Tag: 2014

The Stars of Beel

Neglected Georgian mansion that has been home to Sir Dirk Bogarde, Basil Dearden, Sharon and Ozzy Osbourne, Matt Aitken and Robert Kilroy-Silk for sale for 39% less than it sold for in 2014

A dilapidated Grade II* listed country house whose extensive roster of owners numbers aristocrats, rock and film stars and politicians is on sale for £3.95 million or 39% less from the £6.5 million sum it sold for in 2014.

Built for the Duke of Buckingham in the 1600s and extending to 10,743 square foot, Beel House in Little Chalfont, near Amersham in Buckinghamshire stands in 13.5 acres of land. It comprises of a 7 reception room, 8 bedroom, 6 bathroom main house and also comes with an indoor swimming pool complex, a tennis court and garaging for 5 cars.

Home to The Hon. Lady Caroline Cavendish in the 1830s and Colonel Abram ‘Arthur’ Lyle of the Tate & Lyle dynasty from 1909 to 1920, Beel House was bought by the actor Sir Dirk Bogarde in a “dilapidated state” in 1954. Of discovering it, Bogarde, who had been renting a cottage in the close vicinity on the Bendrose Estate, stated:

“[The actress Kay Kendall and I] walked across muddy fields from my rented home to look at Beel House. It was a horror. Bleak and empty, few of its twenty-six rooms caught the sun, and the garden surrounding it was a tangle of overgrown rosebeds. Inside it seemed a labyrinth of corridors and stone passages. It was painted throughout in dejected yellow and brown and each room had a rusty gas fire in it.”

Bogarde made significant changes to the building and pulled down a wing of 11 rooms. In their place, he built a swimming pool and a 30-foot long conservatory in the grounds – which Kay Kendall later described as looking like “an out patients’ department” – and it seems he spent several happy years there. He moved to another property nearby named Drummer’s Yard in 1960 and sold Beel House to Basil Dearden, the director of The Assassination Bureau, Khartoum and The Man Who Haunted Himself.

An aerial photo of Beel House, Little Chalfont, Amersham, Buckinghamshire, HP7 9QP, United Kingdom

Images of the exterior of Beel House in the 1950s

Actor Anthony Forwood, Sir Dirk Bogarde’s eventual “life partner,” at Beel House with his dogs Sinuhe and Bogie; Sir Dirk Bogarde in his study at the house

Sir Dirk Bogarde outside Beel House with one of many Rolls-Royces he owned and inside on the house’s main staircase

Film director Basil Dearden, owner of Beel House between 1960 and 1966, worked with Sir Dirk Bogarde on the controversial film ‘Victim’ in 1961; it was the first English language film to use the word “homosexual” and of it one Italian critic remarked: “At last the British have stopped being hypocrites”

Dearden sold up in 1966 and the next famous owners were Sharon and Ozzy Osbourne in the early 1980s. It was whilst here that Mr Osbourne “decided to murder his wife” and of the ensuing incident on 3^rd September 1989, the Amersham Museum’s website reports:

“Ozzy Osbourne put the house up for sale after he had been arrested for the attempted murder of his wife whilst living at Beel House. After taking a cocktail of drugs and drinking heavily during a family meal at the Chinese restaurant at Nightingales Corner he attacked his wife and was subsequently arrested. He had no memory of the attack but the conditions of his bail were that he entered a rehab centre, did not contact his wife and did not return to Beel House.”

Marketed for £1.75 million in 1991, unsurprisingly Sharon Osbourne, herself, did not have much positive to say about her time at Beel House either. In her 2006 autobiography, Extreme, she remarked:

“I decided I wanted to go back to England. By this time we had already sold Beel House. I had enough bad memories not to be too sorry to see it go. Also it had reached what the builder called the domino point: mending one thing only triggered something else that needed to be done.”

Ozzy Osbourne, photographed by Conrad Rickenbacker, sitting on his four poster bed at Beel House in the 1980s

Images of Beel House during the ownership of Sharon and Ozzy Osbourne (photographs by Conrad Rickenbacker)

Robert Kilroy-Silk at Beel House prior to his appearance on ‘I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here’ in November 2008

The house as furnished by Robert Kilroy-Silk and his wife Jan Beech, circa 2014

Matt Aitken, the composer of chart toppers for Kylie Minogue, Jason Donovan, Rick Astley and Bananarama, supposedly lived at Beel House for a period subsequently and in the 1990s, the property was sold to the “exotically handsome man, with a very un-English facial glow and ice blue eyes” Robert Kilroy-Silk and his wife, Jan Beech.

