Christian Huhnt recounts an evening at the launch of La Suite West
I have a personal connection to Inverness Terrace as twice in my life I’ve had to crash at my friend’s place there. It’s less than a minute from the new Anouska Hempel-designed hotel, La Suite West, and runs parallel to Queensway.
Bursting with cheap Chinese, Arabic and Mediterranean restaurants, this is an area that has great transport links to Oxford Street and the city centre that is also a very short walk from Hyde Park. As a result it’s full of tourists. Here, they arrive and depart every day, wandering around with heavy luggage trying to find their way. Most of them look like they’re hopelessly lost and in need of a good scrub. The tourist density here is almost equal to that of Victoria Station’s Gatwick Express exit or the Piazza San Marco in Venice.
The lobby of La Suite West, 41 – 51 Inverness Terrace, London, W2 3JNParty guests at the launch of La Suite West
Please don’t get me wrong though. I have always felt that this place, the heart of Bayswater, has been totally underestimated. It is charming with lots of London Plane trees and a very cosmopolitan feel. Lady Weinberg, better known as the visionary designer and sometime actress Anouska Hempel, plainly agreed as she integrated all that was good about this atmosphere into the hotel that she has cleverly designed.
“Let’s celebrate with a little champagne”Guests at the party included the British supermodel and VogueTV presenter Jade Parfitt and Duncan McDonald of Propeller CommunicationsOur party correspondent Christian Huhnt and Inga Buschke enjoying the launch of La Suite WestAngelo Valentino also represented “The Steeple Times” with his daughterGuests at the launch of La Suite WestSusan Ansary, a regular on the party circuit, even put in an appearance
Arriving at the hotel entrance, you get a feel of how important it was for Hempel to grasp this outside space and use it as a communal environment for the guests. I was invited to visit on the evening of the hotel’s launch and this was the area where guests congregated. Here, along with the champagne, they served molecular bites including Nutella ice cream that had been shock frozen using liquid nitrogen. This, they told me, had been done to avoid ice crystals appearing and the result was a very smooth and creamy texture. I’d put money on this having left the menu now though as just days later I read news reports of a girl in Lancaster losing her stomach after drinking a cocktail made in a similar manner. With hindsight, I must say that my stomach is very glad that they got the measure just right.
When you enter the hotel, which first opened to guests three months ago, you feel as if you are visiting a Scientology church or traversing the ramp of a Star Wars space shuttle. Coming “onboard,” you enter a reception hall, in which a friendly concierge welcomes you. The whole interior is very minimalistic and has been reduced to hues of only black and white. A long fireplace leads you deeper into this shuttle, onto a main corridor, past the dining rooms and connects into to labyrinthian walkways that transport guests to their appointed suites.
I was told that the hotel rooms are all decorated in the same style and have similar layouts. They differ only slightly in size. On the evening of the launch, the largest could be admired and all of them had a very independent feel as they benefited from their own access to the street. Essentially, the rooms are quite small but all offer the contemporary luxury that any jetsetter would expect. The bathrooms have a particularly sophisticated feel and are clad in marble throughout. The extendable televisions hidden in the bed frames perfectly fitted with the minimalist design, but where this became bizarrely rigorous was the flexible water hose in the bathrooms that dispensed with the need for good old European toilet paper.
One of the hotel’s bedroomsA toilet at La Suite West – complete with hose attachment but minus loo roll
La Suite West is a great step forward. In fact, it is a very audacious move towards upgrading a whole area that clearly has potential for more and which, at the time of writing, does not offer anything better than shabby hostels and seedy bed and breakfasts. The hotel is a well-arranged concept and evidently Hempel put a lot of thought into the execution of it. The design is well composed, but being German I did notice some of the carpets and minor details could have been a little better.
One last piece of advice: the management might want to ship in some bog roll. Some ageing Brit might decide to show up and I’m sure nobody would want a scene from Fawlty Towers to be played out in that rather smart lobby.
