In a tweet this morning, witty wordsmith ‘Petsy’ was spot on when she suggested:
“Seems rather odd that Boris is proposing a lockdown for the over 50s, when that would mean locking himself down. After all, he is 57 years old, and obese.”
Wyatt is quite right: The Prime Minister’s proposal to lockdown over 50s is indeed beyond ludicrous. Instead, he should take action against the irresponsible millennials whom don’t social distance in bars in Brighton and the larger-than-life sorts whom bask on beaches in Bournemouth first.
Petronella Wyatt’s tweet condemned her former lover’s proposal to lockdown over 50s on Twitter on Monday 3rd August 2020.Boris Johnson and Petronella Wyatt pictured together at a party in the happier days when people could actually gather for such.
A witty ditty mocking Boris Johnson’s extra-marital activities.
Crumbling Northamptonshire estate Lilford Hall – where the little owl was introduced to Britain – for sale for £10 million, a sum £35 million lower than in 2014
Grade I listed Jacobean mansion with 13 chimney stacks for sale for £10 million; it was for sale last for £44.9 million in 2014 in spite of being listed on English Heritage’s ‘At Risk Register.’
Lilford Hall – parts of which have not been occupied since 1947 –is currently owned by a businessman who tried to sell burial plots in the grounds for £1,250 a pop and shares in a yacht loosely associated with Frank Sinatra for £23 each.
The 321-acre estate includes not only overgrown parkland, but also a zoo with cages that formerly housed bears and a lake for flamingos.
From 1711 until 1990, Lilford House was the seat of the Powys family – the 4th baron is credited with introducing the little owl to the UK.
More recently, in 1969, the “sexual mystic” artist Penny Slinger used the at-the-time derelict mansion in one of her best-known works.
A 32,406 square foot Grade I listed Jacobean mansion 82 miles from Central London has gone on sale for £10 million – or the equivalent of just £308 per square foot.
On this basis, Lilford Hall – set in 321 acres near Oundle – seems a comparative bargain when considered against the £4,786 per square foot sought for a Lennox Gardens, Knightsbridge triplex flatThe Steeple Times featured in May, but buyers need to remember this – parts of this crumbling building, most notably the major state rooms, have not been used since 1947.
Marketed last in 2014 for the even more punchy sum of £45 million, the “exceptional residential and amenity estate located on the River Nene,” is now offered by agents Savills. The “wonderfully proportioned” U-shaped mansion itself is constructed of grey limestone and includes over 100 rooms and amongst them are 7 “impressive” reception rooms, a ballroom, a ‘great chamber’ and 9 bedrooms. In addition, there are two Georgian pavilions that were formerly coach houses and stabling, three cottages, a former zoo, the oldest private softball court in the world, a former flamingo enclosure and a deer park.
“Impressiveness in the chief attribute of Lilford Hall as a specimen of architecture” claimed County Life in 1990 and as the seat of the Powys family from 1711 until 1990, it became not only a Downton Abbey-esque entertaining pad, but also housed nurses in the Second World War. Here, indeed, is an English country house that has seen lavishness and decline and thankfully here is an example that thankfully escaped the wrecking ball wrought so disgracefully on such houses in the 1950s and 1960s.
Fascinatingly in the 1880s, Thomas Powys, 4th Baron Lilford filled his aviaries on the estate with rheas, kiwis, pink-headed ducks, free-flying lammergeiers and it was from here that he also introduced the little owl into the UK. There are said to be around 5,700 breeding pairs today, but sadly, according to the RSPB, their numbers are now in decline.
More recently, in 1969, “sexually erotic” performance artist Penny Slinger took over the by then “derelict” mansion in conjunction with the filmmaker Peter Whitehead. Their resulting work, titled An Exorcism, was exhibited internationally and in 2004, after the current owners, Charles and Aziza Micklewright, acquired the house, they did something equally avant-garde; they attempted to sell burial plots in the grounds to Americans by citing the estate’s connections to the founder of the Brownists, Robert Browne – a man better known as ‘The Father of the Pilgrims’ and ‘The Grandfather of the Nation’ (of the United States of America).
Whilst Mr and Mrs Micklewright were lauded for their considerable efforts towards the “huge task” of restoring Lilford Hall, they came to the attention of Historic England in May 2019 when the building was listed on the At Risk Register. At that time, the Oundle Chronicle reported: “The roof covering is in poor condition leading to water ingress and distress to the upper storeys. The front bays require structural attention. A schedule of urgent repairs has been identified but not implemented, and no long-term solution has been agreed.”