Controversial television personality Mr Kilroy-Silk, an MP from 1974 to 1986 and an MEP from 2004 to 2009, brought with him a herd of fallow deer as well as Vietnamese pheasants and bantams to Beel House. He lived between there and his home in Spain and then sold up for the staggering sum of £6.5 million in 2014 to an “international buyer” who, according to Country Life’s Penny Churchill, immediately found “it ‘surplus to requirements’ and put it straight back on the market” through Savills.

Of the estate, which by then had been for sale for three years, in October 2017, then selling agent Hugh Maconochie told the Bucks Free Press:

“In many respects Beel House is the archetypal country residence: a Grade II* listed home in the heart of the Chilterns, beautiful grounds and easy access to London by both rail and road. Yet, while it was completely refurbished in the 1980s – new garaging, games block and swimming pool complex included – its current state necessitates a complete restoration project.”

“For those seeking a country residence to move straight into, Beel House is not the home for them. Instead it would appeal to a buyer looking to restore and revive a Georgian gem. A reduction in price over the years reflects the refurbishment that’s required.”

Empty and plainly somewhat neglected, Edward Welton of Knight Frank’s Baker Street office is now marketing the property. His firm describes Beel House as: “An exciting opportunity for a full restoration project, giving someone the chance to create their own style on a private estate, so close to London.”

Beel House – The Names and Numbers

November 2017 – Further reduced to just £3.95 million ($5.29 million, €4.47 million or درهم19.44 million) through Knight Frank.

January 2017 – Reduced to £4.95 million ($6.63 million, €5.61 million or درهم24.37 million) through Savills.

November 2015 – For sale again for £6.5 million ($8.7 million, €7.4 million or درهم32 million) through Savills.

2014 – Sold to “an international buyer” by Robert Kilroy-Silk for “close to” the £6.5 million ($8.7 million, €7.4 million or درهم32 million) asking price.

June 1991 – For sale for £1.75 million (the equivalent of £3.45 million, $4.62 million, €3.91 million or درهم16.98 million today).

October 1989 – Placed for sale by media personalities Sharon and Ozzy Osbourne.

1966 – Placed on the market by Basil Dearden for £66,000 (the equivalent of £1.1 million, $1.5 million, €1.2 million or درهم5.4 million today).

Circa 1960 – Sold to film director Basil Dearden (1911 – 1971).

January 1954 – Sold to actor Sir Dirk Bogarde (1921 – 1999) for £4,000 (the equivalent of £101,000, $135,000, €114,000 or درهم497,000 today).

1836 to 1954 – Part of the estate of the Lowndes family, largescale landowners in the Chesham, Buckinghamshire area. During this time tenants included The Hon. Lady Caroline Cavendish and from 1909 to 1920 by Colonel Abram Lyle (of the Tate & Lyle dynasty).

1730 – Valued at £500 (the equivalent of £99,000, $133,000, €112,000 or درهم487,000 today) by Sun Insurance whilst home to Thomas White of Middle Temple.

1672 to 1682 – Home to Mary Pennington, the mother-in-law of the Quaker founder of the State of Pennsylvania, William Penn.

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November 29, 2017
The Finery of Fatland

Vast Greek Revival style Pennsylvania mansion for sale for 56% less than it was marketed for in 2014; it comes with a pub in the basement

An extravagant and somewhat over the top estate in Pennsylvania is on sale for £2.96 million or 56% less than the £6.75 million sum it was listed for back in 2014.

Extending to some 11,377 square foot and consisting of 7 bedrooms and 8 bathrooms, Greek Revival style ‘Fatland’ – originally known as ‘Vaux Hill’ and known as such once again since 1990 – in Lower Providence, Montgomery County dates to circa 1843 and stands on the site of an earlier stone farmhouse. That building served as the headquarters of General George Washington in 1777 and also was used by General Sir William Howe.

Now set on a plot of just 11.29 acres, the Fatland Estate used to be significantly larger but was reduced by land sales to make way for an express highway, a housing development and 154 acres towards the expansion of the Valley Forge National Historical Park.

Barbara Safford speaking at the time of the 2013 sale of the contents of ‘The Fatland Estate’

The house as previously furnished

“Decorated in the rich French taste,” the house was stuffed to the brim with European antiques by an insurance tycoon named Robert Safford after he and his wife, Barbara, purchased it in 1990. The couple also altered ‘Fatland’s’ original asymmetrical composition with the addition of a west wing and end pavilion that mirrored the east wing and end pavilion and even added a pub to the building’s basement. After Mr Safford’s death in 2011, the property – which also includes an outdoor pool, tennis court and barn – was put up for sale in 2014 whilst separately, in 2013, Freeman’s auction house in Philadelphia held a sale of contents that netted £2.9 million.