La Suite West, 41 – 51 Inverness Terrace, London, W2 3JN. Telephone: +44 (0) 20 3642 3928. Website:http://lasuitewest-px.rtrk.co.uk
Images by Andreas Kirchberger and Christian Huhnt.
A most curious tale of playboys, socialites, lawyers and real estate moguls
This week the mystery buyer of Clarendon Court, the former marital home of Claus and Martha “Sunny” Von Bülow (1932 – 2008), was revealed as a restaurateur and real estate mogul named Paul Roiff. Separately, the New York Post reported that Mr Von Bülow’s former lawyer, Alan Dershowitz, had purchased an apartment in Sutton Place, New York at the same time as a postal worker was on trial for killing his sister. The lives of the rich and famous are never anything other than dramatic.
The front elevation of the former residence of Claus von Bulow: Clarendon Court, 626 Bellvue Avenue, Newport, Rhode Island, RI 02840The rear elevation of Clarendon Court, 626 Bellvue Avenue, Newport, RI 02840An aerial shot of Clarendon Court from the Atlantic Ocean
8-bedroomed Clarendon Court on Bellvue Avenue in Newport, Rhode Island is best known for the events surrounding the utilities heiress Martha Crawford Von Bülow falling into a 28-year coma there and her husband subsequently being tried, convicted and then acquitted for her attempted murder, but this fine residence has much else in its past as well.
Edward Collings Knight, Jr. (1863 – 1936)
Designed by the most prominent Ameircan architect of the “Gilded Age,” Horace Trumbauer (1868 – 1938), this Palladian style villa was commissioned in 1903 by Edward Collings Knight, Jr. (1863 – 1936), a sugar-refiner and railroad executive, and his wife, Clara. It was built on an acre plot with views of the Narragansett Bay and is most curiously termed “one of Newport’s finest cottages.” The mansion that was constructed for the couple is an almost exact replica of a proposed house by Colin Campbell at Chester-le-Street in County Durham, England and features Doric columns, quoins and an urn-embellished balustrade. It provided a suitable illustration of Mr and Mrs Knight’s wealth and status.
Claradon Court in the early 1900s
Edward Knight, who was once described as exhibiting “more talent at spending money than making it,” named the house Claradon Court in honour of his wife and shortly before it was completed in 1904, he acquired an additional six acres of land behind the plot with direct frontage to the Atlantic. Here, he had Trumbauer design a vast carriage house in an early Georgian vernacular as well as a series of high brick walls to protect the gardens from the ocean winds.
The coach house at Clarendon Court todayThe rear loggia was added by Mr & Mrs Knight at a later dateThis arch and walling was added to provide protection against the force of the AtlanticA more recent shot illustrates that the flower beds have been laid to lawn
The Knights engaged a Parisian decorator named Jules Allard to decorate Claradon Court in the English Georgian manner and after several seasons in residence added two wings onto the back of the house. Following Clara Knight’s death in 1928, her husband sold the estate, moved to a more modest Trumbauer designed house in neighbouring Middleton and remarried. His second wife, Marie Louise LeBel, is remembered as a “foul-mouthed, hard-drinking [woman], who thought nothing of killing a neighbour’s dog with a shot from her pearl-handled pistol.” Together they went on to spend the vast sum of constructing a $383,000 mansion in North Carolina as a hunting lodge. It is now the home of the Whalehead Club.
Colonel William Hayward with Major Arthur W. Little
The purchaser of Claradon Court was a First World War hero named Colonel William Hayward (1877 – 1944) and his wife, Mae (1880 – 1956). Whilst the colonel is remembered as the commander of the “Harlem Hellfighters,” a regiment that “never lost a man captured, a trench, or a foot of ground,” his wife was truly a character.
