This Californian became a child star to help solve the financial woes of his family. He excelled in Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps and received a $15 million cheque for Transformers: Dark of the Moon. Aside from acting, he’s been in relationships with Carey Mulligan, Isabel Lucas and Megan Fox but it is bar brawls that seem to form a staple of his existence. LaBeouf was questioned by the Los Angeles Police Department after one at the Mad Bull’s Tavern in February 2011, thrown out of another called the Cinema Public House in Vancouver in October 2011 and lost his hat during another at the Hobgoblin in London, SE14 in November 2012. We somehow doubt this wild child will be transforming into a reformed citizen any time soon but we’re also betting his career will rocket.
Tag: Jew
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Shia LaBeouf
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Which bear will take the 13th seat?
Could the number 13 be the reason Halcyon Hall has failed to sell?
Several over the top Californian residences we’ve featured on The Steeple Times, namely the $40,000,000 Chateau d’Or in Bel Air and the $87,000,000 Villa del Lago on the Newport coast, were properties that have seen huge price reductions. Though $15,000,000 has been sliced off the asking price of the Bel Air pad, it remains unsold and meanwhile Villa del Lago, now renamed One Pelican Hill Road, achieved just $18.5 million in a bankruptcy auction. It sold for less than a quarter of what the developer originally sought for it.
The 25,000 square foot Chateau d’Or, 10425 West Sunset Boulevard, Bel Air, Los Angeles, California, CA 90077 first came on the market at $40,000,000 in 2009. At $25,000,000, it still hasn’t sold. 
One Pelican Hill Road North, Newport Coast, Newport Beach, Orange County, California, CA 92657 was originally on the market for $87,000,000. It eventually sold at a bankruptcy auction for just $18,500,000 and features a 17,706 square foot Italianate mansion with 8 bedrooms and 17 bathrooms. Additional features number staff accommodation, a gatehouse, garaging for 17 cars, a 1-acre lake with terraced waterfalls, a tennis court, stabling and a riding area and a private vineyard with a wine cave. We believed monstrous white elephants like these were confined to the US, but we are afraid we’ve come across something today that truly proves otherwise. The behemoth we refer to is a 14,000 square foot house in Radlett, Hertfordshire. Built in 2005 for a businessman named Barry Beck, “Halcyon Hall” stands on the site of a far more modest property that was simply known as 11 Newlands Avenue.
The phrase “halcyon days” refers to “the seven days of winter when storms never occur” in the Greek myth of Alycone but whether this inspired Beck in naming this place is unknown. He and his wife, Pauline, did, however, decide upon an “Elizabethan theme” for the residence and our pictures illustrate their extravagantly eccentric tastes adequately.
Halcyon Hall, 11 Newlands Avenue, Radlett, Hertfordshire, WD7 8EH 
The entrance hall is guarded by a pair of knights in full suits of armour 
The hall and entertaining salon is far from understated 
The main staircase is guarded by a life-size bear 
The dining room attempts to look Elizabethan 
Whilst the kitchen dabbles with medieval meets “The Real Housewives of New York” 
Decorating mish-mash continues in a formal entertaining space 
And the “games gallery” isn’t exactly neutral either 
The master bedroom suite takes “over-the-top” to another level 
But it is the thirteen seat cinema that we find most curious Undoubtedly the construction of this vast Hertfordshire crib is of a high quality but the look is nothing other than ludicrous. Here is a mix of pastiche, ostentatiousness and just plain odd. Not even a WAG could have come up with décor this curious and such things as a private cinema with 13 seats can plainly not be the choice of someone who follows the curse of the hangman’s noose.
This 7-bedroomed house, which stands in 1.17 acres, would strangely, though, be ideal for someone who is a little paranoid. As well as all the security features you’d expect of any multi-million pound mansion in the Home Counties, it also includes a bathroom that doubles as a panic room. If you close the door in a certain way, steel bars supposedly come down making sure no intruder can follow you inside.