Now, someone with very, very deep pockets is required to restore this gem. It would be helpful if they liked erotic art, bears, squash and owls also.
The Names & Numbers – The Lilford Hall Estate, Lilford, Oundle, Peterborough, Northamptonshire, PE8 5SG, United Kingdom
June 2020 – The estate is listed sale for £10 million ($12.5 million, €11.1 million or درهم46 million) through Savills. It includes 321.31 acres, of which 148.17 acres are pasture land whilst 157.48 acres are woodland. The majority of the estate is held on a freehold title, whilst the remaining 127.6 acres – known as ‘The Linches’ and ‘Lilford Woods’ – are held on a lease with 91 years remaining.
2015 – Promoted as ‘The National Memorial Gardens,’ burial plots in the gardens of the hall were offered “available to any UK resident or national for an outstanding price of only £1,250 ($1,568, €1,393 or درهم5,758)” by Mark Bailey of Harley Investments. Around the same time, a website dedicated to Lilford Hall marketed “a piece of the formal gardens” for sale for £299 ($375, €333 or درهم1,377) to include “an officially certified ‘Squire of Lilford’ [title] … with this little piece of history.”
March 2014 – The Irish Times reported that the asking price for the estate had been increased to £44.9 million ($56.3 million, €50 million or 206.8درهم million). They claimed the agents Coldwell Banker blamed “confusion over currency conversion rates and new instructions from the owner.”
April 2014 – The Lilford Hall Estate is listed for sale through Coldwell Banker on MyHome.ie for £33.7 million ($44.2 million, €37.5 million or درهم155 million) on behalf of “an English gentleman.”
2004 – The estate is acquired by the Micklewright family. Little information is available online about the Old Framlingham Charles Micklewright (born July 1958), but he is described as a “patent attorney” on Companies Houses pages. The businessman is mentioned also as a publisher and trustee of the Marsh Christian Trust elsewhere, whilst his Singaporean born wife, Aziza (born 1964), was a director of Lilford Properties Limited from 2013 to 2018.
A website operated by Sign of the Times Limited, a Hong Kong company of Lilford Hall, Lilford, Oundle, Northamptonshire, PE8 5SG, currently offers shares in a yacht named ‘Sinatra the Voice’ for £23.91 ($29.99, €26.64 or درهم110.14) per share. The boat was built in 1956 and is tenuously linked to Frank Sinatra by the fact that a one-time owner, Beale Poste, loaned it occasionally to the crooner between 1968 and 1974 in West Palm Beach, Florida.
1990 – The estate is closed to the public.
1980s – The house is used as a location in the BBC English Civil War inspired historical drama series By the Sword Divided.
1970s – Aviaries on the estate restocked by George Powys, 7th Baron Lilford (1931 – 2005). He “opened [the estate] to the public as a leisure park” and housed more than 350 birds of 110 species there. It remained thus for around 20 years and included a restaurant and shop. The aviaries and the 1,896 square foot restaurant building remain present still today.
1969 – 1970 – American British “sexual mystic” artist Penny Slinger (born 1947) and Liverpudlian filmmaker Peter Whitehead used the “derelict mansion” as the setting for their works An Exorcism and Lilford Hall. They are lauded as a “photo romance” and exhibited at the Blum and Poe Gallery in Los Angeles in 2014, at the Haywood Gallery in London in 2015 and at the Fortnight Institute in New York in 2019.
1949 – Stephen Powys, 6th Baron Lilford (1869 – 1949) died without having married or having had children. His properties aside from Lilford – a house in Mayfair, Bank Hall in Lancashire and the Bewsey Estate in Cheshire – passed to his second cousin twice removed.
1947 – The estate is sold to a company named Merchant Ventures by the Powys family (though they remain present on the estate until 1990).
1939 – 1945 – During the Second World War, the parkland of the estate was used as a military hospital for nearby airfields. From 1949 to 1954, some of the buildings constructed during this period were then used as a Polish school.
1923 – First-class Northamptonshire cricketer Major John Powys, 5th Baron Lilford (1863 – 1945) built the first private softball court in the world in the grounds of the hall. It is now in disrepair and the roof has fallen into the inner court.
