million – a world away from the £9,000 sum the estate sold for in 1872 (the equivalent of £934,000 today).

     

    A Modern Beauty – Henbury Hall Estate, Henbury, Macclesfield, Cheshire, SK11 9PJ, United Kingdom – For sale through Savills – Built by and former home of Sebastian de Ferranti A Modern Beauty – Henbury Hall Estate, Henbury, Macclesfield, Cheshire, SK11 9PJ, United Kingdom – For sale through Savills – Built by and former home of Sebastian de FerrantiA Modern Beauty – Henbury Hall Estate, Henbury, Macclesfield, Cheshire, SK11 9PJ, United Kingdom – For sale through Savills – Built by and former home of Sebastian de Ferranti A Modern Beauty – Henbury Hall Estate, Henbury, Macclesfield, Cheshire, SK11 9PJ, United Kingdom – For sale through Savills – Built by and former home of Sebastian de FerrantiA Modern Beauty – Henbury Hall Estate, Henbury, Macclesfield, Cheshire, SK11 9PJ, United Kingdom – For sale through Savills – Built by and former home of Sebastian de FerrantiA Modern Beauty – Henbury Hall Estate, Henbury, Macclesfield, Cheshire, SK11 9PJ, United Kingdom – For sale through Savills – Built by and former home of Sebastian de Ferranti A Modern Beauty – Henbury Hall Estate, Henbury, Macclesfield, Cheshire, SK11 9PJ, United Kingdom – For sale through Savills – Built by and former home of Sebastian de FerrantiA Modern Beauty – Henbury Hall Estate, Henbury, Macclesfield, Cheshire, SK11 9PJ, United Kingdom – For sale through Savills – Built by and former home of Sebastian de FerrantiA Modern Beauty – Henbury Hall Estate, Henbury, Macclesfield, Cheshire, SK11 9PJ, United Kingdom – For sale through Savills – Built by and former home of Sebastian de Ferranti A Modern Beauty – Henbury Hall Estate, Henbury, Macclesfield, Cheshire, SK11 9PJ, United Kingdom – For sale through Savills – Built by and former home of Sebastian de FerrantiA Modern Beauty – Henbury Hall Estate, Henbury, Macclesfield, Cheshire, SK11 9PJ, United Kingdom – For sale through Savills – Built by and former home of Sebastian de FerrantiA Modern Beauty – Henbury Hall Estate, Henbury, Macclesfield, Cheshire, SK11 9PJ, United Kingdom – For sale through Savills – Built by and former home of Sebastian de Ferranti A Modern Beauty – Henbury Hall Estate, Henbury, Macclesfield, Cheshire, SK11 9PJ, United Kingdom – For sale through Savills – Built by and former home of Sebastian de Ferranti

  • A Bastard of a Basement

    A Bastard of a Basement

    Knightsbridge townhouse for sale for sum 11% lower than it sold for in 2011; it comes with a rather large hole in the garden that has been described as “almost as deep as the Führerbunker”

     

    To the poet and wit Henry Luttrell (1765 – 1861) “eating pâté de foie gras to the sound of trumpets” was his idea of heaven. Now, a very wealthy buyer has the opportunity to acquire what some might consider the very opposite of such with the sale of his former home – complete with a 4-storey hole in its garden – in Knightsbridge.

     

    Empty for many years and the subject of numerous critical articles about its dereliction in such titles as the Mirror and Daily Mail, Grade II listed 31 Brompton Square is on the market for £3 million less than it sold for in 2011. It was previously reportedly owned by the industrialist Lord Tanlaw and was also in the possession of the High Commission of Malaysia at some point.

     

    A Bastard of a Basement – 31 Brompton Square, Knightsbridge, London, SW3 2AE, United Kingdom – For sale through Savills for £25 million ($33.9 million, €28.4 million or درهم125 million) – Formerly owned by now jailed fraudster Achilleas Kallakis and also by Jonathan Hart, Lord Tanlow, the Hon. Michael Astor, Dora and Mary de Beer and Henry Luttrell.
    Fraudster Achilleas Kallakis was undoubtedly the most controversial owner of the building

    A Bastard of a Basement – 31 Brompton Square, Knightsbridge, London, SW3 2AE, United Kingdom – For sale through Savills for £25 million ($33.9 million, €28.4 million or درهم125 million) – Formerly owned by now jailed fraudster Achilleas Kallakis and also by Jonathan Hart, Lord Tanlow, the Hon. Michael Astor, Dora and Mary de Beer and Henry Luttrell.
    Philanthropists Dora and Mary de Beer (pictured with Esmond de Beer) were certainly more civilised residents

    A Bastard of a Basement – 31 Brompton Square, Knightsbridge, London, SW3 2AE, United Kingdom – For sale through Savills for £25 million ($33.9 million, €28.4 million or درهم125 million) – Formerly owned by now jailed fraudster Achilleas Kallakis and also by Jonathan Hart, Lord Tanlow, the Hon. Michael Astor, Dora and Mary de Beer and Henry Luttrell.
    Baron Tanlaw of Tanlawhill reportedly owned the house for a period also

     

    Aside from being home to the philanthropist sisters Dora and Mary de Beer (owners of the house between 1934 and 1981) and the Conservative Party politician the Hon. Michael Astor in addition, most controversially the property was bought by the now jailed businessman Achilleas Kallakis in the mid 2000s.

     

    Kallakis – who in spite of demanding he be called ‘His Excellency’ and ‘The Don’ was actually simply “Britain’s biggest mortgage fraudster” – began work on a scheme to create what he termed a “pleasure palace” at 31 Brompton Square in 2005. He employed contractors to dig four levels down beneath what had been a pretty garden and commenced both authorised and unauthorised works to create what could still ultimately become a 22,000 square foot, 8-floor “trophy home.”

     

    Construction stopped in 2008 after Kallakis’ arrest and in 2011, 31 Brompton Square was sold for £8 million more than sought to a Virgin Islands based company by receivers acting for Barclays Wealth. Said by locals to actually be owned at that time by a Dubai based businessman named Jonathan Hart, further planning schemes were submitted in October 2016 and now agents Savills seek £25 million for the unfinished building.

     

    Of the sale, one near neighbour told The Steeple Times:

     

    “This bastard of a basement has blighted this area of Knightsbridge for far too long.”

     

    “We have feared subsidence might cause the hole to cave in since 2005 and now hope a new owner will rectify the mess left by the conman Kallakis. We simply want to be able to live out our years in peace and would like a nice, quiet family rather than a brash billionaire be the purchasers.”

