Tiny 2.5-foot deep Knightsbridge “corridor house” sells for £810,000 at auction
Yesterday, at an auction in London, a 2.5-foot deep (at its minimum) and 3-foot deep (at its maximum) mews house sold for £810,000 ($1 million, €936,000 or درهم3.7 million) despite being nothing more than a very long corridor.
Extending to 275 square foot in total and 65-foot long, 1B Ennismore Gardens Mews needs “complete refurbishment” but has potential for a first floor extension. The single-storey freehold property, which was owned from the 1950s to 2010 by a lady named Linda Wildoner, is certainly one of the smallest houses in Knightsbridge and could definitely be described as a curiosity.
Linda Wildoner (1916 – 2010) outside 1B Ennismore Gardens Mews, Knightsbridge, London, SW7 1HX with Sir Martyn Poliakoff CBE (born 1947)
Miss Wildoner, an Austrian who moved to London after the Second World War to take care of Sir Martin Poliakoff and his family, died in 2010 and yesterday’s sale was carried out at the behest of her executors.
Of this extraordinarily weird property, Chris Coleman-Smith of auctioneers Savills told the Mail Online:
“You see narrow houses, but this is something completely different… It is on a prime, crème de la crème mews on Knightsbridge. It is a superb, picturesque mews. One of the top addresses”.
“It is very basic and will need a complete refurbishment. It is brilliant. It is weird and wonderful and I’ve not come across anything like it. Someone will create something fantastic here. In a cobbled mews in Knightsbridge it is a great opportunity”.
Summing up Britain beginning its road to Brexit and an amusing take on the Prime Minister’s letter to Donald Tusk
Yesterday, Theresa May found her date with destiny and triggered Article 50. With no more restrictions on bendy bananas (a total myth) and the start of a long goodbye, Britain reached a “historic moment” from which there can be – as the shoe loving Prime Minister herself put it – “no turning back”.
As Sky News suggested 56% of those they polled were happy with what is about to occur, Mrs May met with her cabinet in Downing Street. Bumbling Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson was the last to arrive at the gathering and the first to leave and later the well-known CV exaggerator turned Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Andrea Leadsom announced she was “very happy” with what had been discussed.
May was unsurprisingly subsequently heckled in Parliament when she announced: “We know we will lose influence… The world needs the liberal, democratic values of Europe” and was met with disdain from Lord Heseltine also. He commented:
“The letter represents the biggest sacrifice of British sovereignty that I can remember… All the stuff about gaining sovereignty will be exposed for the hypocrisy that it was… It is the biggest sacrifice of self-interest I know of”.
Whilst the President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker remarked of the biggest victory for nationalism since the Second World War: “I’m deeply sad”, we’ll leave the final word with the President of the European Council Donald Tusk. He added: “Thank you and goodbye”.
An amusing take on Theresa May’s letter, shared widely on social media, to Donald Tusk follows:
Lord Prescott is entirely right to suggest Jeremy Corbyn unfit to be Labour’s leader just as he was spot on about Sir Christopher “did nothing” Meyer over phone hacking
According to The Mail on Sunday, last Wednesday, at a meeting of the Labour party, the former Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott, told Jeremy Corbyn: “You’re not a leader and you never will be while you have a hole in your arse”.
‘Two Jags’ speaks for the nation if he did indeed utter such sentiments. He previously, entirely correctly, referenced Britain’s most pointless ever Ambassador to Washington and former head of the (equally irrelevant and rightly now defunct) Press Complaints Commission, Sir Christopher Meyer, as the man who “did nothing” over phone hacking.
In a separate incident, the Welsh born railway signalman’s son supposedly termed the Labour leader: “Useless” and his team: “Just not up to the f***ing job”. If he did say that too, he again got it right on both scores and should be saluted and celebrated.
We say: Please, Lord Prescott, keep going – You are entirely on message and our nation needs you. Britain requires a decent opposition right now and as Jeremy Corbyn won’t provide it, please, get your arse back to Parliament.
5,000 acre Irish estate where “anything can happen” for sale for £24.1 million; its current owner would prefer a buyer who’ll allow him to use it for three months a year
Michael Jackson hid out at Luggala in County Wicklow, Ireland in 2006 for three months after being cleared of child molestation charges and other guests at this magical estate have included Francis Bacon, Orlando Bloom, Bono, John Paul Getty II, Mel Gibson, John Hurt, Mick Jagger, Patrick Leigh Fermor, Paul McCartney and Anita Pallenberg.
Encompassing a plot of some 5,000 acres, Luggala (meaning: “a hollow in a ridge”) is also known as ‘Fancy Mountain’ and has been used in films including Zardoz, Braveheart and Excalibur. It is located 28 miles south-west of Dublin, was described by the singer Marianne Faithfull as “the most beautiful place in the world” and the main house there has gradually morphed into what has been called “the most decorative honeypot in Ireland”.