1909 – 1910 – The hall was extended in the Edwardian manner including the provision of a new master bedroom with dressing room and bathroom by William Dunn and Robert Watson of Dunn & Watson.
1901 – The estate surrounding the hall reaches its largest size and totals a vast 8,000 acres of land. Around this time, Queen Mary, wife of King George V, is said to have visited the gardens.
1880s – Ornithologist and expert on the fauna of the Balearics Thomas Littleton Powys, 4th Baron Lilford (1833 – 1896) introduces the little owl into England on the estate. His aviaries were said to “feature exotic birds from all around the world” and a species of European lizard, the Lilford’s wall lizard (Podarcis lilfordi), is named in his honour. The 4th baron is repeatedly mentioned in the works of Charles Darwin for his contribution to the study of the science of evolution.
1840s – Further changes to the building are orchestrated by the architect William Gilbee Habershon (circa 1818 – 1891). The Campaign to Protect Rural England described these Victorian extensions as “sensitive” in 2006 – a rare accolade given most additions to English country houses during this period were simply brash and vulgar.
1740s – The Palladian architect Henry Flitcroft (1697 – 1769) adds “outstanding” Georgian interiors whilst “respecting the hall’s Jacobean exterior.” He “softened and brightened” the building as a result and also “constructed the Georgian pavilions and additional storeys to the east end of the two wings.” Other works by Flitcroft can be seen at Bower House in Essex, Wentworth Woodhouse in Yorkshire and Woburn Abbey in Bedfordshire.
1711 – Lilford Hall is sold to the judge and Tory politician Sir Thomas Powys (1649 – 1719), Attorney General to King James II. Powys is best remembered for conducting the prosecution of the Seven Bishops in 1699. He is buried at Lilford.
1630s – Construction of the main exterior of what to this day remains Lilford Hall as a “Jacobean-style gentry house” by William Elmes (the younger).
1473 – The land that forms the estate is acquired by William Browne (1410 – 1489), a wealthy wool merchant and landowner from Stamford, from the estate of Baron Welles (who was beheaded by King Edward IV for treason). In 1495, “in a Tudor style,” he built a hall on the site and it passed to Robert Browne (1550 – 1633), the founder of the Brownists, ‘The Father of the Pilgrims’ and ‘The Grandfather of the Nation’ (of the United States of America).
1978 Piaggio Ape ‘limousine’ used by the controversial Countess Agusta – a woman who either fell or was pushed to her death from her home above Portofino in 2001 – to be auctioned
On 8th January 2001, “shop assistant turned model turned multi-millionairess many times over turned fugitive” (via a stretch in what American’s so pleasantly term ‘pokey’) Countess Francesca Vacca Agusta “disappeared” from the terrace of her Ligurian seaside home. The series of events that preceded and followed could have featured in an Agatha Christie novel or a Sherlock Holmes story.
Graffagni saw off the business tycoon’s first wife, Pupetta Maresca, after a torrid affair and following their marriage in 1974, amongst other things, became chatelaine of a 40-room property complete with a helipad. It had been built in 1870 by George Herbert, 4th Earl of Carnarvon – whose death was attributed by amongst others Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to the “curse of King Tut” – as his holiday home and during the 1970s and 1980s guests to “jet-set parties” given at the house by the socialite Countess were ferried back and forth from their dock in Portofino harbour in a custom built 1978 Piaggio Ape coachbuilt ‘limousine.’ This vehicle, described as a “perfect yacht tender” with its opulently patterned interior and passenger-driver intercom, is now for sale.
Countess Francesca Agusta (née Francesca Vacca Graffagni, 29th October 1942 – 8th January 2001). It is most surprising that the late Dominick Dunne did not make a television programme about her life and demise.Villa Altachiara (alternatively known as ‘Villa Alta Chiara’ or ‘Villa Carnarvon’) was one of Countess Agusta’s homes from the 1960s until her death in 2001; it was originally built as a holiday home for Lord Carnarvon (26th June 1866 – 5th April 1923) – the financier of Howard Carter’s explorations of Egypt’s Valley of the Kings that led to the discovery of Tutankhamen’s tomb. The Carnarvon family hosted many guests during their ownership, amongst them Brooke Astor and Evelyn Waugh.