     

    31 Brompton Square – The Numbers

     

    September 2017 – For sale for £25 million ($33.9 million, €28.4 million or درهم125 million).

     

    June 2016 – Predicted to be worth £50 million ($67.8 million, €56.9 million or درهم249 million) if iceberg extension were to be completed.

     

    March 2011 – Sold for £28 million ($38 million, €31.9 million or درهم139.5 million) after a bidding war on an asking price of £20 million ($27.1 million, €22.7 million or درهم99.6 million).

     

    A Bastard of a Basement – 31 Brompton Square, Knightsbridge, London, SW3 2AE, United Kingdom – For sale through Savills for £25 million ($33.9 million, €28.4 million or درهم125 million) – Formerly owned by now jailed fraudster Achilleas Kallakis and also by Jonathan Hart, Lord Tanlow, the Hon. Michael Astor, Dora and Mary de Beer and Henry Luttrell.
    An aerial view of the giant hole behind 31 Brompton Square

    A Bastard of a Basement – 31 Brompton Square, Knightsbridge, London, SW3 2AE, United Kingdom – For sale through Savills for £25 million ($33.9 million, €28.4 million or درهم125 million) – Formerly owned by now jailed fraudster Achilleas Kallakis and also by Jonathan Hart, Lord Tanlow, the Hon. Michael Astor, Dora and Mary de Beer and Henry Luttrell.
    A closer view of the dormant site

    A Bastard of a Basement – 31 Brompton Square, Knightsbridge, London, SW3 2AE, United Kingdom – For sale through Savills for £25 million ($33.9 million, €28.4 million or درهم125 million) – Formerly owned by now jailed fraudster Achilleas Kallakis and also by Jonathan Hart, Lord Tanlow, the Hon. Michael Astor, Dora and Mary de Beer and Henry Luttrell.
    The front elevation of 31 Brompton Square

    A Bastard of a Basement – 31 Brompton Square, Knightsbridge, London, SW3 2AE, United Kingdom – For sale through Savills for £25 million ($33.9 million, €28.4 million or درهم125 million) – Formerly owned by now jailed fraudster Achilleas Kallakis and also by Jonathan Hart, Lord Tanlow, the Hon. Michael Astor, Dora and Mary de Beer and Henry Luttrell.
    A proposed floor plan for the building

    A Bastard of a Basement – 31 Brompton Square, Knightsbridge, London, SW3 2AE, United Kingdom – For sale through Savills for £25 million ($33.9 million, €28.4 million or درهم125 million) – Formerly owned by now jailed fraudster Achilleas Kallakis and also by Jonathan Hart, Lord Tanlow, the Hon. Michael Astor, Dora and Mary de Beer and Henry Luttrell.
    A CGI image of a proposed design for a reception room within the existing building

    A Bastard of a Basement – 31 Brompton Square, Knightsbridge, London, SW3 2AE, United Kingdom – For sale through Savills for £25 million ($33.9 million, €28.4 million or درهم125 million) – Formerly owned by now jailed fraudster Achilleas Kallakis and also by Jonathan Hart, Lord Tanlow, the Hon. Michael Astor, Dora and Mary de Beer and Henry Luttrell.
    A CGI image of a proposed design for a reception space in the proposed extension of the house

    A Bastard of a Basement – 31 Brompton Square, Knightsbridge, London, SW3 2AE, United Kingdom – For sale through Savills for £25 million ($33.9 million, €28.4 million or درهم125 million) – Formerly owned by now jailed fraudster Achilleas Kallakis and also by Jonathan Hart, Lord Tanlow, the Hon. Michael Astor, Dora and Mary de Beer and Henry Luttrell.
    A CGI image of a proposed design for a reception space backing onto the garden

    A Bastard of a Basement – 31 Brompton Square, Knightsbridge, London, SW3 2AE, United Kingdom – For sale through Savills for £25 million ($33.9 million, €28.4 million or درهم125 million) – Formerly owned by now jailed fraudster Achilleas Kallakis and also by Jonathan Hart, Lord Tanlow, the Hon. Michael Astor, Dora and Mary de Beer and Henry Luttrell.
    A CGI image of a proposed design for a swimming pool within the extension

    A Bastard of a Basement – 31 Brompton Square, Knightsbridge, London, SW3 2AE, United Kingdom – For sale through Savills for £25 million ($33.9 million, €28.4 million or درهم125 million) – Formerly owned by now jailed fraudster Achilleas Kallakis and also by Jonathan Hart, Lord Tanlow, the Hon. Michael Astor, Dora and Mary de Beer and Henry Luttrell.
    A CGI image of the proposed garden

    A Bastard of a Basement – 31 Brompton Square, Knightsbridge, London, SW3 2AE, United Kingdom – For sale through Savills for £25 million ($33.9 million, €28.4 million or درهم125 million) – Formerly owned by now jailed fraudster Achilleas Kallakis and also by Jonathan Hart, Lord Tanlow, the Hon. Michael Astor, Dora and Mary de Beer and Henry Luttrell.
    Another view of the space

    A Bastard of a Basement – 31 Brompton Square, Knightsbridge, London, SW3 2AE, United Kingdom – For sale through Savills for £25 million ($33.9 million, €28.4 million or درهم125 million) – Formerly owned by now jailed fraudster Achilleas Kallakis and also by Jonathan Hart, Lord Tanlow, the Hon. Michael Astor, Dora and Mary de Beer and Henry Luttrell.
    A drawing of the proposed redevelopment

  • Flying a White Elephant

    Flying a White Elephant

    Orange County mega-estate sold last for £14 million on an original asking price of £67 million offered for sale again for £43 million after death of owner

     

    The largest residential estate on the Newport Coast of California is back on the market. One Pelican Hill Road North in Newport Beach – alternatively known as ‘Villa Del Lago’ or ‘Villa of the Lake’ – is a property with an extraordinary past and though listed on construction for £67 million in 2009, eventually sold at a fire auction in 2012 for just £14 million. Its subsequent owner, a Japanese industrialist and publisher, death has now resulted in it being placed for sale again and this time £43 million is sought.

     

    Situated on a plot of 12.47 acres and comprising 17,706 square foot of ‘Italianate-style’ accommodation, One Pelican Hill Road North was last marketed as having 8 bedrooms and 17 bathrooms. On a new, dedicated marketing page for it, it is now being promoted as having, amongst other things, 2 screening rooms, a china/silver room, an “indoor lap pool with fibre optic twinkling star ceiling”, a 14-car garage and a “wine cave”. Outside, there is a “cascading private lake”, stabling, a riding ring, a putting green, an “organic edible garden” and potential for a vineyard.