Two knights in full suits of armour guard the entrance hallway and a life-size stuffed bear stands dominant in the games gallery of the house. Plainly this beast’s not persuaded anyone to bite yet as whilst the price of Halcyon Hall has fallen from £15,000,000 in February 2011 to just under £13,000,000 in November 2012, the house remains on the market. We suspect that the curse of “Unlucky Thirteen” may well be alive and well somewhere between numbers 11 and 15 Newlands Avenue.
Halcyon Hall, 11 Newlands Avenue, Radlett, Hertfordshire, WD7 8EH is for sale through Statons. For more information telephone: +44 (0) 20 8445 3694 or email: [email protected]
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Antony Costa
Edgware born Costa is best known as a member of the boy band Blue but he actually started out as an actor in the BBC’s Grange Hill. He’s sung with Stevie Wonder and Elton John and thinks that groups created via shows such as The X-Factor achieve fame “the wrong way.” We’d say he has a point. -
Angela Epstein
The Daily Mail is renowned for enthusiastically bashing benefit scroungers but in November 2012, they gave Angela Epstein, whose household income is in excess of £100,000 a year, a platform to bleat that she wasn’t getting enough. This Manchester based mum of four has also penned articles speaking of her pride about driving her brats five minutes down the road to school and boasts that “being in the media puts a girl on the radar.” Epstein makes Samantha Brick seem positively sane and we really hope that someone will just turn this ridiculous woman’s antenna off. -
Redefining Rachman
A different side to Peter Rachman is revealed
Whenever the name Rachman is mentioned, the first things that come to mind are greed, extortion and intimidation. The word is so engrained in such that “Rachmanism” now features in the dictionary, defined as:
“The exploitation of tenants of slum properties by unscrupulous landlords.”
“Notorious slum landlord” Peter Rachman (1920 – 1962) Perec “Peter” Rachman (1920 – 1962) was born in Poland and the son of a Jewish dentist. He is best known for having built up a property empire of over 100 mansion blocks in London’s Westbourne Grove and Notting Hill areas in the 1950s where he evicted longstanding sitting tenants and replaced them with prostitutes and immigrants from the West Indies. Due to the relaxation of rent controls by the Conservative government in 1957 and as no other landlord was prepared to take them, he was able to charge these unfortunates whatever he wished.
Rachman came to public attention after the Labour MP for Paddington North, Ben Parkin (1906 – 1969), became vocal about the poor housing conditions of his tenants. Parkin coined the phrase “Rachnamism” in his quest to put a stop to the activities of “rent racketeers” and highlighted him as someone who used violence to maintain control of “his manor.” The MP even went as far as to suggest that Peter Rachman’s death was merely a ploy to distract from his activities and the result was to leave the public engrained with a belief that this landlord was a “manipulative, grasping Jew” who symbolised the moral decay of Great Britain.
Ben Parkin MP (1906 – 1969) on a CND march A Radio 4 programme this week, however, highlighted an entirely different side to Rachman. In The Real Rachman – Lord of the Slums, a “barrister turned investigative reporter” named Joshua Levine suggested that those who believe Peter Rachman just to be a sordid intimidator fail to see the true persona of the man.
Levine’s witnesses, who number former tenants and Rachman’s biographer Shirley Green, do describe him as a “chancer” who was prepared to use the system to make money, but they also portray another side of this supposed “figure of evil’s” character.
Nicholas van Hoogstraten (born 1945) One immigrant tenant stated: “He was the only one who ever did anything for us” whilst others added that Rachman was “well-liked” and “too soft to be a landlord.” He was a “benefactor” and “jolly” commented others who’d rented from him and a truly notorious modern-day landlord, Nicholas van Hoogstraten, failed to see the opportunist in Rachman at all: “It’s laughable. He had no wealth. It’s an invented moral [mission].” Rachman, equally, was defined as a man “affected” by his imprisonment in a Soviet labour camp in the Second World War by his former lover Mandy Rice-Davis and as someone who suffered true sorrow over the deaths of his family there.