Born in Connecticut, Mae Cadwell had divorced her first husband Selden B. Manwaring of Hartford in 1914 to marry the older and richer Morton F. Plant of New York and New London, Connecticut. Morton Plant adopted her son by her first marriage, Philip “Paul” Morgan Manwaring Plant (1901 – 1941), and when he married the well-known actress Constance Bennett (1904 – 1965) in 1925 more controversy followed. The millionaire socialite Plant’s life is well documented not only as it was for him that the term “playboy” was originally created but also because of his bitter divorce from Bennett in 1929.
Following their purchase, Colonel and Mrs Hayward decided to have the name of Claradon Court changed to Clarendon Court to distance any lingering associations with Clara Knight and she is said to have filled the building with fine and decorative art. The colonel died in 1944 and his widow married for the fourth time, this time taking the president of the American Car & Foundry Company, John E. Rovensky, as her husband. After her death in 1956, Rovensky continued to use Clarendon Court until his own death in 1970 and even allowed it to be used as the set of the 1956 American musical comedy film High Society that starred Bing Crosby, Grace Kelly and Frank Sinatra.
Martha “Sunny” Von Bülow (1932 – 2008)Claus Von Bülow during one of his trials
In 1970, Clarendon Court’s most notorious chapter commenced when the utilities heiress Sunny Von Bülow and her husband Claus purchased the house as it was here in December 1980 that Mrs Von Bülow fell into the irreversible coma that she was to remain in until her death in December 2008. The story of Claus Von Bülow’s trials for the attempted murder of his wife is well known and the 1990 film Reversal of Fortune, starring Jeremy Irons, Glenn Close and Ron Silver, is most definitely a true masterpiece.
Considered a couple of “exceptional taste,” the Von Bülows were described as having filled Clarendon Court with exceptional 18th and 19th century English furniture. They also significantly improved the grounds by hiring the landscapers Innocenti & Webel to create an elegant allée to the sea by removing a hillock that had always deprived the ground floor rooms of an ocean view.
The Von Bülow landcaped the grounds to create a better view from Clarendon Court towards the Atlantic Ocean
In 1974, Claus Von Bülow wrote of Clarendon Court in an article for the Bulletin of the Newport Historical Society:
“The author of this article has lived happily at ‘Clarendon’ for the past four years. As a European he has found much to admire in Newport, with its sense of history and its preservation of a unique architectural heritage. He hopes some future writer will cover the occupancy of his family at ‘Clarendon’ with as much wistful charity as he has endeavored to extend to its previous owners.”
Von Bülow, at that time, plainly could not have imagined the tragic event that was to follow in December 1980 and for what the house would indeed become best known.
The main staircase at Clarendon CourtA study at Clarendon Court
A committee managing Sunny Von Bülow’s affairs sold Clarendon Court in 1988 to a fine art and antique dealer named Glenn C. Randall and his wife Patricia for $4,300,000. The couple converted the service wing into a gallery for their collection and lived there until Mrs Randall died after a battle with cervical cancer in May 2010. The 12,800 square foot house and it’s 10,000 square foot coach house were placed on the market for $17,800,000 in October 2010 and whilst the price was subsequently was brought down to $15,800,000, it languished until being sold in July 2012.
The new master of Clarendon Court, Paul G. Roiff, is a graduate of Boston University and Suffolk Law School. He is the president of a real estate company named Heath Properties and also co-owns a number of restaurants in Boston including Mistral, Mooo, Teatro and Sorellina as well as a 63-bedroom hotel named XV Beacon.
Paul G. Roiff
Plainly publicity shy, Roiff, who also owns homes in Florida and Michigan, used one of his employees, Keith Beardsley, to purchase Clarendon Court on his behalf. He paid $13,126,000 for the estate.
Celebrity lawyer Alan DershowitzAlan Dershowitz’s new pied-à-terre at 45 Sutton Place, New York, NY 10022, USA
In another development, on the 25th September The New York Observer reported that the lawyer who became famous representing Claus Von Bülow, Alan M. Dershowitz, had bought a 3-bedroomed apartment in the “stronghold of old money,” 45 Sutton Place, for $1,680,000. Plainly Mr Dershowitz, who subsequently represented O. J. Simpson, has done well and is plainly now richer than his first “celebrity” client. He also owns a 6-bedroom residence in Cambridge, Massachusetts and was able to use his verbal talent to persuade the sellers of the Sutton Place co-op downwards from their original $2,290,000 asking price.