After three years on the market and now with a significantly reduced asking price, Terese Brittingham and Tom McCouch of Keller Williams Realty Group are the agents currently handling ‘The Fatland Estate’s’ listing.

The Fatland Estate – The Numbers

November 2017 – For sale at a reduced price of £2.96 million ($3.95 million, €3.31 million or درهم14.50 million) after a pending sale in June failed to complete through Keller Williams Realty Group.

October 2016 – Relaunched to the market for £2.96 million ($3.95 million, €3.31 million or درهم14.50 million) through RE/MAX Elite.

August 2016 – Reduced to £3.7 million ($5 million, €4.2 million or درهم13.4 million).

February 2016 – Relaunched to the market for £5.248 million ($6.999 million, €5.866 million or درهم25.699 million).

September 2014 – For sale for £6.747 million ($8.999 million, €7.542 million or درهم33.042 million) through Kurfiss Sotheby’s International Realty.

July 1990 – Sold to Robert Safford and Barbara Harvey for £1.6 million ($2.1 million, €1.8 million or درهم7.7 million).

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJs6uxho03k

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOYg61xGPqs

November 26, 2017
Double Cher

Holmby Hills estate owned variously by Sonny and Cher and Tony Curtis for sale for double what it sold for in 2016

A 12,201 square foot mansion on 10.1 acres in Holmby Hills, Los Angeles is on sale for £136 million or double the sum it sold for just a year ago.

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 20^th 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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November 18, 2017
Rotten Rolf Still Rotten

As the majority of the convictions of Rolf Harris are upheld, one of his unhinged supporters, Lizzie Cornish, launches into yet another of her tirades

Yesterday at the Royal Courts of Justice in London, a man labeled a “disgusting creature” by one of his victims, Rolf Harris, failed in his attempt to overturn eleven out of twelve of his convictions for indecent assault against women and children.

Whilst elements of the media seized on one conviction being thrown out, His Honour Judge Brown, Lord Justice Treacy and Mrs Justice McGowan found that “nothing arises which could impugn the safety of [the remaining] convictions.” They specifically noted:

“Stepping back and looking at the totality of the evidence of Counts 2 to 12, including the bad character evidence, we find nothing that causes us to doubt the safety of those convictions… The primary evidence… remained intact, as did the body of bad character evidence.”

Elsewhere, one of the paedophile child abuser Harris’ unhinged supporters, Lizzie Cornish, wrote to The Steeple Times. In a series of rants on our comments pages – which we will not be publishing due to the fact that they would offend genuine victims – crackpot Miss Cornish commented:

“Your putrid words about me make me sick! … [The] case STANK from the very start…and people like you believed it! People like me, Steeples, stood up against them and had to endure the likes of YOU!”

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November 17, 2017
The World’s Most Flirtatious Car

Off-the-wall 24-carat gold 1958 Austin Healey that would appeal to Liberace to be sold at auction in New York with an estimate of £420,000

A truly bonkers one-off 1958 Austin-Healey 100-Six that was given the monikers ‘Goldie’ and ‘The Golden Child’ is to be sold at auction in December.

For sale for 165% less than it was offered for in 2013 but 781% more than it was valued at in 1958, ‘Goldie’ is capable of speeds of upto 120 miles per hour but what makes her unique is that all brightwork – including the trimming washers and screws, wire wheels, disc brakes, bumpers and instruments – are plated in 24-carat gold.

The car’s interior is trimmed in champagne Connolly kid leather and champagne diadem mink by London furrier Lorna Doon Snow adorn the inserts and back squabs of the bucket seats and the key ring comes complete with a solid-gold scale replica of the car itself.

The brainchild of Donald Healey’s then PR manager, Ken Gregory, in association with the Daily Express’s then motoring correspondent, Basil Cardew, ‘Goldie’ was the show-stopping car exhibited at the entrance to the 1958 London Motor Show at Earl’s Court. She reportedly wowed audiences and no doubt would have been dubbed a ‘dream machine’ by the motoring world’s most extravagant doyenne, Lady Docker.

Sold immediately to the paper the Daily Express dedicated a page to the promotion of a reader competition to win ‘Goldie’ on 22^nd October 1958. Of her, they remarked:

“[This is] the world’s most flirtatious car… The Daily Express has bought it… You can win it. She’s elegant… she wears mink… and she adores champagne. No, not the girl… the car!”