Count Agusta died in 1989 without divorcing his second wife in spite of separating from her in 1985. At that time, in addition to Villa Altachiara, he had given her four apartments in Milan, an estate in Cuernavaca, Mexico, family jewellery and an undisclosed cash sum. With his demise, she came into yet further fortune.
This by-then “very wealthy woman” hit the headlines again in 1994 when she and her new lover, a “former Portofino playboy politician [named] Maurizio Raggio,” were discovered to have been part of a corruption scandal involving Bettino Craxi, the Prime Minister of Italy from 1983 to 1987. Before police could apprehend them to charge them with amongst other things money laundering, the pair fled to Mexico and lived on her estate until 1997 as fugitives. During this period, the Countess reportedly attempted suicide at least once.
Upon her return to Italy, the Countess plea-bargained and spent just three months in Milan’s Opera prison for her crimes in spite of receiving a two-year jail sentence. After “some further time under house arrest” in the Villa Altachiara, the “retired” gadabout then took up with a Mexican, Tirso ‘Tito’ Chazaro (also known as ‘Tirso Di Ricardo’ and ‘Rafael Tirso Roncado Gonzales’), and lived in the style of Miss Havisham. She was rarely seen in public and having become dependent on drink and drugs, was known for her erratic behaviour and temper.
“Considerably the worse for wear and muttering she would not be coming back” on the night of 8th January 2001, the Countess supposedly told her lover and two others present that she was going for a swim, but either slipped on wet leaves or was pushed off a veranda into the sea. A search followed, but after the only traces found were the Countess’s dressing gown on the seabed close to the Villa Altachiara and her slippers on nearby rocks, press reports suggested she had either committed suicide or, given her past form, staged an “elaborate disappearing act.”
Countess Agusta’s badly decomposed body washed up three weeks later on a beach at Toulon on the French Riviera. Her feet had been gnawed off by fish, her skull was smashed and her face was disfigured. She could only be identified by two rings she was wearing and her exact cause of death could thus not be determined.
As an autopsy found no trace of water in her lungs, she plainly did not die by drowning, but in in 2004 the Countess’s brother, Domenico Vacca Graffagni, was quoted in the Independent as stating: “The [original] inquiry was closed in a hasty fashion because of absence of proof, relying too readily on ‘reasonable doubt’ … It was manslaughter. He [Chazaro] was always beating her. He didn’t mean to kill her. But that evening things didn’t go the way the Carabinieri said, my sister was not drunk and she did not slip on wet leaves on the veranda.”
Adding further to speculation, much earlier, the Countess’s step-son, racing driver and team owner Rocky Agusta (1950 – 2018), told Corriere della Sera in 2001: “Francesca was a beautiful woman, simpatica, very rich… People have written that she inherited 500bn lire, but if it had been only 50 or 25, who commits suicide with 25bn lire set aside? … The people who were around her certainly did not help her… It’s not up to me to formulate accusations, but Francesca was not alone that night. She was very upset. She should have been put to bed. Instead, they let her go out into a dark, wet, cold night, not even dressed.”
In due course, the last of many wills left by Countess Agusta revealed Tirso Chazaro to be her sole beneficiary, but after this was challenged in court by her former lover, Maurizio Raggio, the pair split the legacy – reported to be worth as much as £165 million ($201 million, €186 million or درهم738 million) according to the Guardian in 2001 – sixty-forty between them.
In 2009, the Villa Altachiara was offered for sale initially for £44 million ($54 million, €50 million or درهم198 million) and then for £30 million ($37 million, €34 million or درهم135 million) in 2014. It supposedly eventually sold for less than half that sum to a Russian billionaire a number of years later in spite of an estate agent remarking: “Some say the spirit of Countess Francesca Vacca Agusta still walks the estate looking for her husband and you can hear her shouting for him on the wind.”
An estimate of £37,000 to £49,000 ($45,000 to $60,000, €42,000 to €55,000 or درهم165,000 to درهم220,000) for the Countess’s Piaggio Ape. Described as “sweet” and “[anything but] an Italian tuk-tuk” by RideApart, the one-off private taxi will be auctioned as part of the forthcoming RM Sotheby’s ‘Driving Into Summer’ 21st to 29th May 2020 online sale. One can only hope it finds a happier home than it encountered at that of its former mistress.
