Refurbished Surrey manor house with connections to Detmar Blow and Gertrude Jekyll for sale for £2.55 million
Reduced in price by £200,000 since when it was previously on the market in June 2015, a Surrey manor house is again for sale – but this time for £2.55 million ($3.32 million, €2.96 million or درهم12.20 million).
First mentioned in association with Robert de Upbroke in 1282, Osbrooks at Capel, near Dorking was built as a hall and smoke bay house in the 15th and 16th centuries. Subsequently redeveloped in the 17th century and then extended by Detmar Blow (1867 – 1939) – an architect, contemporary of Edwin Lutyens and disciple of John Ruskin – in the arts and crafts style in the early 20th century. The building was given Grade II listed status in November 1966 and more recently had a swimming pool, gym and garaging added.
Osbrooks in 1890Osbrooks today (with 20th century extension to left)
Standing in 14 acres of gardens and grounds designed by amongst others the especially prolific Gertrude Jekyll (1843 – 1932), Osbrooks now provides 4,987 square foot and features 4 reception rooms, a bar, 8 bedrooms and 5 bathrooms. It includes such details as oak joinery, leaded windows and tall, diagonal chimney stacks and could very easily be used as a location in a Midsomer Murders or Miss Marple murder mystery television drama.
Of the property, in April, John Fisher of selling agents Sotheby’s International Realty told The Times: “It could be a house for entertaining as well as comfortable living. It has all the space you could require, as well as proximity to good schools”.
An adjoining 4-acre plot with stabling and planning permission for a 1,959 square foot, single storey dwelling is also available through Sotheby’s. It is offered for £450,000 ($586,000, €523,000 or درهم2.2 million).
New Jersey mansion, complete with 58 rooms, for sale for equivalent sum to what it cost to build in 1909; the £37 million house’s original owner was a man whose extravagance knew absolutely no bounds
George Crocker (1856 – 1909) makes F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Jay Gatsby seem like an amateur. Born in Sacramento and the son of a railway magnate worth some $30 million on his death (the equivalent of £634 million or $812 million today), Crocker was willed a significant $6 million (the equivalent of £127 million or $163 million today) on the condition that “after the space of five years continuously he shall abstain from the use of spirituous, vinous, and malt liquors to the extent that he shall not during this period have been intoxicated”.
Crocker decided to ignore the terms of his father’s behest and from 1888 to 1891 lived in San Francisco as “one of the most reckless young men about town when reckless young men thereabouts were common” but then admitted himself to a sanatorium, put himself on the straight and narrow and finally collected the sum of $6 million in 1898.
With wealth and a glamorous wife, Emma Rutherford, a widow from California, Crocker set himself up as the toast of New York society. Though he owned a townhouse at 1 East 64th Street and a villa in Newport, it was on paying $96,500 (the equivalent of £2.2 million or $2.8 million today) for the 1,100 acre Darling estate in Bergen County, Mahwah, New Jersey in 1901 that he truly became someone noticeable.
Choosing what he called “the finest site for a residence in the country”, Crocker commissioned an architect named James Brite (died 1942) to build him a mansion “sparing no expense”. Modeled on a Jacobean prodigy house, Bramshill House in Hampshire, England and built from Indiana limestone and Harvard brick, the “Crocker Mansion” or “Darlington” – as it is more widely known – cost $2 million to build (the equivalent of £38.2 million or $49 million today) and included 75 rooms and around 50,000 square foot of accommodation. Its features included steam heating, elevators, ice cream freezers, integrated vacuum systems and a switchboard and in its grounds a racetrack and 16 greenhouses were constructed whilst a pond was stocked with 4,000 trout.
George Crocker and Emerson McMillin
The design of Darlington was based on “one of the most haunted houses in England”, Bramshill in Hampshire; that building itself was also eventually separated from much of its estate and after being used as the European Police College was sold to developers City & Country for £25 million ($19.5 million) in 2014
Commentators wowed at the resulting creation and noted details such as a library painted after the style of the Italian Renaissance by Tiffany Studios, elaborate wood carving by Italian craftsmen and Tiffany silver chandeliers and a 1906 Aeolian player pipe organ in the building’s 30-foot high Great Hall. In 1912, Architectural Record, chose even to swoon over the basement. They remarked:
“Where Bramshill’s cellar housed for centuries lanterns, tallow dips, forest faggots, wooden vessels for the distribution of light, heat and water through personal service of human slaveys, its American reincarnation is a storehouse of miracle workers in the comfort and luxury of modern domestic life”.