Architecturally significant, Luggala Lodge (also known as Luggala Castle), was built in 1787 and is lauded as having “that special brand of 18th century Gothick that rejoices in little battlements, crochets, trefoil and quatrefoil windows and ogee mantelpieces, Indeed, quite like the Gothick of pastry cooks and Rockingham china”. It “boasts all the appurtenances of a grand castle but on a miniature scale” and though standing on a modest footprint, extends to some 7,438 square foot in total.
In 1937, the estate was bought by the Hon. Ernest Guinness (1876 – 1949) and given to his daughter, Oonagh, on her marriage to Lord Oranmore and Browne – a peer with the rare distinction of managing to sit in the House of Lords without ever saying a single thing. It subsequently became a place where “nobody could stay away: Dublin intelligentsia, literati, painters, actors, scholars, hangers-on, toffs, punters, poets and social hang-gliders” and was even immortalised in poetry by Seamus Heaney.
Current owner of Luggala, the decidedly eccentric the Hon. Dr. Garech Browne (born 1939)Luggala Lodge, Roundwood, Leinster, County Wicklow, IrelandLuggala Lodge after a fire in 1956Oonagh Guinness, Oonagh, Lady Oranmore and Browne (1910 – 1995)
On Oonagh, Lady Oranmore and Browne’s death in 1970, the estate passed into the “custody” of her son, the Hon. Dr. Garech Browne. He has spent considerable sums restoring the house and made it a “cultural hub for Irish music, art and literature”. A co-founder of the record label Claddagh Records and instrumental in the formation of the traditional Irish folk group, The Chieftans, Browne and his Indian princess wife, Purna Devi of Morvi, added an indoor swimming pool to Luggala Lodge as well as a Gothic library for his collection of 8,000 books.
Now for sale due to 77-year old Garlech Browne and his wife primarily choosing to be based in Singapore, it has been suggested that the Irish State should purchase the estate. Thus far no offer has been forthcoming and this week Jennifer O’Connell of The Irish Times even penned an article that suggested: “Opening the national chequebook is not the way to secure [Luggala’s] future”.
Nigel Farage joins the elite and moves to a large period property in Chelsea, London
Until recently Nigel Farage claimed he was the leader of the “people’s army”. He presented himself as a man living in a “small semi-detached house in the country” and someone who had “no regrets about being poor”. He targeted working class voters, sought out the “ordinary man” and championed bringing down the “elite”.
This pint-loving politician, it now transpires, has now taken up residence in a large period house in Elystan Street, Chelsea. Situated next door to My Hotel Chelsea, the white painted property is “owned by a businessman” according to the Mail on Sunday. Mr Farage is allegedly using it as his weekday “bolthole”, the paper adds, but does not declare if he is paying rent.
Spotted recently dining at upmarket eatery Bibendum – accompanied by four burly security guards – also, Farage is as entitled to make money and live the high life as much as the next man. In doing so, however, he can no longer claim to be a ‘Man of the People’. Instead, it’s time billionaire Donald Trump’s new ‘British Best Friend’ admitted what he now is: Meet Nigel Farage – ‘Man of the Elite’.
Matthew Steeples suggests Robert Harris is right to point out how Britain has changed and changed for the worse
The novelist Robert Harris was attacked this morning by the Daily Mail’s Stephen Glover as an “immoderate Remoaner” for tweeting about how he felt Britain had changed since the Brexit referendum.
On Tuesday, Harris had remarked:
“Everything I liked about my country — tolerance, moderation, courtesy, sensibleness, pragmatism, irony — seems to have disappeared”.
In a second tweet, Harris had added:
“Brexit everywhere. Nothing but bloody Brexit. It’s a nightmare. It’s like living inside Bill Cash’s brain”.
Mr Harris is right and Mr Glover is wrong. Whilst Theresa May’s “red, white and blue Brexit” might be something that him and the 52% that voted to leave may continue to celebrate, those of us who supported the opposite still have the right to a voice. We also have the right not to be attacked in bars, restaurants and in the street by the angry men and women (as I myself have personally experienced) and we also should not be called “intemperate”, “crazy” and “home-grown extremists”.
Vast New York triplex with three bullet-proof panic rooms at The Heritage at Trump Place reduced in price by 47%; Is the Trump connection a factor?
In 2012, a Saudi royal placed a fifth, sixth and seventh triplex he “rarely uses” on the market for £61.7 million ($75 million, €71 million or درهم275.5 million). It didn’t sell and now it’s back for sale for just £32.9 million ($40 million, €37.9 million or درهم147 million) through Elizabeth Mercedes Berk of Mercedes/Berk.