Levine’s examination recounts how Rachman, who drove a navy blue Rolls-Royce with a white interior, was built into a symbol of corruption and moral decay. Rachman, like so many other mythical scapegoats, it turns out only died with only one conviction: parking without lights. The truth, indeed, is often stranger than fiction.
Listen to BBC Radio 4’s The Real Rachman – Lord of the Slums at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01ng4h3
Follow Joshua Levine on Twitter at: http://www.twitter.com/Joshua_Levine
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Harry Handelsman
This German-born property developer is best known as the pioneer who brought “loft living” to London in the early 1990s with his Manhattan Loft Corporation. His redevelopment of the Grade I listed St Pancras railway station has resulted in accolades galore and his personal fortune has allowed him to build up a collection featuring works by Andy Warhol, Anish Kapoor, Gerald Laing, Sarah Lucas and Gerhard Richter. Handelsman’s view on money is simple: “[It’s] cynical, sometimes you have it and sometimes you don’t. You can’t take anything for granted.” -
Stuart Graber: “What’s on your mantelpiece?”
The Steeple Times asks Stuart Graber, chairman of The Alternative Board London and former managing director of Time Warner International: “What’s on your mantelpiece?”
The Steeple Times shares “wit and wisdom.” What’s your guiding force?
Superior mind, superior attitude.
“Don’t get even, get medieval” is, in our humble opinion, a great motto. What’s yours?
A quote from Calvin Coolidge: “Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will jot; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan ‘press on’ has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.”
Kerry Katona was considered unacceptable in 2007. Who or what is unacceptable in 2012?
Piers Morgan.
Tony Blair misses being Prime Minister. What do you miss most in your life?
Good friends who have gone over to the other side.
What might you swap all your wealth for?
Continued good health.
Donald Trump was once a case of: “If you owe the bank a thousand, they close you down; but if you owe the bank a billion, you own the bank.” What’s your view on the banking crisis?
History has taught us time and time again that when there is money to be made certain individuals will do “anything” they possibly can to benefit and that includes breaking the established rules and regulations.
What phrase or word do you most loathe?
“What will be, will be.”
In the UK, some people consider charity to “begin at home.” What’s your view and what causes do you personally support?
My family and I believe that children and animals are most deserving of our charitable giving.
The judge in “Law Abiding Citizen” states: “I can pretty do whatever I want” before being blown up whilst answering her mobile phone. What’s your view on the appropriate use of such devices?
These highly lethal modern technological marvels form a new arsenal of weaponry. I would imagine that the use of these devices requires a good deal of professional training and skill. If they are “used appropriately” by the military and law enforcement then they should be utilised to save lives.
If you could fill a carriage on The Orient Express, who would be your fellow passengers?
A mixture of family, friends and acquaintances whose company I enjoy.
Stuart Graber If you were unfortunate enough to end up on death row, what would be your last meal and where would you eat it?
A Chinese ten-course dinner with the leader or person who could commute my death sentence. It would preferably be consumed on a private jet that can take off when I tell it to.
What time is it acceptable to consume the first drink of the day?
It depends on which country and what age you happen to be however if pressed I would say about 2-3 hours before you eat dinner.
A Negroni, a martini or a cup of tea?
Martini.
Whose parties do you enjoy the most and why?
LA based entertainment industry parties. They are much more experienced and better equipped to create the most amazing environments for a party.
Who is the most positive person you know?
My wife, Susan.
What’s your most guilty pleasure?
Smoking Cuban cigars.
If a tattoo were to sum you up, what would it be of?
A British bulldog, not because they are tough or mean looking but because they are the embodiment of loyalty and love.
If you were a car, what marque would you be?
A Grabercar. For those who don’t know, they are lightweight sports cars.
Cilla Black presented “Surprise, Surprise.” Tell us the most surprising thing about you.
I am an expert marksman and knife thrower.
What’s currently sitting on your mantelpiece?
Statues of my bulldogs, The Manoush and Cupcake.