Unfortunately, Mr and Mrs Crocker did not truly get to enjoy the fruits of their extravagant spending. Emma Crocker died in 1904 of cancer and George Crocker also succumbed to the disease in 1909. His estate was valued at $20 million (the equivalent of £422 million or $541 million today) and amongst items found at his mansion were 60,000 personally monogrammed, custom-made cigars valued at $30,000 (the equivalent of £635,000 or $813,000 today).
Sold subsequently to a “self-made” banker, industrialist and astronomy enthusiast named Emerson McMillin (1844 – 1922) in 1909 for $1 million (the equivalent of £21.1 million or $27.1 million), Darlington was next used to display a fine collection of Chinese and Japanese porcelain whilst a herd of Jerseys were kept in the grounds.
After McMillin’s death, his widow sold the estate in 1924 for $685,000 (the equivalent of £7.6 million or $9.8 million) to the Darlington Development Company, which in turn made it available to the Darling Golf and Country Club. They converted the building to a hotel and club that “promised to offer a new dimension to life in Mahwah” but “the development corporation and the club were soon in financial difficulties” and the McMillin estate foreclosed and regained possession.
A new buyer came forward in the form of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Newark. They paid $478,000 for the property in 1926 (the equivalent of £5.2 million or $6.6 million today) and used Darlington as a theological seminary. The surrounding land was gradually sold off and in 1986, the Immaculate Conception Seminary also departed.
Darlington today – The 30-foot high Great Hall is still dominated by a 1906 Aeolian player pipe organDarlington today – Ilija Pavlovic expanded the mansion by some 12,000 square foot and amongst other things added a large home cinemaDarlington today – Another addition comes in the form of a vast wine cellar; George Crocker’s father would not have approved
Subsequently restored and modernised with, according to Forbes, plumbing, heating, air conditioning and communications systems being installed, Darlington was placed on the market with just 12.1 acres in 2005 by Darlington Associates, a firm who’d built “multiple residential communities surrounding the mansion”. An ambitious figure of $25 million (the equivalent of £24.4 million or $31.3 million today) was sought for the now classified historic site but it was not until 2008 that a buyer came forth in the form of a local businessman named Ilija Pavlovic. He paid just $8.875 million (the equivalent of £8 million or $10.2 million today) and then embarked on the “challenge” of “both preserving the historic home while also restoring it to meet 21st-century standards”. The resulting creation spans four floors and includes amongst many other things a tea room, 3 libraries, 2 game rooms, 2 kitchens, a “his and her master bedroom wing”, 12 further guest bedrooms and 5 staff bedrooms.
The biggest issue with the house, it transpired, was that its 476 leaded windows needed to be replaced. This reportedly cost $2 million alone (the equivalent of £1.8 million or $2.3 million today) and in addition, Pavlovic renewed all the mechanical systems, redid all 19 bathrooms, replaced the slate roof and added amongst other things a spa with an indoor lap pool, a gym, a massage room, a beauty salon and a home cinema. There is also a gatehouse, a professional kitchen that can serve 250 meals at a time, a wine cellar, a poker room, a cigar room, a billiards room, an 8-car garage, a tennis court and an outdoor swimming pool.
Property blog 6sqft – which claimed Friday that the current owners do not live at Darlington full-time and simply use it to host events – reported that this still massive mansion minus its formerly equally gigantic estate is now for sale now for £37.4 million ($48 million, €44.7 million or درهم176.3 million) through a firm Mr Pavlovic chairs, Special Properties Real Estate Services – an affiliate of Christie’s International Real Estate. Any buyer will undoubtedly be a vastly wealthy figure, but one can guarantee one thing: They’ll never live as lavishly as the barmy boozer George Crocker.