Separately, late last month, Dershowitz and his family were in court for the trial of a postal worker named Ian Clement. A 7-tonne truck driven by Clement had crushed and killed Marilyn, the 68-year old sister-in-law of Alan Dershowitz, in New York in July 2011. Dershowitz, a retired special referee for the New York court system, had been out for a bicycle ride with her husband, Nathan, a partner at Dershowitz, Eiger & Anderson.
Marilyn DershowitzThe scene of the fatal accident that killed Marilyn Dershowitz
Surprisingly and much to the distaste of the Dershowitz family, Clement, who had been charged with leaving the scene of a fatal accident, was acquitted by a jury on the 20th September. Of this, Alan Dershowitz commented:
“The facts clearly justified a guilty verdict… I think a stronger presentation might have brought about justice. Instead, we have an injustice.”
Both the Von Bülows and the Dershowitz family have endured loss and a huge amount of media attention since the events of the early 1980s. Perhaps these most recent moves will bring with them a new chapter for both Clarendon Court and Mr Dershowitz himself. Meanwhile, Claus Von Bülow, though not quite as wealthy as he was in his days at Clarendon, prospers in London and is considered one of the city’s “finest wits.” How fortunes do indeed revolve.
Contact Alan M. Dershowitz at: Hauser Hall 520, 1575 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, Massachusetts, MA 02138. Telephone: +1 (617) 495-4617. View his official website at: http://www.alandershowitz.com/or follow him on Twitter at: http://www.twitter.com/alandersh
The agent for Glenn C. Randall in the sale of Clarendon Court was Paul Leys of Gustave White who can be contacted on +1 (401) 848-6706 or by email at:[email protected]
Sarah Tucker gives an update on goings on at the resort where Madeleine McCann vanished
Four hundred and thirty euros, one bedroom apartment, one week at the height of season at a luxury family resort in Portugal. And oh yes, it’s the Ocean Club at Praia da Luz. There’s availability with two and three bedroom apartments as well. I asked about apartment 5a where Madeleine disappeared but the PR is coming back to me on that one. That was four days ago.
The Ocean Club entrance and Apartment 5A at the top of the street
I checked this out because having looked at the comments on The Steeple Times McCann roll call entry, I wanted to know what became of the resort where she disappeared. Last year the lady who owned the property itself couldn’t sell it because women buyers were put off by it’s history. I don’t blame them. I would never recommend buying from a divorcing couple, no matter how good the deal, so buying somewhere where a child has been allegedly kidnapped is a no no. Estate agents will say nonsense, but that’s a woman’s superstition for you. Or a mother’s superstition.
I remember writing at the time about Mark Warner, a company synonymous with a reputation for keeping parents who treated parenting as a subject to be studied to A*, not as something to leave to instinct, God forbid. Perhaps that’s an exaggeration, but having recently vox popped over 500 parents* asking if they would leave their children in their hotel room unsupervised while they ate in a restaurant on site, none of them, not one, said they would do so. I never mentioned the McCann case. The question about childcare was mixed in with other family travel related stuff, but some even mentioned the McCann’s case when they responded. And all claimed they would take advantage of a babysitting service if it was offered or eat earlier and with the kids if it wasn’t.
I was asked at the time if I would ever leave my son alone. I never have. Too risky and having lost him for ten minutes in the salubrious area that is East Sheen high street at five in the afternoon five years ago, because I refused to wait for him to tie up his shoe lace for the nth time, and getting no less than eighteen other men and women, all who had been either waiting for buses, serving or being served in shops, or in several cases drinking in the local pub, to run up and down, shouting his name, I understand the McCann’s need to go to the end of the earth, the prime minister, the Pope, to find their daughter. I completely understand this. What I never understood was their emotional reaction or rather lack of it. In the meantime babysitting services are still offered at the Ocean Club.