“The real stuff… The most sumptuous… A vintage squirt… The biggest sensation of the [Motor Show at Earl’s Court]… Yes, you could call it the car that was born with a golden spoon in its mouth!”

“In the whole of the land there isn’t anything to match it.”

Surprisingly, the winner of the competition decided to sell the vehicle immediately. She was first road-registered in February 1959 and then passed through various owners until being completely restored by Bruce and Inan Phillips of Healey Surgeons of Washington, D.C. between 1983 and 1986.

Speaking of what the current marketing catalogue entry describes as “the most spectacular Austin Healey ever produced,” Inan Phillips is said to have remarked: “[‘Goldie’ was] one fantastic running and driving car… The smoothest driving Austin Healey we’ve ever owned.”

In time sold to a wealthy businessman and Jeep restorer named Dennis Collins from Wylie, Texas, ‘Goldie’ was offered for sale first on eBay and then at auction in Houston, Texas for £758,000 in 2013 and 2014. It appears no sale went through and now an estimate of £265,000 to £417,000 has been set for this striking creation.

RM Sotheby’s will sell ‘Goldie’ at their annual New York ‘Icons’ sale on 6^th December. They list the vehicle as being “without reserve.” If only Liberace were still around to put in a bid.

‘Goldie’ – The Numbers

December 2017 – Offered for sale at auction with no reserve and an estimate of £265,000 to £417,000 ($350,000 to $550,000, €300,000 to €471,000 or درهم1.3 million to درهم2 million) in New York.

January 2014 – Offered for sale with a ‘buy-it-now’ price of £758,000 ($1 million, €857,000 or درهم3.7 million) on eBay.

March 2013 – Offered for sale for £758,000 ($1 million, €857,000 or درهم3.7 million) in Houston, Texas by Collins Brothers Jeep owner Dennis Collins.

October 1958 – Valued at £4,000 (the equivalent of £86,000, $113,000, €97,000 or درهم417,000 today) prior to being sold to the Daily Express and offered in a reader competition in London.

November 12, 2017
Adam Marchment (AKA ‘Man on the Run’ and ‘The Marchment Man’)

Vile paedophile and rapist Adam Marchment is a scumbag with no remorse for the crimes he committed but one also of the belief that he is “getting ripped off” over the food he has to buy in jail. Sentenced to ten years in 2016 for attacks on a 14 and a 15 year old, this extra virgin olive loving jailbird wrote in prisoners’ magazine Inside Time in November 2017: “I’m really starting to get frustrated by Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service… Prisoners have access to the outside world and will question the utter rubbish they try to feed us.” Let this tattooed monster – who named himself ‘Man on the Run’ whilst breaching his license conditions for over 37 days in October 2014 – eat porridge!

November 12, 2017
A Bigoted Bash

Marie-Claire, Baroness von Alvensleben starts (yet another) racist tirade at a party in London and launches a website where she brands herself ‘Incredible Marie-Claire’

Last night, at a party in London, a bigoted baroness launched into a racist tirade about immigration and the European Union.

At the event in St James’s, Marie-Claire von Alvensleben – a woman previously sentenced to a six week suspended jail sentence for amongst other things stating “brown people are ruining London” in 2014 – waved her fingers wildly whilst ranting about Gina Miller and told guests that she thought Brexit to be “a wonderful thing.”

Elsewhere, this unhinged madwoman has now created her own website. On it she shares information about her “glamour and sophistication” and claims to have “learnt English” in Cambridge. She bizarrely expresses (given her sheer lack of such qualities) that she wished to have become a diplomat and adds: “I was very spoilt indeed.”

Immodest to her core, von Alvensleben also reports on her attempts to launch a Swiss version of Vogue – “despite her resilient efforts… [it] did not bear any fruit and folded” – and concludes:

“Marie-Claire has her own ‘Coat of Arms’. Her ex-husband, Baron Bodo von Alvensleben used to call her IMC ‘Incredible Marie-Claire’. Maybe because she believes nothing is impossible … She can arrange “almost” everything… It can all be arranged.”

Marie-Claire, Baroness von Alvensleben rolling around on the floor at another party with the equally awful former entertainer Michael Barrymore.

October 27, 2017
A Messed-Up Mansion

Dilapidated Grade II* listed South Yorkshire Georgian mansion Hickleton Hall for sale for a sum 25% lower than it was marketed for in 2014 but 185% more than it was valued at in 2016

Empty country houses become liabilities and in the case of Hickleton Hall in South Yorkshire, the result of years of neglect will likely be either further decline or conversion into flats.