New Jersey mansion Darlington, complete with 58 rooms, for sale for equivalent sum to what it cost to build in 1909; the £37 million house’s original owner was a man whose extravagance knew absolutely no bounds
George Crocker (1856 – 1909) makes F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Jay Gatsby seem like an amateur. Born in Sacramento and the son of a railway magnate worth some $30 million on his death (the equivalent of £634 million or $812 million today), Crocker was willed a significant $6 million (the equivalent of £127 million or $163 million today) on the condition that “after the space of five years continuously he shall abstain from the use of spirituous, vinous, and malt liquors to the extent that he shall not during this period have been intoxicated”.
Crocker decided to ignore the terms of his father’s behest and from 1888 to 1891 lived in San Francisco as “one of the most reckless young men about town when reckless young men thereabouts were common” but then admitted himself to a sanatorium, put himself on the straight and narrow and finally collected the sum of $6 million in 1898.
With wealth and a glamorous wife, Emma Rutherford, a widow from California, Crocker set himself up as the toast of New York society. Though he owned a townhouse at 1 East 64th Street and a villa in Newport, it was on paying $96,500 (the equivalent of £2.2 million or $2.8 million today) for the 1,100 acre Darling estate in Bergen County, Mahwah, New Jersey in 1901 that he truly became someone noticeable.
Choosing what he called “the finest site for a residence in the country”, Crocker commissioned an architect named James Brite (died 1942) to build him a mansion “sparing no expense”. Modeled on a Jacobean prodigy house, Bramshill House in Hampshire, England and built from Indiana limestone and Harvard brick, the “Crocker Mansion” or “Darlington” – as it is more widely known – cost $2 million to build (the equivalent of £38.2 million or $49 million today) and included 75 rooms and around 50,000 square foot of accommodation. Its features included steam heating, elevators, ice cream freezers, integrated vacuum systems and a switchboard and in its grounds a racetrack and 16 greenhouses were constructed whilst a pond was stocked with 4,000 trout.
George Crocker and Emerson McMillin
The design of Darlington was based on “one of the most haunted houses in England”, Bramshill in Hampshire; that building itself was also eventually separated from much of its estate and after being used as the European Police College was sold to developers City & Country for £25 million ($19.5 million) in 2014
Commentators wowed at the resulting creation and noted details such as a library painted after the style of the Italian Renaissance by Tiffany Studios, elaborate wood carving by Italian craftsmen and Tiffany silver chandeliers and a 1906 Aeolian player pipe organ in the building’s 30-foot high Great Hall. In 1912, Architectural Record, chose even to swoon over the basement. They remarked:
“Where Bramshill’s cellar housed for centuries lanterns, tallow dips, forest faggots, wooden vessels for the distribution of light, heat and water through personal service of human slaveys, its American reincarnation is a storehouse of miracle workers in the comfort and luxury of modern domestic life”.
Unfortunately, Mr and Mrs Crocker did not truly get to enjoy the fruits of their extravagant spending. Emma Crocker died in 1904 of cancer and George Crocker also succumbed to the disease in 1909. His estate was valued at $20 million (the equivalent of £422 million or $541 million today) and amongst items found at his mansion were 60,000 personally monogrammed, custom-made cigars valued at $30,000 (the equivalent of £635,000 or $813,000 today).
Sold subsequently to a “self-made” banker, industrialist and astronomy enthusiast named Emerson McMillin (1844 – 1922) in 1909 for $1 million (the equivalent of £21.1 million or $27.1 million), Darlington was next used to display a fine collection of Chinese and Japanese porcelain whilst a herd of Jerseys were kept in the grounds.
After McMillin’s death, his widow sold the estate in 1924 for $685,000 (the equivalent of £7.6 million or $9.8 million) to the Darlington Development Company, which in turn made it available to the Darling Golf and Country Club. They converted the building to a hotel and club that “promised to offer a new dimension to life in Mahwah” but “the development corporation and the club were soon in financial difficulties” and the McMillin estate foreclosed and regained possession.
A new buyer came forward in the form of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Newark. They paid $478,000 for the property in 1926 (the equivalent of £5.2 million or $6.6 million today) and used Darlington as a theological seminary. The surrounding land was gradually sold off and in 1986, the Immaculate Conception Seminary also departed.