A graduate of Harvard Business School, Stuart Graber is the chairman of the Alternative Board London. He lives in North London and was previously managing director of both Time Warner International and Music Choice Europe. He was also involved in developing, licensing and distributing culturally and linguistically adapted versions of Sesame Street and obtained the first commercial network radio license in the United Kingdom for Classic-FM.
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Hawn's Housesitter
The sale of Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell’s Malibu beach house
Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell Goldie Hawn’s performance in the 1992 romantic comedy Housesitter with Steve Martin was described by the noted film critic Roger Ebert as “one of her best performances.” In the film, Martin’s character builds a dream home for himself and his girlfriend but is unable to bring himself to live in it after she refuses to marry him. Hawn’s character moves in to housesit the empty love nest and in turn the pair fall for one another.
The glass wall of the rear of Hawn and Russell’s beachfront home at 30802 Broad Beach Road, Malibu, California, CA 90265 
The vast living area of the property 
The cinema room of the house 
The perfect bar for entertaining after a day on the beach 
One of the property’s four bedroom suites In the late 1980s, Hawn and her partner of some 30 years, fellow actor Kurt Russell, bought themselves a dream beach house at 30802 Broad Beach Road in Malibu, California. With direct frontage onto Broad Beach, which the Los Angeles Times describes as a “confusing mosaic of public and private sands” that “has shrunk into a narrow sliver of its former self” due to coastal erosion, the pair created a residence that has been decorated in a style described by some as “exotic” and “Buddhist themed” and by others as “late-1970s contemporary.”
Here, alongside neighbours including Pierce Brosnan, Steven Spielberg, Danny DeVito and Dustin Hoffman, Hawn and Russell were able to enjoy summer vacations in a 4,195 square foot two-storey home that includes 4 bedrooms and “4.5 baths.” The property also includes vast open plan living areas, a wet bar, a number of balconies and a media room kitted out with a Crestron home entertainment system. In addition there is separate guest accommodation and a 3-car garage, as well as landscaped garden areas with direct beach access via a path through the adjoining sand dunes.
Hawn and Russell, whose main residence is in Los Angeles, first put 30802 Broad Beach Road on the market in 2007 but it failed to sell. They subsequently sought $95,000 a month for it on the rental market and then $80,000 a month in 2010. In July 2011, the house was again put up for sale at $14,749,000 and now, after having failed to sell yet again, some $5,000,000 has been sliced from the price and it is available for $9,950,000.
The garden of 30802 Broad Beach Road, Malibu 
The property enjoys direct access onto Broad Beach Hawn was once quoted as saying:
“I noted that people are happy here in India. When I went back home, people had everything in the materialistic sense and were surrounded with abundance, but they were not happy.”
I am sure she and her husband will be a hell of a lot happier when they finally manage to offload this white elephant. For a start, they’ll no longer need a housesitter to mind it.
30802 Broad Beach Road, Malibu, California, CA 90265 is available through Kimberley Pfeiffer of Coldwell Banker. She can be contacted on +1 (310) 867 0033 or +1 (310) 383 3664.
For more information, go to: http://www.trulia.com/property/3096152315-30802-Broad-Beach-Rd-Malibu-CA-90265Follow Goldie Hawn on Twitter at: http://www.twitter.com/goldiehawn
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How the mac ’n’ cheese met the truffle oil
Christian Huhnt recounts an evening of rock ‘n’ roll at the opening party for Hollywood Road’s latest venue, Honky Tonk
When you hear about the opening of a London-based “underground NYC inspired rock ‘n’ roll restaurant,” the last thing you expect is to find it in the very heart of an area that estate agents now call “Little Chelsea.”
Honky Tonk, 6 Hollywood Road, London, SW10 9HY So, my companion Steffen and I headed off to determine what this mystery may be, and to learn what the owner, who is supposedly involved in The Supper Club, was willing to reveal that night. As soon as I arrived, I found myself sipping a chilled drink, while listening to some Screamin’ Jay Hawkins vibes. “The Gringo,” a mix of tequila, juice and wheat beer is described as “a delectable intertwining of Mexican and British” on Honky Tonk’s drinks menu and it is just such.
