1966 Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud III drophead coupé used by Colin Farrell in 2010 crime noir film ‘London Boulevard’ to be auctioned
A 1966 Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud III drophead coupé first owned by the Malaysian royal family and more recently used in the 2010 crime noir motion picture London Boulevard – starring Colin Farrell, Keira Knightley and Ray Winstone – is to be auctioned in London in December.
Professionally restored and featuring ‘Chinese Eye’ slanting headlamp nacelles, the car offered was the last off the production line to be registered and delivered new to Malaysia in June 1966. It remained there until the 2000s and was then registered in the UK by the managing director of the official Bentley dealership in Exeter in June 2009.
The 6.2-litre V8 car – chassis number CSC81C – will be sold by Bonhams at their Collector’s Motor Cars and Automobilia sale on 6th December at London Olympia. It will be offered with an estimate of £300,000 to £350,000 ($397,000 to $463,000, €338,000 to €395,000 or درهم1.5 million to درهم1.7 million).
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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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Tower house on Isle of Man that was home to the Romantic artist John Martin for sale for £3.95 million
Described as “the most sublime and extraordinary pictures in the world” by critic Simon Wilson and “the most popular painter of his day” by fellow artist Sir Thomas Lawrence, English Romantic painter John Martin (1789 – 1854) is renowned to this day for fantastic compositions and such works as The Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Destruction of Tyre and The Plains of Heaven. He was born in Haydon Bridge, Northumberland and died in the Isle of Man and now a castellated tower house there, where he lived from 1851 to 1853, is for sale for £3.95 million ($5.32 million, €4.50 million or درهم19.56 million).
A portrait of John Martin and his own painting “The Plains of Heaven”The view out to sea from the castellated roof terrace of Harold Tower
Of the Gothic style and dating to circa 1833, Harold Tower in Douglas was allegedly named after either Harold Harefoot (Harold I, King of England from 1035 to 1040) or Harold Godwinson (Harold II, King of England in 1066). It was constructed in a hexagonal shape, was described as a “lately erected villa” in 1856 and used as a hotel during the Second World War.
Set within 3 acres of formal gardens, Harold Tower was renovated between 2009 and 2012. It is laid out over 5 levels and includes 3 reception rooms, a cinema, a wine cellar, 3 bedrooms suites with truly lavish bathrooms and an octagonal office with a roof terrace with sea views above. In addition, a 3 bedroom guest house and a 2 bedroom guest cottage are located within the grounds along with an outdoor swimming pool.
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.
A pioneer of both the Art Deco style and the functionalist Modernist movement, bisexual Irish aristocrat Eileen Gray was best known for designing the Bibendum chair and the E.1027 table. This great tastemaker lived primarily in South Kensington, Paris and the South of France and another of her creations, once owned by Yves Saint Laurent, the ‘Fauteuil aux Dragons’ armchair, sold for £19 million at auction in 2009.
Extremely private, Gray once remarked: “The art of the engineer is not enough… A house is not a machine to live in. It is the shell of man, his extension, his release, his spiritual emanation. Not only its visual harmony but its organisation as a whole, the whole work combined together, make it human in the most profound sense.”
A stunning example of Eileen Gray’s work, an S-bend chair, is on display in Room 135, The Dr. Susan Weber Gallery at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London.
Eileen Gray also designed the ‘E.1027’ house at Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, overlooking the Bay of Monaco in Franc as a gift for her lover, Jean Badovici, the editor of ‘L’Architecture Vivante’. ‘E’ is for Eileen, ‘10’ for the tenth letter of the alphabet, ‘J’ for Jean, ‘2’ for ‘B’ for Badovici and ‘7’ for ‘G’ for Gray. The building was completed in 1929.
The E-1027 table was designed for the eponymous house in 1927.
Vast “Italian style” oceanfront mansion in Orange County, CA relaunched for sale for £42.7 million; it has failed to sell at prices as high as £53 million
An 18,000 square foot barn of a residence described as “the finest oceanfront home in SoCal” has been relaunched to the market this month at a price 20% lower than when it was first listed in 2013.
Built in what is somewhat ambitiously termed an “Italian palazzo style” and featuring Spanish tile roofing, five imported European fireplaces and “terrazzo flooring evoking those in The Getty Villa in Pacific Palisades”, 2585 Riviera Drive stands on an acre plot in north Laguna Beach’s private Irvine Cove community. It is one of twelve oceanside homes in a gated, 24-hour-a-day guarded community and enjoys “spectacular views” of the Pacific and access to a private beach.
Constructed to the designs of the Warner Group over a period of eight years and completed in 2010, the house offered occupies half of a larger plot owned until 2002 by Joan Irvine Smith, a woman whose family had at one time been the main landowner in the area. It features not only 5 bedroom suites and 9 bathrooms but also a screening room with bar, a 10,000 bottle wine cellar with tasting room and a 6-car garage with hydraulic lift.
Within the grounds stands a guest house that was designed to be “a scaled back replica of Philip Johnson’s Glass House in Connecticut” and a 53-foot brass and glass waterfall made from materials salvaged from a Los Angeles bank. There are also 100-year old olive trees, a rose garden and a pool with cabana and spa.