* Using social media (parents of three to six year olds).
Discovered by Alfred Hitchcock, this thrice married actress endured five days of prop men throwing live gulls, ravens and crows at her in her debut film, The Birds. Cary Grant told her: “I think you’re the bravest lady I’ve ever met.” She worked with Hitchcock next on Marnie but then decided she didn’t wish to continue. Afterwards, she commented: “He told me he would ruin my career and he did.” Hedren, whose daughter is Melanie Griffith, now runs the Shambala Preserve in Acton, California. Here she keeps lions that have previously belonged to Anton LaVey and Michael Jackson.
Edward Kay tells readers of The Steeple Times about Vava II: The biggest private yacht ever to come out of an English yard
Britian’s richest woman (and ex-Miss UK) Kirsty Bertarelli and husband pharmaceutical tycoon and America’s Cup winner, Ernesto Bertarelli have recently taken delivery of their magnificent £100 million yacht Vava II.
The stern of Vava II
The superyacht world is dominated by the Dutch, Germans and Italians so it was quite a coup for the Bertarelli’s to give the build to the Devonport Yacht yard in Plymouth, since the launch the yard has been sold to the Pendennis group and operations moved to Falmouth.
Vava II
At 96 metres not only is Vava II the largest private yacht ever to come out of an English yard, she is also the 30th largest private yacht in the world.
The interiors are minimalist and feature bleached teak floors and woven leather carpets. There’s a glass lift serving all 6 decks and even a casino. She features a futuristic design, variable depth swimming pool, helicopter landing pad and her 2 Vaudrey Miller custom tenders are rumoured to have cost £1 million each.
Despite her massive 4,000 gross tonnage, her 4 engines take her to speeds of 19 knots and her 523 metric tonne fuel tanks give her a range of 5,000 nautical miles.
This particular Miss UK hasn’t done too badly. Unlike most of us in the UK, she most definitely doesn’t need to “batten down the hatches.”
A German who used many aliases but whose biggest pretence was to give the impression he was a member of the Rockefeller family. The Man in the Rockefeller Suit gives the best account of his exploits but it is for the 2009 parental kidnapping of his child, Reigh Storrow “Snooks” Mills Boss, by a Harvard graduate named Sandra Boss that he is best known. Jailed for four to five years after being convicted for kidnap, he was subsequently also charged with the 1985 murder of a Californian man named Jonathan Sohus. Whilst this fantasist of the first order rots in the clink, his former wife has built a new life in Knightsbridge, London.
Their daughter Madeleine disappeared on the evening 3rd May 2007 from a holiday apartment whilst they sat enjoying tapas with a bunch of friends. Some believe the poor child was kidnapped. Others have alternative theories. A public fund to find “Maddie” raised hundreds of thousands of pounds but Mrs McCann’s book, Madeleine, contains so many references to trips on private jets and meeting famous people that it makes one question whether the search for the child or fame has become the focus.
He founded ASmallWorld.net, “The Facebook for the Few,” in 2004 and has now created his second social network, the Best of All Worlds. This son of a Swedish diplomat and ambassador began his career in investment banking but then moved into the domains of the net with first Viking Internet and then his “MySpace for Millionaires.” With an address book that is unrivalled, this jetsetter is undoubtedly a gent well worth watching.
The founder of the world’s first boutique hotel moved to London in 1962 with just £10 to her name. She’s acted with Anton Rodgers in Zodiac and was in the 1969 James Bond film On Her Majesty’s Secret Service but it as a designer of global repute that she is best known. Married to Sir Mark Weinberg, the founder of St. James’s Place Wealth Management, Hempel was born on a boat sailing from Papua New Guinea to New Zealand. This society figure’s first hotel, Blakes, created in 1978, is the favourite of personalities such as Sharon Stone and Seal and still sets the barometer for style today.