As I was pushed deeper into the venue, away from the bar at the entrance, I felt I had been left alone in the middle of Shoreditch, with a 60s-inspired retro-American “highway diner” flair interior of unrendered walls, raw lightbulbs, Formica tables, and pierced and tattooed modern-hippy looking 20-somethings; only the pretty waitresses reminded me, that I was in fact not in a greasy US-diner, but at an opening in Chelsea, West London.
Guests enjoying Honky Tonk’s opening bash 
Honky Tonk’s bar staff creating cocktails 
One of Honky Tonk’s waitresses serving cocktails When it came to the food, served as canapés, it again became clear, that I was in SW10. The “not” fried chicken, as the waitress educated me, is only coated with a “special recipe” and then oven-baked. It has as much crispy pleasure as it would have had fried, but it is far healthier and plainly designed so as not to dispossess the figure conscious guests of this elite neighborhood.
Almost finished with this delight, I tasted the next dish on the menu: New England crab cakes in a chili-mayo sauce, followed by little potato skins loaded with chilli con carne and sour cream. As I wasn’t sure anymore if this food could be solely called “good old-fashioned American bites,” the next dish was most definitely the tip of the iceberg: the macaroni cheese, apparently the “Baked Beans of America,” the synonym of cheap grub, the epitome of total culinary absence. Here at Honky Tonk, though, they controversially served this with a porcini béchamel and truffle oil sauce, along with roasted wild mushrooms. Believe it or not, it worked and it was bloody good.
While getting in the mood with another fancy drink, one of my favorites by the way, I tried a rum and ginger beer concoction topped with a slice of lime and listened to Elvis Presley’s Mystery Train playing in the background. Whilst enjoying this, I realise that the Chelsea boys and girls have arrived and are mingling with the hip East London crowd. I have seen this lot at many other openings and can’t assume they were shipped in, but nonetheless the spot is suddenly buzzing and a great evening follows.
Examples of the humour of Honky Tonk’s management adorn the venue’s walls Honky Tonk promises to deliver the New York vibe, bringing cool Blues, Jazz and Rockabilly tones with regular live music to the heart of posh Chelsea. Well done so far.
Rock on!
Honky Tonk, 6 Hollywood Road, London, SW10 9HY. Telephone: +44 (0) 207 351 1588. Website: http://www.honkytonkchelsea.com.
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Hook off
The deportation of Abu Hamza and the story of Hassan Butt
It’s taken far too long but thankfully the day of Abu Hamza al-Masri’s deportation has arrived. This evil one-eyed Egyptian-born Sunni preacher, best known for his hateful views and involvement in terrorism, has been in prison in Britain since 2004 and is now finally to be extradited to America to face terrorism charges.
Abu Hamza al-Masri 
Hassan Butt when he appeared on the American CBS television magazine news show “60 Minutes” My only experience of such people involved meeting a young man named Hassan Butt in 2008. Butt, known in the Muslim community as the Al Qaeda supergrass,” was allegedly a former recruiter for the organisation. I met with him after he wrote an article for the Daily Mail in which he stated:
“My plea to fellow Muslims: you must renounce terror… My pleas to fellow Christians: you must renounce racism.”
These words came from a man, born in 1980, who had previously said of Britain:
“I feel absolutely nothing for this country. I have no problem with the British people… but if someone attacks them, I have no problem with that either.”
These words came from the very mouth of a man who had been a member of the now banned radical Islamist group Al-Muhajiroun. Butt claimed to have taken tea with Mohammad Sidique Khan, the leader of the 7 July bombings, recruited upto 200 people to undergo jihadist training in Pakistan and raised between £7,000 and £9,000 a month towards the “cause.” Here was someone who had concluded that:
“I would agree to being called a radical and one day I may even be called a terrorist, if Allah permits me. That is something it would be an honour to be called.”