     

    Jeffrey Janger and Linda Janger of Pace Properties have the listing currently but given another agent, Michael Gosselin of Surterre Properties, previously commented: “Newport Coast has yet to see any homes sell for more than $20 million (£15.5 million)”, it’ll be likely there’ll be a few price cuts yet.

     

    One Pelican Hill Road North – The Extraordinary Numbers

     

    2003 – Land purchased for $3.2 million by Monarch Estates. Subsequent construction loans total $27.3 million.

     

    February 2009 – Completed house placed for sale for sale for $87 million by a realtor named John McMonigle, the managing member of a partnership developing the project.

     

    May 2010 – Price reduced to $57 million.

     

    January 2011 – Three offers received, all were below $37 million and not accepted.

     

    April 2012 – Offered at a court-sanctioned auction with “no opening bid sought”. Sold for $18.5 million to Toshiaki Ogasawara, an industrialist and publisher of the Japan Times.

     

    January 2017 – Placed on the market after Ogasawara’s death in December 2016 for $55 million.

     

    Flying a White Elephant – One Pelican Hill Road North, Newport Coast, Newport Beach, Orange County, California, CA 92657 – Once listed at £67 million and sold for £14 million. Now for sale again for £43 million after death of owner Toshiaki Ogasawara – Offered by Pace Properties. Flying a White Elephant – One Pelican Hill Road North, Newport Coast, Newport Beach, Orange County, California, CA 92657 – Once listed at £67 million and sold for £14 million. Now for sale again for £43 million after death of owner Toshiaki Ogasawara – Offered by Pace Properties.Flying a White Elephant – One Pelican Hill Road North, Newport Coast, Newport Beach, Orange County, California, CA 92657 – Once listed at £67 million and sold for £14 million. Now for sale again for £43 million after death of owner Toshiaki Ogasawara – Offered by Pace Properties. Flying a White Elephant – One Pelican Hill Road North, Newport Coast, Newport Beach, Orange County, California, CA 92657 – Once listed at £67 million and sold for £14 million. Now for sale again for £43 million after death of owner Toshiaki Ogasawara – Offered by Pace Properties.Flying a White Elephant – One Pelican Hill Road North, Newport Coast, Newport Beach, Orange County, California, CA 92657 – Once listed at £67 million and sold for £14 million. Now for sale again for £43 million after death of owner Toshiaki Ogasawara – Offered by Pace Properties.Flying a White Elephant – One Pelican Hill Road North, Newport Coast, Newport Beach, Orange County, California, CA 92657 – Once listed at £67 million and sold for £14 million. Now for sale again for £43 million after death of owner Toshiaki Ogasawara – Offered by Pace Properties. Flying a White Elephant – One Pelican Hill Road North, Newport Coast, Newport Beach, Orange County, California, CA 92657 – Once listed at £67 million and sold for £14 million. Now for sale again for £43 million after death of owner Toshiaki Ogasawara – Offered by Pace Properties. Flying a White Elephant – One Pelican Hill Road North, Newport Coast, Newport Beach, Orange County, California, CA 92657 – Once listed at £67 million and sold for £14 million. Now for sale again for £43 million after death of owner Toshiaki Ogasawara – Offered by Pace Properties. Flying a White Elephant – One Pelican Hill Road North, Newport Coast, Newport Beach, Orange County, California, CA 92657 – Once listed at £67 million and sold for £14 million. Now for sale again for £43 million after death of owner Toshiaki Ogasawara – Offered by Pace Properties.Flying a White Elephant – One Pelican Hill Road North, Newport Coast, Newport Beach, Orange County, California, CA 92657 – Once listed at £67 million and sold for £14 million. Now for sale again for £43 million after death of owner Toshiaki Ogasawara – Offered by Pace Properties. Flying a White Elephant – One Pelican Hill Road North, Newport Coast, Newport Beach, Orange County, California, CA 92657 – Once listed at £67 million and sold for £14 million. Now for sale again for £43 million after death of owner Toshiaki Ogasawara – Offered by Pace Properties.Flying a White Elephant – One Pelican Hill Road North, Newport Coast, Newport Beach, Orange County, California, CA 92657 – Once listed at £67 million and sold for £14 million. Now for sale again for £43 million after death of owner Toshiaki Ogasawara – Offered by Pace Properties. Flying a White Elephant – One Pelican Hill Road North, Newport Coast, Newport Beach, Orange County, California, CA 92657 – Once listed at £67 million and sold for £14 million. Now for sale again for £43 million after death of owner Toshiaki Ogasawara – Offered by Pace Properties.Flying a White Elephant – One Pelican Hill Road North, Newport Coast, Newport Beach, Orange County, California, CA 92657 – Once listed at £67 million and sold for £14 million. Now for sale again for £43 million after death of owner Toshiaki Ogasawara – Offered by Pace Properties.Flying a White Elephant – One Pelican Hill Road North, Newport Coast, Newport Beach, Orange County, California, CA 92657 – Once listed at £67 million and sold for £14 million. Now for sale again for £43 million after death of owner Toshiaki Ogasawara – Offered by Pace Properties.Flying a White Elephant – One Pelican Hill Road North, Newport Coast, Newport Beach, Orange County, California, CA 92657 – Once listed at £67 million and sold for £14 million. Now for sale again for £43 million after death of owner Toshiaki Ogasawara – Offered by Pace Properties.

  • A Peaceful Reduction

    A Peaceful Reduction

    Designer Reed Krakoff slashes the price of his Hamptons mansion; Jackie Kennedy Onassis spent her childhood summers there

     

    A Hamptons mansion named Lasata – meaning: “Place of Peace” in Native American – where Jacqueline Bouvier (later Kennedy and later Kennedy Onassis) spent her childhood summers has recently been reduced in price from £41.5 million to £36.1 million.