Featuring three bullet-proof panic rooms and extending to a total of 10,500 square foot over three levels, #6A at 240 Riverside Boulevard – alternatively known as The Heritage at Trump Place – is a combination of six units in what is described as “one of New York’s finest full-service condominiums”. It is currently configured to provide 3 bedrooms but comes with plans to turn it into a 5-bedroom home.
Enjoying 120 foot of “contiguous, unobstructed park and Hudson River views”, the Upper West Side property – which is within a building that was completed in 2005 – features three private terraces, a restaurant quality kitchen with a sushi bar, a billiards room, a hair salon, a ventilated cigar room, a six-person Jacuzzi and a saltwater aquarium. Two adjacent units that currently provide staff accommodation can be included in the sale for an additional sum.
The current owner, Prince Nawaf bin Sultan bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud, is 82 years old and said to be confined to a wheelchair. He was Director General of Saudi Intelligence from 2001 to 2005 and is described as “a close ally of the late King Abdullah”.
One has to ask: “With Donald Trump’s name associated with the building, will panic set in and will the price drop further?” We’re guessing the answer is “yes”.
The paper surprisingly focused on a total spending of £300 on gin in 2014 and £49 on the spirit in 2015. Bizarrely, in spite of the minimal quantity consumed, they stated the Corporation’s executives are “especially fond” of it.
Given the BBC has 20,951 employees in total, the publication of this non-story seems surprising. This hardly represents a return to Hogarth’s Gin Lane and it’s certainly not a case of ‘Auntie’s Ruin’.
Meet a woman with a broken thighbone who thinks she can park wherever she wants; strangely she can get on her tight jeans and boots
The Daily Mail were plainly short on stories Thursday. At a time when children are being massacred in Aleppo, they chose to publish a non-story about a woman left “furious” after getting a ticket for parking in a disabled bay (in spite of not being disabled).
Margaret Gallagher, a company director from Stoke-on-Trent, deserves sympathy for having broken her femur – which she claims cannot be bent more than 60 degrees – but that she was “shocked” to get a parking ticket for leaving her Volvo estate car in a disabled bay in Ashbourne, Derbyshire on Wednesday is ridiculous.
Mrs Gallagher told the paper:
“There was nothing else I could have done, I had to use the disabled bay and I left a note which clearly explained that”.
“I love Ashbourne and I come here every week as a treat and unfortunately I expected a little more humanity from Ashbourne, but obviously I didn’t get it”.
“It’s not about the fine, I can pay the fine, but the warden had physically seen me and seen how much I struggle to get around, so I would have appreciated a bit more humanity”.
One has to ask why this woman was driving in her condition at all and one cannot defend the indefensible. This woman is not actually disabled and as one of over 1,400 comments observed: “I find it quite alarming she feels able to drive with a broken leg and get those jeans and boots on but can’t manage to walk a few extra yards from a normal parking space. I am not sure the police would agree she is safe to drive”.
On this basis, we make Margaret Gallagher our most worthy Wally of the Week. This silly woman truly deserves it.
Kathryn Fensterstock reports on a party to celebrate Pickett’s new partnership with the Mayor’s Fund for London
On 16th November, to mark becoming an official charity partner of the Mayor’s Fund for London, Pickett hosted a drinks reception and raffle in Mayfair’s Burlington Gardens.
Guests, including Sotheby’s director Joanna Booth, Cristina Maxson, the Mail on Sunday’s Alexis Parr and Matthew Steeples of The Steeple Times, enjoyed generous measures of gin and wine at the behest of Trevor Pickett before learning about the work the Mayor’s Fund for London does for the city and their plans for 2017.
Matthew Patten chats with another guest
Alexis Parr and Trevor Pickett enjoying some serious G&Ts
Pickett backgammon boards
In a heartfelt manner, Trevor Pickett and Matthew Patten shared a few words on why social mobility for young Londoners is so important and where their inspiration comes from.
Trevor Pickett is passionate about nurturing talent in young people having learnt from hands-on experience himself. He is eager to support the Mayor’s Fund for London as he sees the unmistakable value in providing children with the key skills to climb the career ladder, gain confidence and improve their livelihood, just as the Mayor’s Fund for London does. Pickett looks forward to offering ongoing support to the charity for the foreseeable future as he has also done with Ormiston Families for the past twenty years.
Matthew Patten, chief executive of the Mayor’s Fund for London told a packed room:
“We are delighted to be an official charity partner of Pickett. Many young Londoners, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds, are not aware of all the opportunities that London has to offer. As the founder of a London-based handmade leather goods business, Trevor Pickett recognises the importance of aspiration and acquiring the skills needed so that all Londoners make the most of living in the greatest city on earth”.
To support the Mayor’s Fund for London at Christmas this year, Pickett will give a 15% donation to the charity on all purchases in-store and online. Quote the code ‘MFL15’.
American born Kathryn Fensterstock is based in London and is part of the team at the leading marketing company Zambuni. Follow her on Twitter at @kjfensterstock.