On the day Butt’s “Damascene conversion” article was printed I was working with an American billionaire vodka tycoon on his various projects in the UK. The man concerned came to London on a periodic basis and always began his day by scouring his favourite right-wing paper for whatever took his fancy. If there were something or someone he liked the look of in it, he’d yell across the room: “Get ‘em round.” More often than not, when I made the call, such people would turn up as many sought funding for their projects. Few of them ever got whatever they were after as this individual was especially careful with his dollars.
On reading Butt’s article, which I admit I also found well written, the Jewish billionaire was thoroughly impressed. He said: “I like the sound of this guy. Get him round.” At the end of the article was a Gmail address so reluctantly, imagining that no doubt MI5 would begin monitoring my own account, I sent off a message. Within minutes, Mr Butt was on the phone.
Butt told me that he’d be in London in the following days to appear on Newsnight with Jeremy Paxman so I invited him to lunch. On the day in question, an extremely well presented 27-year old appeared in a brand new £50,000 Audi Q7. After he’d parked, I said: “That’s a nice car.” His response: “The BBC have loaned it to me.” I was perplexed and thought this unlikely, but let it go.
I introduced Mr Butt to the vodka tycoon and for the next hour, the Muslim and the Jew chatted about the differences and similarities between their religions and ways of life. The utterly charming Butt wanted the billionaire, who happened to own a publishing house, to pay for and print his autobiography. The aggressive billionaire had another agenda. His vision of how to unite the religions was to produce a leaflet. He ranted: “It’ll begin thus: ‘If I want to worship a tree, I’ll worship a tree’.” An impasse was reached.
Over lunch at Choy’s on the Kings Road, the conversation continued hopelessly in the same vein. When it was over and as Butt drove away in the Q7, all I could think of was that the security services would most probably now begin monitoring our business activities.
That night, Butt appeared on Newsnight and beat off all of Jeremy Paxman’s attacks. I suppose all who recruit for terror organisations are probably charm personified but Butt most definitely showed his utter brilliance of mind when put up against the media’s finest.
Butt’s strategy worked as he was subsequently invited by the then Minister of State for Security, Counter-terrorism, Crime and Policing, Tony McNulty, to advise them on how to stop young Muslims being “radicalised.” Butt, whom a government source described as having “understood the terrorist mindset perfectly,” had managed to get to the heart of the British government.
The next move of this man, who was arrested but released without charge on five counter-terrorism charges between 2002 and 2008, was to claim that Greater Manchester Police were harassing him. Many of his allegations, though, were illustrated to be pure fantasy in the transcripts of interviews held with them:
“I actually arranged myself to be stabbed in the shoulder, sorry in my arm and in my back because I knew if I said I had been attacked Shiv ([Malik] a freelance journalist and co-author of Butt’s autobiography, Leaving Al Qaeda: Inside The Life And Mind of A British Jihadist) was going to ask for some proof so basically I stabbed myself… you know it was just part of the whole scam.”
I do not know what has become of Butt now but the last reports of him I have been able to find were published in the Daily Mail in July 2009. Here, the paper reports that he “hurled an onslaught of race abuse at police” during an argument over where his Audi Q7 was parked. How odd that that vehicle, supposedly loaned by the BBC, had surfaced again but equally strange was that this educated man was accused of shouting such things as: “Do you like feeling Pakis up?” and calling police “Gestapo,” “bald dogs” and “members of the BNP.” This portrayal was most certainly at odds with the Butt that I met, but plainly he was the Jekyll and Hyde of Al Qaeda.
Whilst my encounter with the pseudo-terrorist Butt was almost certainly with a young man of fantasist tendencies, Abu Hamza truly is a preacher of hate and a force for evil. This hook-armed “terrorist facilitator with a global reach” claimed tens of thousands in benefits in Britain yet also incited others to blow up our citizens. He solicited murder and stirred up racial hatred yet happily ran up legal costs at this nation’s expense. As such, Abu Hamza’s downfall is very much welcomed and his deportation from the British Isles will be celebrated not just by Her Majesty the Queen but indeed by the whole nation.
Watch a Channel 4 News video clip featuring Hassan Butt at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_t3uw2nZ7kY