     

    A Peaceful Reduction – 121 Further Lane, East Hampton, New York, NY 11937, United States of America – For sale through Knight Frank for a reduced price of £36.1 million ($47 million, €40.4 million or درهم172.6 million) – Childhood summer home of Jackie Kennedy Onassis and currently owned by Reed Krakoff and his wife Delphine.
    121 Further Lane, East Hampton, New York, NY 11937, United States of America

    A Peaceful Reduction – 121 Further Lane, East Hampton, New York, NY 11937, United States of America – For sale through Knight Frank for a reduced price of £36.1 million ($47 million, €40.4 million or درهم172.6 million) – Childhood summer home of Jackie Kennedy Onassis and currently owned by Reed Krakoff and his wife Delphine.
    Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis (1929 – 1994)

    A Peaceful Reduction – 121 Further Lane, East Hampton, New York, NY 11937, United States of America – For sale through Knight Frank for a reduced price of £36.1 million ($47 million, €40.4 million or درهم172.6 million) – Childhood summer home of Jackie Kennedy Onassis and currently owned by Reed Krakoff and his wife Delphine.
    Reed and Delphine Krakoff – Mr Krakoff was at one time tipped as “the next Tom Ford” but reportedly “walked away” from his eponymous brand after supposed differences of vision for it with investors

     

    Alternatively and more simply known as 121 Further Lane, the property concerned is situated in East Hampton and currently owned by the fashion designer Reed Krakoff and his wife Delphine. It extends to 8,500 square foot and includes 10 bedrooms and 10 bathrooms and stands on a plot of 11.54 acres.

     

    Two blocks from the Atlantic Ocean and three blocks from the Maidstone Club, Lasata was built in 1917 to the designs of Arthur Jackson and bought by Jackie Bouvier’s paternal grandfather, John Vernou Bouvier Jr. (AKA ‘The Major’), in 1935. The future President’s wife is said to have learnt to ride there and aged ten, wrote a poem about her time at the estate:

     

    When I go down to the sandy shore

    I can think of nothing I want more

    Than to live by the booming blue sea

    As the seagulls flutter around about me

    I can run about when the tide is out

    With the wind and the sea all about

    And the seagulls are swirling and diving for fish

    Oh-to live by the sea is my only wish

     

    The Arts and Crafts style property was subsequently sold and most recently bought by Mr and Mrs Krakoff for £15.3 million in 2007. The pair – whose other homes have variously included residences in Paris, New York’s Upper East Side and the former New Canaan, Connecticut residence of the eccentric recluse Huguette Clark – carried out extensive renovations and are said to be selling in order to move to a more contemporary beachfront Hamptons property.

     

    Available as a whole or in two lots, Lasata is offered by Knight Frank.

     

    121 Further Lane – The Numbers

     

    April 2007 – Sold for £15.3 million ($20 million, €17.2 million or درهم73.5 million).

     

    September 2016 – Listed for £41.47 million ($53.99 million, €46.44 million or درهم198.32 million).

     

    May 2017 – Relisted for £39.9 million ($51.99 million, €44.72 million or درهم190.97 million).

     

    June 2017 – Reduced to £36.1 million ($47 million, €40.4 million or درهم172.6 million).

     

    A Peaceful Reduction – 121 Further Lane, East Hampton, New York, NY 11937, United States of America – For sale through Knight Frank for a reduced price of £36.1 million ($47 million, €40.4 million or درهم172.6 million) – Childhood summer home of Jackie Kennedy Onassis and currently owned by Reed Krakoff and his wife Delphine.A Peaceful Reduction – 121 Further Lane, East Hampton, New York, NY 11937, United States of America – For sale through Knight Frank for a reduced price of £36.1 million ($47 million, €40.4 million or درهم172.6 million) – Childhood summer home of Jackie Kennedy Onassis and currently owned by Reed Krakoff and his wife Delphine.A Peaceful Reduction – 121 Further Lane, East Hampton, New York, NY 11937, United States of America – For sale through Knight Frank for a reduced price of £36.1 million ($47 million, €40.4 million or درهم172.6 million) – Childhood summer home of Jackie Kennedy Onassis and currently owned by Reed Krakoff and his wife Delphine.A Peaceful Reduction – 121 Further Lane, East Hampton, New York, NY 11937, United States of America – For sale through Knight Frank for a reduced price of £36.1 million ($47 million, €40.4 million or درهم172.6 million) – Childhood summer home of Jackie Kennedy Onassis and currently owned by Reed Krakoff and his wife Delphine. A Peaceful Reduction – 121 Further Lane, East Hampton, New York, NY 11937, United States of America – For sale through Knight Frank for a reduced price of £36.1 million ($47 million, €40.4 million or درهم172.6 million) – Childhood summer home of Jackie Kennedy Onassis and currently owned by Reed Krakoff and his wife Delphine.A Peaceful Reduction – 121 Further Lane, East Hampton, New York, NY 11937, United States of America – For sale through Knight Frank for a reduced price of £36.1 million ($47 million, €40.4 million or درهم172.6 million) – Childhood summer home of Jackie Kennedy Onassis and currently owned by Reed Krakoff and his wife Delphine.A Peaceful Reduction – 121 Further Lane, East Hampton, New York, NY 11937, United States of America – For sale through Knight Frank for a reduced price of £36.1 million ($47 million, €40.4 million or درهم172.6 million) – Childhood summer home of Jackie Kennedy Onassis and currently owned by Reed Krakoff and his wife Delphine.A Peaceful Reduction – 121 Further Lane, East Hampton, New York, NY 11937, United States of America – For sale through Knight Frank for a reduced price of £36.1 million ($47 million, €40.4 million or درهم172.6 million) – Childhood summer home of Jackie Kennedy Onassis and currently owned by Reed Krakoff and his wife Delphine. A Peaceful Reduction – 121 Further Lane, East Hampton, New York, NY 11937, United States of America – For sale through Knight Frank for a reduced price of £36.1 million ($47 million, €40.4 million or درهم172.6 million) – Childhood summer home of Jackie Kennedy Onassis and currently owned by Reed Krakoff and his wife Delphine.A Peaceful Reduction – 121 Further Lane, East Hampton, New York, NY 11937, United States of America – For sale through Knight Frank for a reduced price of £36.1 million ($47 million, €40.4 million or درهم172.6 million) – Childhood summer home of Jackie Kennedy Onassis and currently owned by Reed Krakoff and his wife Delphine.A Peaceful Reduction – 121 Further Lane, East Hampton, New York, NY 11937, United States of America – For sale through Knight Frank for a reduced price of £36.1 million ($47 million, €40.4 million or درهم172.6 million) – Childhood summer home of Jackie Kennedy Onassis and currently owned by Reed Krakoff and his wife Delphine.A Peaceful Reduction – 121 Further Lane, East Hampton, New York, NY 11937, United States of America – For sale through Knight Frank for a reduced price of £36.1 million ($47 million, €40.4 million or درهم172.6 million) – Childhood summer home of Jackie Kennedy Onassis and currently owned by Reed Krakoff and his wife Delphine.A Peaceful Reduction – 121 Further Lane, East Hampton, New York, NY 11937, United States of America – For sale through Knight Frank for a reduced price of £36.1 million ($47 million, €40.4 million or درهم172.6 million) – Childhood summer home of Jackie Kennedy Onassis and currently owned by Reed Krakoff and his wife Delphine.