One-of-a-kind “big caravan-house” with patio on the roof for sale for £30,000; the current owner bought it for just £1 and spent £70,000 restoring it
Believed to be the last remaining example of 99 originally made, a “revolutionary” hammer finished aluminium caravan named a Berkeley Statesman has gone on sale.
Costing £1,065 when new in 1951 – the same price as a terrace house – and rebuilt at great expense by its current owner Tim Mitchinson after he found it hidden on a farm in Bedfordshire in 2004, the two-floor structure is described as being “a wonderful piece of history lovingly restored to its former glory.”
The 22-foot long by 12-foot high caravan features a living and dining area, a 1950s style kitchen with a range of appliances, two bedrooms capable of sleeping four and a shower room complete with a modern shower and an ingenious sink from an old railway carriage.
An advert for the Berkeley Statesman following its launch at the Earl’s Court Motor Show in 1951
On occasions, Berkeley Statesman caravans have known to take to racetracks
Of it, Mitchinson told the Discovery Channel:
“I thought it so ugly it, it had to be mine… [Restoring it was an] exercise in insanity… But it [is] absolutely unique… She arrived on the back of a lorry and I thought: ‘We’ll have a go.’ … A beautiful silver phoenix… It’s been blood, sweat and tears… A remarkable restoration.”
“I need to sell it so [my] house can be extended but I will miss it terribly. I am really proud of rescuing what is a valuable piece of social history.”
Estate agents RM English are marketing the Berkeley Statesman for just £30,000 ($38,500, €33,200 or درهم141,500) and point out that it is currently located in the centre of York. They add: “It will need to be transported off-site by a low loader trailer.”
Aside from spending more time in television studios than working for the good of her constituents, this crow-like creature is a “hard Brexiteer” with a penchant for claiming expenses for a second home despite representing a North London constituency. Bombastic to her core and a one-time friend of the “arse grabber” Brian Coleman, Theresa Villiers has been described as “divorced, dogmatic and dreadful.” She has bizarrely used three word alliterative phrases at least 724 times in debates, is anti-fox hunting and staunchly pro-Israel.
Featuring 9 bedrooms and 10 bathrooms, ‘The Owlwood Estate’ or more simply 141 South Carolwood Drive is described as “easily one of the city’s most iconic and historically significant properties.” Built in 1937 to the designs of Robert D. Farquhar in a “classic European Italian Renaissance” style, the estate was owned by Tony Curtis and Sonny Bono and Cher in the 1960s and has also been home to Joe Schenck, the first president of United Artists and a chairman of 20th Century Fox.
Now offered with designs for redevelopment by Bob Shapiro, the head of Sturmer Pippin Investments and CEO of Woodbridge Luxury Homes, the property offered also includes a sunken tennis court, a swimming pool and two guest houses.
Adam Rosenfeld of Mercer Vine is the realtor handling the sale.
The Owlwood Estate – The Numbers
July 2017 – Placed on the market for £136 million ($180 million, €153 million or درهم661 million).
September 2016 – Sold for £68 million ($90 million, €76 million or درهم331 million) to developer Bob Shapiro.
July 2012 – Placed on the market for £114 million ($150 million, €127 million or درهم551 million) by Dawn Arnall, “the widow of subprime mortgage profiteer Roland Arnall.”
2002 – Sold for £25 million ($33 million, €28 million or درهم121 million).
1999 – Listed for sale for £44 million ($58 million, €49 million or دره213 million) by Ghazi Aita complete with an adjacent property.
1978 – Sold to a “shadowy businessman” named Ghazi Aita for £3.2 million ($4.2 million, €3.6 million or درهم15 million).
1970 – Sold to Sonny and Cher for £568,000 ($750,000, €636,000 or درهم2.8 million).
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The distinctive yellow car, registration ‘BWC 94F’ was used for filming in Monaco and features a tiger skin print interior and a remote control key start which can be operated from up to 50 metres away. It also has a smoke machine that emits smoke from the exhaust when a valve is opened on the dashboard, rubber mats with ‘Del Boy’ on the drivers side, air horns, a suitcase on the roof and ‘Rodney’ on the passenger side and inflatable dolls that show up in the back window.
Sold last by Bonhams in 2008, the eccentric vehicle has amazingly covered a total of 71,778 miles and even participated in the London to Brighton rally in 2001 and 2004. The 598cc car is to be offered by Silverstone Auctions at their NEC Classic Motor Show sale on 11th and 12th November with no reserve. Lovely jubbly.