Darlington today – The 30-foot high Great Hall is still dominated by a 1906 Aeolian player pipe organ
Darlington today – Ilija Pavlovic expanded the mansion by some 12,000 square foot and amongst other things added a large home cinema
Darlington today – Another addition comes in the form of a vast wine cellar; George Crocker’s father would not have approved
Subsequently restored and modernised with, according to Forbes, plumbing, heating, air conditioning and communications systems being installed, Darlington was placed on the market with just 12.1 acres in 2005 by Darlington Associates, a firm who’d built “multiple residential communities surrounding the mansion”.
An ambitious figure of $25 million (the equivalent of £24.4 million or $31.3 million today) was sought for the now classified historic site but it was not until 2008 that a buyer came forth in the form of a local businessman named Ilija Pavlovic. He paid just $8.875 million (the equivalent of £8 million or $10.2 million today) and then embarked on the “challenge” of “both preserving the historic home while also restoring it to meet 21st-century standards”. The resulting creation spans four floors and includes amongst many other things a tea room, 3 libraries, 2 game rooms, 2 kitchens, a “his and her master bedroom wing”, 12 further guest bedrooms and 5 staff bedrooms.
The biggest issue with the house, it transpired, was that its 476 leaded windows needed to be replaced. This reportedly cost $2 million alone (the equivalent of £1.8 million or $2.3 million today) and in addition, Pavlovic renewed all the mechanical systems, redid all 19 bathrooms, replaced the slate roof and added amongst other things a spa with an indoor lap pool, a gym, a massage room, a beauty salon and a home cinema. There is also a gatehouse, a professional kitchen that can serve 250 meals at a time, a wine cellar, a poker room, a cigar room, a billiards room, an 8-car garage, a tennis court and an outdoor swimming pool.
Property blog 6sqft – which claimed Friday that the current owners do not live at Darlington full-time and simply use it to host events – reported that this still massive mansion minus its formerly equally gigantic estate is now for sale now for £37.4 million ($48 million, €44.7 million or درهم176.3 million) through a firm Mr Pavlovic chairs, Special Properties Real Estate Services – an affiliate of Christie’s International Real Estate. Any buyer will undoubtedly be a vastly wealthy figure, but one can guarantee one thing: They’ll never live as lavishly as the barmy boozer George Crocker.
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”.
Thameside boat house that will no longer suffer from flooding for sale for £3.75 million
A riverside home might be wonderful on a sunny summer’s day but when the water rises, they can be an absolute nightmare. The Boat House at Goring in Oxfordshire previously fell into that category, but thanks to a £200,000 food protection and waterproofing scheme, it’s now pretty much immune to the worst the Thames can throw at it and now it’s for sale.
Forget flooding – The Boat House, High Street, Goring, Reading, Oxfordshire, RG8 9AB – £3.75 million or $4.9 million or €4.42 million
The house was semi-submerged under water in early 2014
Offered by Savills, the 4,547 square foot two-storey house comes with not only a wet boathouse which has moorings suitable for a skiff but also a number of private mooring rings along its 245 foot frontage to the River Thames.
Standing in more than an acre of land, the house– which has been renovated since it was subjected to serious flooding in early 2014 – features 4 reception rooms, 5 bedrooms and 5 bathrooms. It comes with a detached 1 bedroom cottage, a brightly coloured gypsy caravan and a garage block with a gym and workshop.
Of the flooding prevention measures now installed at the property, Biocraft, the firm that carried out the work, commented:
“We developed an innovative and comprehensive flood defence scheme in collaboration with our structural engineer and succeeded in exceeding the clients’ expectations, providing them with security and peace of mind against future flooding”.
The selling agents seek £3.75 million or $4.9 million or €4.42 million for the property.
This room is described as “the river drawing room” and features a vaulted ceiling with exposed timbers, oak flooring and doors opening to a timber balcony overlooking the river
A dining area with doors that open onto the garden and overlooks the river beyond
It forms part of this kitchen with its vaulted ceiling
Another dining area
There are a total of four reception rooms
The master bedroom is one of five bedrooms in the main house
A view of the house from the garden
There is also a one bedroom cottage in the grounds
The garden has been professionally landscaped
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