  • Living Large

    New Jersey mansion, complete with 58 rooms, for sale for equivalent sum to what it cost to build in 1909; the £37 million house’s original owner was a man whose extravagance knew absolutely no bounds

     

    George Crocker (1856 – 1909) makes F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Jay Gatsby seem like an amateur. Born in Sacramento and the son of a railway magnate worth some $30 million on his death (the equivalent of £634 million or $812 million today), Crocker was willed a significant $6 million (the equivalent of £127 million or $163 million today) on the condition that “after the space of five years continuously he shall abstain from the use of spirituous, vinous, and malt liquors to the extent that he shall not during this period have been intoxicated”.

     

    Crocker decided to ignore the terms of his father’s behest and from 1888 to 1891 lived in San Francisco as “one of the most reckless young men about town when reckless young men thereabouts were common” but then admitted himself to a sanatorium, put himself on the straight and narrow and finally collected the sum of $6 million in 1898.

     

    With wealth and a glamorous wife, Emma Rutherford, a widow from California, Crocker set himself up as the toast of New York society. Though he owned a townhouse at 1 East 64th Street and a villa in Newport, it was on paying $96,500 (the equivalent of £2.2 million or $2.8 million today) for the 1,100 acre Darling estate in Bergen County, Mahwah, New Jersey in 1901 that he truly became someone noticeable.

     

    Choosing what he called “the finest site for a residence in the country”, Crocker commissioned an architect named James Brite (died 1942) to build him a mansion “sparing no expense”. Modeled on a Jacobean prodigy house, Bramshill House in Hampshire, England and built from Indiana limestone and Harvard brick, the “Crocker Mansion” or “Darlington” – as it is more widely known – cost $2 million to build (the equivalent of £38.2 million or $49 million today) and included 75 rooms and around 50,000 square foot of accommodation. Its features included steam heating, elevators, ice cream freezers, integrated vacuum systems and a switchboard and in its grounds a racetrack and 16 greenhouses were constructed whilst a pond was stocked with 4,000 trout.

     

    Living Large – Crocker Mansion or Darlington, Mahwah, Bergen County, New Jersey, NJ 07430, United States of America – Built by George Crocker and currently owned by Ilija Pavlovic – For sale for £37.4 million ($48 million, €44.7 million or درهم176.3 million) through Special Properties Real Estate Services – an affiliate of Christie’s International Real Estate
    George Crocker and Emerson McMillin

    Living Large – Crocker Mansion or Darlington, Mahwah, Bergen County, New Jersey, NJ 07430, United States of America – Built by George Crocker and currently owned by Ilija Pavlovic – For sale for £37.4 million ($48 million, €44.7 million or درهم176.3 million) through Special Properties Real Estate Services – an affiliate of Christie’s International Real Estate

    Living Large – Crocker Mansion or Darlington, Mahwah, Bergen County, New Jersey, NJ 07430, United States of America – Built by George Crocker and currently owned by Ilija Pavlovic – For sale for £37.4 million ($48 million, €44.7 million or درهم176.3 million) through Special Properties Real Estate Services – an affiliate of Christie’s International Real Estate
    The design of Darlington was based on “one of the most haunted houses in England”, Bramshill in Hampshire; that building itself was also eventually separated from much of its estate and after being used as the European Police College was sold to developers City & Country for £25 million ($19.5 million) in 2014

     

    Commentators wowed at the resulting creation and noted details such as a library painted after the style of the Italian Renaissance by Tiffany Studios, elaborate wood carving by Italian craftsmen and Tiffany silver chandeliers and a 1906 Aeolian player pipe organ in the building’s 30-foot high Great Hall. In 1912, Architectural Record, chose even to swoon over the basement. They remarked:

     

    “Where Bramshill’s cellar housed for centuries lanterns, tallow dips, forest faggots, wooden vessels for the distribution of light, heat and water through personal service of human slaveys, its American reincarnation is a storehouse of miracle workers in the comfort and luxury of modern domestic life”.

     

    Unfortunately, Mr and Mrs Crocker did not truly get to enjoy the fruits of their extravagant spending. Emma Crocker died in 1904 of cancer and George Crocker also succumbed to the disease in 1909. His estate was valued at $20 million (the equivalent of £422 million or $541 million today) and amongst items found at his mansion were 60,000 personally monogrammed, custom-made cigars valued at $30,000 (the equivalent of £635,000 or $813,000 today).

     

    Sold subsequently to a “self-made” banker, industrialist and astronomy enthusiast named Emerson McMillin (1844 – 1922) in 1909 for $1 million (the equivalent of £21.1 million or $27.1 million), Darlington was next used to display a fine collection of Chinese and Japanese porcelain whilst a herd of Jerseys were kept in the grounds.

     

    After McMillin’s death, his widow sold the estate in 1924 for $685,000 (the equivalent of £7.6 million or $9.8 million) to the Darlington Development Company, which in turn made it available to the Darling Golf and Country Club. They converted the building to a hotel and club that “promised to offer a new dimension to life in Mahwah” but “the development corporation and the club were soon in financial difficulties” and the McMillin estate foreclosed and regained possession.

     

    A new buyer came forward in the form of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Newark. They paid $478,000 for the property in 1926 (the equivalent of £5.2 million or $6.6 million today) and used Darlington as a theological seminary. The surrounding land was gradually sold off and in 1986, the Immaculate Conception Seminary also departed.