Kitsch San Francisco mansion turned private museum that houses everything from Hitler memorabilia to a portrait turned down by Prince Philip for sale for £9.5 million
The collection of a former advertising executive turned San Francisco based bon viveur named Robert C. Pritikin – better known as ‘Bob’ to his friends – includes everything from Hitler’s Swastika armband and his personal world globe (supposedly acquired by American soldiers at the end of the Second World War) to a portrait of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh of which the royal once proclaimed: “I bloody well wouldn’t hang it on the walls of Buckingham Palace.”
Pritikin houses these items – and others including a replica electric chair, a mural featuring the cult leader Jim Jones, an exact replica of Rembrandt’s ‘The Night Watch’ and an original J. M. W. Turner painting – in a totally eccentric neo-classical mansion in the Glen Park area of the city. He built the property in 1987 and though it provides 9,966 square foot of accommodation it is primarily designed as an entertaining space and museum rather than a conventional family home.
Bob Pritikin with the portrait Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh so loathedThe mansion-cum-museum Pritikin built in 1987 for his collection is now for saleArtworks in the building include a mock electric chairThere also many murals inside and outside of Chenery House
Now offered for sale for £9.5 million ($12.5 million, €10.4 million or درهم45.9 million) by the equally flamboyant realtor Joel Goodrich, Chenery House – or plain old 47 Chenery Street – has hosted guests including Liberace and Mickey Rooney. The building is dominated by a top floor swimming pool with glass retractable roof, a vast ‘showroom’ with adjoining display rooms but also comes with 5 bedrooms and 5 bathrooms. There is a 4-car carport, a garden cottage and a three unit building with two 2 bedroom units and one 1 bedroom unit.
Hidden from the street at its entrance and adjoining the Fairmount Elementary School on another, Chenery House stands on a 1 acre plot crammed to the brim with art pieces, murals and statues. It was offered by Pritikin to the City of San Francisco as an official mayoral residence in 2004 but after they declined he has since rented it for weddings and events.
In 2014, of living there, Pritikin remarked: “It’s a fun place to live. I would build the exact same house if I had to do it again, and in the unlikely event that I kick the bucket I intend to have my ashes buried here.” Though that will now unlikely happen, this true eccentric’s spirit will no doubt live on in spite of whoever eventually purchases what has to be one of America’s most whacky compounds.
Matthew Steeples suggests the director of public prosecutions is right to seek “uplifted” sentences for online abusers but argues she does not go far enough
I have been targeted by online trolls for years. As a writer, I accept I am ‘fair game’ for criticism but when that tips over into the kind of vicious abuse I get from unhinged keyboard warriors, it moves into a realm that is unacceptable.
On a personal level, my recent involvement in the case of the Viscount St Davids – a convicted online hate criminal and all round dimwit returning to court this week to again face the repercussions of offering a reward on Facebook to anyone prepared to run over the anti-Brexit campaigner Gina Miller – not only resulted in negative articles by such oddities as the one-time male escort and Big Brother 11 contestant Benjamin Duncan on the blog of the anti-gay, pro-repatriation of immigrant Traditional Britain website, but also in threatening messages online and a physical attack upon my person. Such abuse has not only taken up considerable amounts of my time and distressed me, it has also caused considerable nuisance to friends and business acquaintances. Now, to her credit, the director of public prosecutions, Alison Saunders, has finally also come to the conclusion that “online abusers must be dealt with harshly” and thankfully it looks as if the laws relating to such will be toughened up.
In an article, published in this morning’s The Guardian, Saunders argues “the criminal justice system are ready to listen” with regard to calls for stronger sentences for online abusers. She references “new guidance” and a need for “stiffer ‘uplifted’ sentences” but what she ignores is that the Communications Act 2003, under which the likes of the aforementioned errant peer was prosecuted, does not have any understanding of Facebook (which came into existence one year after the creation of that law in 2004) and Twitter (launched 2006).
Saunders’ acceptance that “an increasing proportion of hate crime is now perpetrated” online is a definite start and her acceptance that they should be treated “just as seriously as those experienced face to face” is certainly positive. Hitting “report abuse” on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, however, gets no one anywhere. It is in fact our government that must go further and introduce stronger regulation that actually holds social media providers themselves to account for the content they allow to be published on their sites.
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.