An aerial shot of the site during constructionThe house today with the ocean beyond
“My wife and I love traveling to Northern Italy, particularly Bellagio and the lake country, where we’ve always admired the architecture… [But] I wouldn’t want [our house] to be construed as Tuscan in any way… Even though we built an Italianate palazzo, we wanted the flavor [sic] of mid-century design around us”.
“We wanted people to know they were stepping into an oceanfront property the moment they arrived”.
The Numbers – 2585 Riviera Drive, Laguna Beach
June 2002 – Land subdivided into three plots; 2585 Riviera Drive sold for sum of $10.5 million (the equivalent of £11.1 million, $14.3 million, €12.7 million or درهم52.5 million today).
July 2013 – Placed for sale for $65 million (the equivalent of £53 million, $68.2 million, €60.5 million or درهم250.6 million today).
May 2017 – Relaunched for sale for $55 million (£42.7 million, €49 million or درهم202 million).
Despite being Shadow Minister for Public Health and claiming to be a campaigner to improve children’s diets, Labour’s ‘jolly giant’ Sharon Hodgson is a big fan of kebabs. This Geordie ex-payroll clerk once claimed she’d rescue her handbag if her house were on fire, remarked: “Labour is teetering on the edge of political irrelevance” in 2016 and in 2017 usefully concluded: “Brexit has given us the capacity to look at things differently”. She’s up there with Diane Abbott in terms of her brainbox qualities.
“Dapper Dan” and “quasi New Yorker” Isaac Hindin-Miller established his online presence “at the very beginning of the blogging boom” in 2008. A “shameless self-promoter”, New Zealand born Hindin-Miller offers “relationship advice for anybody who asks” and claims not to be afraid of legal spats. He lists his career highlights as having met Kanye West and watching Tyga record Hotel California.
Scottish sporting estate, once home to Sir Walter Scott, for sale; it comes with nearly two miles of fishing on the River Tweed, 863 acres of land and seven houses
The Scottish estate where Sir Walter Scott, Bt. (1771 – 1732) wrote his narrative poems Lay of the Minstrel and The Lady of the Lake and his epic, Marmion, has recently been placed for sale for £5.5 million ($7.1 million, €6.4 million or درهم26.2 million).
Offered by Savills and leased by the novelist, playwright and poet from 1804 to 1812, Ashiestiel House in Selkirkshire stands above in 863 acres above the River Tweed and is 35 miles from the centre of Edinburgh. It comes with six further dwellings, 1¾ miles of salmon and sea trout fishing on the River Tweed, an in-hand stock farm, commercial forestry, a pheasant shooting, duck flighting and equestrian facilities.
Sir Walter Scott, Bt. (1771 – 1732) was the tenant of Ashiestiel for eight years prior to moving to Abbotsford, an estate he eventually expanded to some 1,000 acresAn Epic Estate – Ashiestiel, Clovenfords, Lauderdale, Selkirkshire, Scotland, TD1 3LJ, United Kingdom
Extending to 10,360 square foot and renovated in 2011, the estate’s Grade A listed main residence includes 5 reception rooms, 9 bedrooms and 7 bathrooms. It dates to the 17th century and amongst its features are a peel tower and space described as suitable for entertaining “on a grand scale”.
Ashiestiel was last placed on the market – with just 24 acres of land and its two gate lodges – for £1.75 million in 2009 (the equivalent of £2.15 million, $2.79 million, €2.48 million or درهم10.26 million today). At the time, then owner and joint master of the Buccleuch hunt, Robert Claydon, told The Telegraph:
“I’ve come back from cubbing and caught a salmon at the end of the garden. It’s very wild countryside – south of us you won’t hit a road for 10 miles. It was the best move we ever made coming here. We escaped the rat race – people understand the countryside up here”.
A previous ‘Moron of the Moment’ on these pages, Lady “I actually have quite a lot more experience than people think I do” Nugee asked the Secretary of State for Defence to reveal where he was on 27th May 2007. When Sir Michael said he did not know and “scrambled to defend himself”, Lady Nugee told him he was “talking bollocks” and curtly added: “You were in Syria and you were celebrating at a reception for the re-election of President Assad with 99% of the vote. Now, I’m not going to judge you for going to a reception with Assad”.
Though Sir Michael responded: “I don’t recall any party in Syria. I remember a fact-finding visit to Syria”, Lady Nugee continued like a mad attack dog and did not give up. She continued: “You really can’t just go around making this stuff up. There’s an election and people need to make decisions on the basis of the truth”.
Rather inconveniently for the Shadow Foreign Secretary, later in the day, a pictured emerged of her hapless leader, Jeremy Corbyn, at a reception with President Bashar al-Assad in 2009.
#DoubleBollocks
Lady Nugee with Sir Michael Fallon and Andrew Marr on Sunday
A stunning example of Eileen Gray’s work, an 
Eileen Gray also designed the 
The E-1027 table was designed for the eponymous house in 1927.