     

    Living Large – Crocker Mansion or Darlington, Mahwah, Bergen County, New Jersey, NJ 07430, United States of America – Built by George Crocker and currently owned by Ilija Pavlovic – For sale for £37.4 million ($48 million, €44.7 million or درهم176.3 million) through Special Properties Real Estate Services – an affiliate of Christie’s International Real Estate
    Darlington today – The 30-foot high Great Hall is still dominated by a 1906 Aeolian player pipe organ

    Living Large – Crocker Mansion or Darlington, Mahwah, Bergen County, New Jersey, NJ 07430, United States of America – Built by George Crocker and currently owned by Ilija Pavlovic – For sale for £37.4 million ($48 million, €44.7 million or درهم176.3 million) through Special Properties Real Estate Services – an affiliate of Christie’s International Real Estate
    Darlington today – Ilija Pavlovic expanded the mansion by some 12,000 square foot and amongst other things added a large home cinema

    Living Large – Crocker Mansion or Darlington, Mahwah, Bergen County, New Jersey, NJ 07430, United States of America – Built by George Crocker and currently owned by Ilija Pavlovic – For sale for £37.4 million ($48 million, €44.7 million or درهم176.3 million) through Special Properties Real Estate Services – an affiliate of Christie’s International Real Estate
    Darlington today – Another addition comes in the form of a vast wine cellar; George Crocker’s father would not have approved

     

    Subsequently restored and modernised with, according to Forbes, plumbing, heating, air conditioning and communications systems being installed, Darlington was placed on the market with just 12.1 acres in 2005 by Darlington Associates, a firm who’d built “multiple residential communities surrounding the mansion”. An ambitious figure of $25 million (the equivalent of £24.4 million or $31.3 million today) was sought for the now classified historic site but it was not until 2008 that a buyer came forth in the form of a local businessman named Ilija Pavlovic. He paid just $8.875 million (the equivalent of £8 million or $10.2 million today) and then embarked on the “challenge” of “both preserving the historic home while also restoring it to meet 21st-century standards”. The resulting creation spans four floors and includes amongst many other things a tea room, 3 libraries, 2 game rooms, 2 kitchens, a “his and her master bedroom wing”, 12 further guest bedrooms and 5 staff bedrooms.

     

    The biggest issue with the house, it transpired, was that its 476 leaded windows needed to be replaced. This reportedly cost $2 million alone (the equivalent of £1.8 million or $2.3 million today) and in addition, Pavlovic renewed all the mechanical systems, redid all 19 bathrooms, replaced the slate roof and added amongst other things a spa with an indoor lap pool, a gym, a massage room, a beauty salon and a home cinema. There is also a gatehouse, a professional kitchen that can serve 250 meals at a time, a wine cellar, a poker room, a cigar room, a billiards room, an 8-car garage, a tennis court and an outdoor swimming pool.

     

    Property blog 6sqft – which claimed Friday that the current owners do not live at Darlington full-time and simply use it to host events – reported that this still massive mansion minus its formerly equally gigantic estate is now for sale now for £37.4 million ($48 million, €44.7 million or درهم176.3 million) through a firm Mr Pavlovic chairs, Special Properties Real Estate Services – an affiliate of Christie’s International Real Estate. Any buyer will undoubtedly be a vastly wealthy figure, but one can guarantee one thing: They’ll never live as lavishly as the barmy boozer George Crocker.

     

    Living Large – Crocker Mansion or Darlington, Mahwah, Bergen County, New Jersey, NJ 07430, United States of America – Built by George Crocker and currently owned by Ilija Pavlovic – For sale for £37.4 million ($48 million, €44.7 million or درهم176.3 million) through Special Properties Real Estate Services – an affiliate of Christie’s International Real EstateLiving Large – Crocker Mansion or Darlington, Mahwah, Bergen County, New Jersey, NJ 07430, United States of America – Built by George Crocker and currently owned by Ilija Pavlovic – For sale for £37.4 million ($48 million, €44.7 million or درهم176.3 million) through Special Properties Real Estate Services – an affiliate of Christie’s International Real EstateLiving Large – Crocker Mansion or Darlington, Mahwah, Bergen County, New Jersey, NJ 07430, United States of America – Built by George Crocker and currently owned by Ilija Pavlovic – For sale for £37.4 million ($48 million, €44.7 million or درهم176.3 million) through Special Properties Real Estate Services – an affiliate of Christie’s International Real EstateLiving Large – Crocker Mansion or Darlington, Mahwah, Bergen County, New Jersey, NJ 07430, United States of America – Built by George Crocker and currently owned by Ilija Pavlovic – For sale for £37.4 million ($48 million, €44.7 million or درهم176.3 million) through Special Properties Real Estate Services – an affiliate of Christie’s International Real EstateLiving Large – Crocker Mansion or Darlington, Mahwah, Bergen County, New Jersey, NJ 07430, United States of America – Built by George Crocker and currently owned by Ilija Pavlovic – For sale for £37.4 million ($48 million, €44.7 million or درهم176.3 million) through Special Properties Real Estate Services – an affiliate of Christie’s International Real Estate Living Large – Crocker Mansion or Darlington, Mahwah, Bergen County, New Jersey, NJ 07430, United States of America – Built by George Crocker and currently owned by Ilija Pavlovic – For sale for £37.4 million ($48 million, €44.7 million or درهم176.3 million) through Special Properties Real Estate Services – an affiliate of Christie’s International Real EstateLiving Large – Crocker Mansion or Darlington, Mahwah, Bergen County, New Jersey, NJ 07430, United States of America – Built by George Crocker and currently owned by Ilija Pavlovic – For sale for £37.4 million ($48 million, €44.7 million or درهم176.3 million) through Special Properties Real Estate Services – an affiliate of Christie’s International Real EstateLiving Large – Crocker Mansion or Darlington, Mahwah, Bergen County, New Jersey, NJ 07430, United States of America – Built by George Crocker and currently owned by Ilija Pavlovic – For sale for £37.4 million ($48 million, €44.7 million or درهم176.3 million) through Special Properties Real Estate Services – an affiliate of Christie’s International Real EstateLiving Large – Crocker Mansion or Darlington, Mahwah, Bergen County, New Jersey, NJ 07430, United States of America – Built by George Crocker and currently owned by Ilija Pavlovic – For sale for £37.4 million ($48 million, €44.7 million or درهم176.3 million) through Special Properties Real Estate Services – an affiliate of Christie’s International Real Estate Living Large – Crocker Mansion or Darlington, Mahwah, Bergen County, New Jersey, NJ 07430, United States of America – Built by George Crocker and currently owned by Ilija Pavlovic – For sale for £37.4 million ($48 million, €44.7 million or درهم176.3 million) through Special Properties Real Estate Services – an affiliate of Christie’s International Real EstateLiving Large – Crocker Mansion or Darlington, Mahwah, Bergen County, New Jersey, NJ 07430, United States of America – Built by George Crocker and currently owned by Ilija Pavlovic – For sale for £37.4 million ($48 million, €44.7 million or درهم176.3 million) through Special Properties Real Estate Services – an affiliate of Christie’s International Real EstateLiving Large – Crocker Mansion or Darlington, Mahwah, Bergen County, New Jersey, NJ 07430, United States of America – Built by George Crocker and currently owned by Ilija Pavlovic – For sale for £37.4 million ($48 million, €44.7 million or درهم176.3 million) through Special Properties Real Estate Services – an affiliate of Christie’s International Real Estate Living Large – Crocker Mansion or Darlington, Mahwah, Bergen County, New Jersey, NJ 07430, United States of America – Built by George Crocker and currently owned by Ilija Pavlovic – For sale for £37.4 million ($48 million, €44.7 million or درهم176.3 million) through Special Properties Real Estate Services – an affiliate of Christie’s International Real EstateLiving Large – Crocker Mansion or Darlington, Mahwah, Bergen County, New Jersey, NJ 07430, United States of America – Built by George Crocker and currently owned by Ilija Pavlovic – For sale for £37.4 million ($48 million, €44.7 million or درهم176.3 million) through Special Properties Real Estate Services – an affiliate of Christie’s International Real EstateLiving Large – Crocker Mansion or Darlington, Mahwah, Bergen County, New Jersey, NJ 07430, United States of America – Built by George Crocker and currently owned by Ilija Pavlovic – For sale for £37.4 million ($48 million, €44.7 million or درهم176.3 million) through Special Properties Real Estate Services – an affiliate of Christie’s International Real EstateLiving Large – Crocker Mansion or Darlington, Mahwah, Bergen County, New Jersey, NJ 07430, United States of America – Built by George Crocker and currently owned by Ilija Pavlovic – For sale for £37.4 million ($48 million, €44.7 million or درهم176.3 million) through Special Properties Real Estate Services – an affiliate of Christie’s International Real EstateLiving Large – Crocker Mansion or Darlington, Mahwah, Bergen County, New Jersey, NJ 07430, United States of America – Built by George Crocker and currently owned by Ilija Pavlovic – For sale for £37.4 million ($48 million, €44.7 million or درهم176.3 million) through Special Properties Real Estate Services – an affiliate of Christie’s International Real EstateLiving Large – Crocker Mansion or Darlington, Mahwah, Bergen County, New Jersey, NJ 07430, United States of America – Built by George Crocker and currently owned by Ilija Pavlovic – For sale for £37.4 million ($48 million, €44.7 million or درهم176.3 million) through Special Properties Real Estate Services – an affiliate of Christie’s International Real Estate