A neglected and boarded-up Hickleton Hall, Hickleton, Doncaster, South Yorkshire, DN5 7BB in 2016

Offered for sale in 2015 for £2 million (at that time complete with its since separated stable block), this Grade II* listed Georgian stately home was built between 1745 and 1748 of limestone ashlar for a banker named Godfrey Wentworth. It was subsequently home to the Whig politician and Chancellor of the Exchequer Charles Wood, 1^st Viscount Halifax from 1846 to 1885 and then used by the army during the Second World War.

Converted first to a girls’ school in the 1940s, Hickleton Hall became a Sue Ryder Home in the 1960s. That closed in 2012 and in the years since fate has been anything but kind to the building. Described on a dedicated website as “eye-catching” but affected by subsidence and fissures caused by coal mining, the “asbestos riddled” structure has been targeted by vandals and thieves.

The 34,000 square foot building was valued at a sum of between £525,000 and £825,000 in 2016 but is now for sale for £1.5 million through agents Fisher German. Their marketing brochure – which uses images of the mansion in better times – lists it as now coming with just 14.72 acres of land and planning permission for conversion into 20 apartments.

Hickleton Hall – The Numbers

October 2017 – For sale for £1.5 million ($2 million, €1.7 million or درهم7.3 million) through Fisher German.

February 2016 – Valued at £525,000 to £825,000 ($693,000 to $1.1 million, €589,000 to €926,000 or درهم2.5 million to درهم4 million) by Christie & Co. Remedial work to restore the hall estimated at least £1.75 million ($2.3 million, €2 million or درهم8.5 million).

April 2014 – For sale for £2 million ($2.6 million, €2.2 million or درهم9.7 million) through Hamptons.

October 24, 2017
Wealthy Wilton

Six-storey Belgravia residence with controversial business connections goes on sale for 22% less than it was marketed for in 2015 and 3,497% more than it sold for in 1997

A 6,961 square foot freehold terraced townhouse in Belgravia has gone on sale for £25 million or 3,497% more than it was sold for in 1997.

4 Wilton Crescent – which sold in 1997 for what now seems like the paltry sum of just £695,000 – was marketed two years ago for £32 million and provides 5 reception rooms, 9 bedrooms, 7 bathrooms and 2 garages in an adjoining mews house.

Featuring traditional interior design by Robert Kime – decorator to the Prince of Wales – the property featured in court papers in December 2015 in the context of a dispute between a lawyer turned secretive property speculator named Glenn Maud and his former associate Robert Tchenguiz. Said to be at one-time worth £4.5 billion at the height of his success and originally from Sheffield, this businessman and his wife reportedly spent some £6 million renovating the house but was ordered to live on £500 per week in 2012 by a Guernsey court.

4 Wilton Crescent is now offered by Knight Frank.

4 Wilton Crescent – The Numbers

October 2017 – On the market for £25 million ($32.8 million, €27.9 million or درهم120.5 million) through Knight Frank.

March 2016 – On the market for £30 million ($39.4 million, €33.5 million or درهم144.6 million) through Beauchamp Estates.

December 2015 – On the market for £32 million ($42 million, €35.7 million or درهم154.2 million) according to court documents. Owner Glenn Maud reportedly spent £6 million ($7.9 million, €6.7 million or درهم28.9 million) on “improvements” to the property.

September 1997 – Sold for £695,000 ($912,000, €775,000 or درهم3.3 million).

October 24, 2017
Hammering Harris

Two works by paedophile Rolf Harris withdrawn from auction whilst one of a baby remains for sale online

In the wake of his conviction in 2014 for abusing women and girls as young as 8 years old, many of the frankly crap paintings by the repugnant monster Rolf Harris were burnt by those who’d bought them.

On Saturday, however, the Sunderland Echo revealed that an auction house in East Boldon, Tyne & Wear had listed two works by the evil jailbird and were due to sell them today with estimates of just £20 to £40 and £50 to £80.

In response to questions on what made the convicted paedophile Harris’ works worthwhile to auction and who the likely buyer would be from The Steeple Times, Boldon Auctions did not answer. A spokesman for the firm simply remarked: “No, sorry, withdrawn and collected by client” and refused to comment further.

Elsewhere, on the Preloved.co.uk website, an especially inappropriate signed work by Harris is being marketed. Titled ‘Innocence’, the signed print is one of 695 and shows an image of a baby. Why on earth anyone would want such on their wall is beyond comprehension.

September 20, 2017