  • Living Large

    Living Large

    New Jersey mansion Darlington, complete with 58 rooms, for sale for equivalent sum to what it cost to build in 1909; the £37 million house’s original owner was a man whose extravagance knew absolutely no bounds

    George Crocker (1856 – 1909) makes F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Jay Gatsby seem like an amateur. Born in Sacramento and the son of a railway magnate worth some $30 million on his death (the equivalent of £634 million or $812 million today), Crocker was willed a significant $6 million (the equivalent of £127 million or $163 million today) on the condition that “after the space of five years continuously he shall abstain from the use of spirituous, vinous, and malt liquors to the extent that he shall not during this period have been intoxicated”.

     

    Crocker decided to ignore the terms of his father’s behest and from 1888 to 1891 lived in San Francisco as “one of the most reckless young men about town when reckless young men thereabouts were common” but then admitted himself to a sanatorium, put himself on the straight and narrow and finally collected the sum of $6 million in 1898.

     

    With wealth and a glamorous wife, Emma Rutherford, a widow from California, Crocker set himself up as the toast of New York society. Though he owned a townhouse at 1 East 64th Street and a villa in Newport, it was on paying $96,500 (the equivalent of £2.2 million or $2.8 million today) for the 1,100 acre Darling estate in Bergen County, Mahwah, New Jersey in 1901 that he truly became someone noticeable.

     

    Choosing what he called “the finest site for a residence in the country”, Crocker commissioned an architect named James Brite (died 1942) to build him a mansion “sparing no expense”. Modeled on a Jacobean prodigy house, Bramshill House in Hampshire, England and built from Indiana limestone and Harvard brick, the “Crocker Mansion” or “Darlington” – as it is more widely known – cost $2 million to build (the equivalent of £38.2 million or $49 million today) and included 75 rooms and around 50,000 square foot of accommodation. Its features included steam heating, elevators, ice cream freezers, integrated vacuum systems and a switchboard and in its grounds a racetrack and 16 greenhouses were constructed whilst a pond was stocked with 4,000 trout.

     

    Living Large – Crocker Mansion or Darlington, Mahwah, Bergen County, New Jersey, NJ 07430, United States of America – Built by George Crocker and currently owned by Ilija Pavlovic – For sale for £37.4 million ($48 million, €44.7 million or درهم176.3 million) through Special Properties Real Estate Services – an affiliate of Christie’s International Real Estate
    George Crocker and Emerson McMillin

    Living Large – Crocker Mansion or Darlington, Mahwah, Bergen County, New Jersey, NJ 07430, United States of America – Built by George Crocker and currently owned by Ilija Pavlovic – For sale for £37.4 million ($48 million, €44.7 million or درهم176.3 million) through Special Properties Real Estate Services – an affiliate of Christie’s International Real Estate

    Living Large – Crocker Mansion or Darlington, Mahwah, Bergen County, New Jersey, NJ 07430, United States of America – Built by George Crocker and currently owned by Ilija Pavlovic – For sale for £37.4 million ($48 million, €44.7 million or درهم176.3 million) through Special Properties Real Estate Services – an affiliate of Christie’s International Real Estate
    The design of Darlington was based on “one of the most haunted houses in England”, Bramshill in Hampshire; that building itself was also eventually separated from much of its estate and after being used as the European Police College was sold to developers City & Country for £25 million ($19.5 million) in 2014

    Commentators wowed at the resulting creation and noted details such as a library painted after the style of the Italian Renaissance by Tiffany Studios, elaborate wood carving by Italian craftsmen and Tiffany silver chandeliers and a 1906 Aeolian player pipe organ in the building’s 30-foot high Great Hall. In 1912, Architectural Record, chose even to swoon over the basement. They remarked:

     

    “Where Bramshill’s cellar housed for centuries lanterns, tallow dips, forest faggots, wooden vessels for the distribution of light, heat and water through personal service of human slaveys, its American reincarnation is a storehouse of miracle workers in the comfort and luxury of modern domestic life”.

     

    Unfortunately, Mr and Mrs Crocker did not truly get to enjoy the fruits of their extravagant spending. Emma Crocker died in 1904 of cancer and George Crocker also succumbed to the disease in 1909. His estate was valued at $20 million (the equivalent of £422 million or $541 million today) and amongst items found at his mansion were 60,000 personally monogrammed, custom-made cigars valued at $30,000 (the equivalent of £635,000 or $813,000 today).

     

    Sold subsequently to a “self-made” banker, industrialist and astronomy enthusiast named Emerson McMillin (1844 – 1922) in 1909 for $1 million (the equivalent of £21.1 million or $27.1 million), Darlington was next used to display a fine collection of Chinese and Japanese porcelain whilst a herd of Jerseys were kept in the grounds.

     

    After McMillin’s death, his widow sold the estate in 1924 for $685,000 (the equivalent of £7.6 million or $9.8 million) to the Darlington Development Company, which in turn made it available to the Darling Golf and Country Club. They converted the building to a hotel and club that “promised to offer a new dimension to life in Mahwah” but “the development corporation and the club were soon in financial difficulties” and the McMillin estate foreclosed and regained possession.

     

    A new buyer came forward in the form of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Newark. They paid $478,000 for the property in 1926 (the equivalent of £5.2 million or $6.6 million today) and used Darlington as a theological seminary. The surrounding land was gradually sold off and in 1986, the Immaculate Conception Seminary also departed.

     

    Living Large – Crocker Mansion or Darlington, Mahwah, Bergen County, New Jersey, NJ 07430, United States of America – Built by George Crocker and currently owned by Ilija Pavlovic – For sale for £37.4 million ($48 million, €44.7 million or درهم176.3 million) through Special Properties Real Estate Services – an affiliate of Christie’s International Real Estate
    Darlington today – The 30-foot high Great Hall is still dominated by a 1906 Aeolian player pipe organ

     

    Living Large – Crocker Mansion or Darlington, Mahwah, Bergen County, New Jersey, NJ 07430, United States of America – Built by George Crocker and currently owned by Ilija Pavlovic – For sale for £37.4 million ($48 million, €44.7 million or درهم176.3 million) through Special Properties Real Estate Services – an affiliate of Christie’s International Real Estate
    Darlington today – Ilija Pavlovic expanded the mansion by some 12,000 square foot and amongst other things added a large home cinema

     

    Living Large – Crocker Mansion or Darlington, Mahwah, Bergen County, New Jersey, NJ 07430, United States of America – Built by George Crocker and currently owned by Ilija Pavlovic – For sale for £37.4 million ($48 million, €44.7 million or درهم176.3 million) through Special Properties Real Estate Services – an affiliate of Christie’s International Real Estate
    Darlington today – Another addition comes in the form of a vast wine cellar; George Crocker’s father would not have approved

    Subsequently restored and modernised with, according to Forbes, plumbing, heating, air conditioning and communications systems being installed, Darlington was placed on the market with just 12.1 acres in 2005 by Darlington Associates, a firm who’d built “multiple residential communities surrounding the mansion”.

     

    An ambitious figure of $25 million (the equivalent of £24.4 million or $31.3 million today) was sought for the now classified historic site but it was not until 2008 that a buyer came forth in the form of a local businessman named Ilija Pavlovic. He paid just $8.875 million (the equivalent of £8 million or $10.2 million today) and then embarked on the “challenge” of “both preserving the historic home while also restoring it to meet 21st-century standards”. The resulting creation spans four floors and includes amongst many other things a tea room, 3 libraries, 2 game rooms, 2 kitchens, a “his and her master bedroom wing”, 12 further guest bedrooms and 5 staff bedrooms.

     

    The biggest issue with the house, it transpired, was that its 476 leaded windows needed to be replaced. This reportedly cost $2 million alone (the equivalent of £1.8 million or $2.3 million today) and in addition, Pavlovic renewed all the mechanical systems, redid all 19 bathrooms, replaced the slate roof and added amongst other things a spa with an indoor lap pool, a gym, a massage room, a beauty salon and a home cinema. There is also a gatehouse, a professional kitchen that can serve 250 meals at a time, a wine cellar, a poker room, a cigar room, a billiards room, an 8-car garage, a tennis court and an outdoor swimming pool.

     

    Property blog 6sqft – which claimed Friday that the current owners do not live at Darlington full-time and simply use it to host events – reported that this still massive mansion minus its formerly equally gigantic estate is now for sale now for £37.4 million ($48 million, €44.7 million or درهم176.3 million) through a firm Mr Pavlovic chairs, Special Properties Real Estate Services – an affiliate of Christie’s International Real Estate. Any buyer will undoubtedly be a vastly wealthy figure, but one can guarantee one thing: They’ll never live as lavishly as the barmy boozer George Crocker.

     

    Living Large – Crocker Mansion or Darlington, Mahwah, Bergen County, New Jersey, NJ 07430, United States of America – Built by George Crocker and currently owned by Ilija Pavlovic – For sale for £37.4 million ($48 million, €44.7 million or درهم176.3 million) through Special Properties Real Estate Services – an affiliate of Christie’s International Real EstateLiving Large – Crocker Mansion or Darlington, Mahwah, Bergen County, New Jersey, NJ 07430, United States of America – Built by George Crocker and currently owned by Ilija Pavlovic – For sale for £37.4 million ($48 million, €44.7 million or درهم176.3 million) through Special Properties Real Estate Services – an affiliate of Christie’s International Real Estate Living Large – Crocker Mansion or Darlington, Mahwah, Bergen County, New Jersey, NJ 07430, United States of America – Built by George Crocker and currently owned by Ilija Pavlovic – For sale for £37.4 million ($48 million, €44.7 million or درهم176.3 million) through Special Properties Real Estate Services – an affiliate of Christie’s International Real Estate Living Large – Crocker Mansion or Darlington, Mahwah, Bergen County, New Jersey, NJ 07430, United States of America – Built by George Crocker and currently owned by Ilija Pavlovic – For sale for £37.4 million ($48 million, €44.7 million or درهم176.3 million) through Special Properties Real Estate Services – an affiliate of Christie’s International Real EstateLiving Large – Crocker Mansion or Darlington, Mahwah, Bergen County, New Jersey, NJ 07430, United States of America – Built by George Crocker and currently owned by Ilija Pavlovic – For sale for £37.4 million ($48 million, €44.7 million or درهم176.3 million) through Special Properties Real Estate Services – an affiliate of Christie’s International Real Estate