Tag: mansion

Billionaire Battersea

Historic Battersea mansion for sale for the same sum it was marketed for in 2011; it has been mostly empty throughout the intervening period and was renovated by the late billionaire Malcolm Forbes

Billionaire publisher Malcolm Forbes was a man who liked to live large. He had a huge yacht named The Highlander, threw lavish parties across the globe and counted Gianni Agnelli, Gordon Getty, Calvin Klein, Robert Maxwell, Rupert Murdoch, Henry Kissinger, Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump as friends. This “mysterious collector” also owned numerous residences and one of these, Old Battersea House in London, is for sale for the same sum as it was marketed for in 2011.

Often seen with Elizabeth Taylor at his side and described as “living life in the fabulous”, Forbes purchased Old Battersea House in 1971. It had previously been home to and saved from demolition by Battersea Council by the eccentric author and ghost hunter Wilhemina Stirling. She took up a lifetime tenancy on the building in 1931 and used it to house artworks by her sister, Evelyn de Morgan (1855 – 1919).

Businessman and publisher Malcolm S. Forbes (1919 – 1990) with seven times married actress Dame Elizabeth Taylor DBE (1932 – 2011) at his lavish 70th birthday party at the Palais Mendoub, Tangier, Morocco in 1989

Old Battersea House, 30 Vicarage Crescent, Battersea, London, SW11 3LD, United Kingdom

A. M. D. Wilhemina Stirling (1865 – 1965) owned the house prior to Malcolm Forbes

Christopher ‘Kip’ Forbes (born 1951) assisted his father restore Old Battersea House and later oversaw the family selling its art collection in 2003 and 2009

Grade II* listed since 1954 and adapted during Forbes and subsequently his son Kip’s ownership to showcase a vast collection of Victorian art and antiques, Old Battersea House was built on Tudor foundations in 1699 and was at first known as ‘Terrace House’. It originally had gardens extending down to the River Thames and is rumoured to have been designed by Sir Christopher Wren (1632 – 1723).

Featuring “handsome classical proportions throughout” and standing within a 110-foot wide walled garden, the 10,100 square foot house includes 4 reception rooms, 10 double bedrooms and 7 bathrooms. It has off-street parking and a garden store but it is sadly overlooked by the adjoining housing estate that was built in its grounds in the 1930s.

Savills seek £12 million ($15 million, €14 million or درهم54.9 million) for Old Battersea House.

The impressive hallway of Old Battersea House

Another entertaining space

Elizabeth Taylor and her then husband Larry Fortensky at Old Battersea House in 1992

Images of the house as it was furnished during the ownership of the Forbes family

April 6, 2017
Nelson & Nintendo

Georgian mansion, where Admiral Lord Nelson lived with his lover and her husband, for sale for £4.25 million; it was renovated by a former Nintendo executive

One would expect a senior executive of a tech company to live in a slick, modern home in Silicon Valley, but since 2004, Matthew Hill, for many years a senior manager at Nintendo, has called a Grade II listed manor house named Fir Hill in Hampshire’s Meon Valley home.

Built in 1765 and the scene of one of the most famous ménages à trois in history when home to Sir William Hamilton, his wife Emma and Admiral Horatio, 1^st Viscount Nelson in 1801 to 1802, the 7,905 square foot “Georgian masterpiece” includes 3 reception rooms, 7 bedrooms and 4 bathrooms. It stands in 5.2 acres of land and comes with a two-storey stable block with potential for secondary accommodation.

Mr Hill purchased the property from Mrs Vida Schreiber, previously Lady Clive, after the death of her husband, Brigadier Schreiber. He met intellectual property lawyer Georgy Evans in 2007 and married her in St Mary and All Saints church in Droxford in 2012 and in the time since, aside from completing the renovation of Fir Hill, the couple have worked together creating a website that comprehensively details the entire history of the building.

Of the renovation and why they are now selling, Matthew Hill told Hampshire Life:

“The renovation work took us 10 years on and off. Our architect said, you either have a big bang and not live here for two years or work in phases. We decided to do the work in four phases which meant we could live here, moving around the house as each phase was completed. The experience of living in the house helped with the restoration… It’s a lovely house, with a lovely feeling, but too big for the two of us now”.

Fir Hill is for sale for £4.25 million ($5.17 million, €4.87 million or درهم19.07 million) through Christie’s Real Estate.

March 14, 2017
A Parson’s Moat

East Sussex country house for sale; it comes complete with an enormous rectangular moat allegedly dug by an eccentric parson in the 1700s

One generally associates moats with castles and manor houses – such as the one we featured last month – but an old rectory currently for sale for £5 million ($6.3 million or €5.9 million or درهم‎‎23.2 million) in East Sussex comes with an especially impressive ground water-fed, rectangular example complete with three timber footbridges.

Chailey Moat, Chailey Green, East Sussex, United Kingdom, BN8 4DA

The house in Victorian times with the Reverend Thomas Harry Lee Jellicoe outside with his servants circa 1900

This fireplace is one of the most stunning and historic features internally

It is situated within this reading room

Another view of the main house shows the size of the moat

Previously marketed for £3.5 million ($4.4 million or €4.1 million or درهم‎‎16.2 million) in 2007 but not sold at that time, Grade II listed Chailey Moat at Chailey Green, near Haywards Heath in East Sussex dates to around 1540 and was previously known as ‘The Parsonage’. It blends Tudor, Carolean, Elizabethan and Georgian elements and is centred on an original timber framed medieval structure hidden by later additions. The south-eastern façade is described by selling agents Savills as “most striking” and amongst other unusual features are a Venetian window on the first floor and a brick fireplace in a reading room with an intricately carved overmantel that allegedly came from part of a Charles I bedstead.

Aside from a 6,146 square foot main house with 5 reception rooms and upto 8 bedrooms over three floors, there is a 398 square foot 1 bedroom cottage and a 4 bedroomed, 17^th century barn conversion that extends to 807 square foot and also provides a substantial games room.

Gardens and grounds extend to 43.76 acres and aside from the moat – which was allegedly singlehandedly dug by the Reverend Richard Porter, rector from 1713 to 1753 – there is also a enclosed tennis court, an outdoor swimming pool, a stream fed lake, a productive orchard and rolling pastureland.

Chailey Moat is offered by Savills and was described by Country Life’s Penny Churchill as a “mansion of peace” in June this year. In October, the medieval property’s current owner, businessman Andrew Colin, described its idyllic setting to The Times. “It’s like sitting in the middle of a nature reserve”, he said.

The dining hall

The drawing room

The staircase dates from the 18th century

The kitchen has a four-oven AGA

This barn conversion provides ideal staff or guest accommodation and beyond it is a full-sized tennis court

A lake is situated within the grounds

Whilst extensive lawned gardens extend out across the moat

Another view of the gardens

A floor plan of the main house

Floor plans of the barn conversion, cottage and outbuildings

December 9, 2016
Reducing a Kennedy

Former home of Jacqueline Kennedy in Georgetown, Washington reduced in price by £600,000; she lived there in 1964 before moving to Manhattan

Reduced from £7.677 million ($9.750 million or €9.109 million or درهم‎‎35.811 million) to £7.075 million ($8.995 million or €8.403 million or درهم‎‎33.038 million) and the first home of Jacqueline Kennedy post the assassination of her husband, 3017 N St NW in Georgetown, Washington first went on the market in June 2016.

Jacqueline Kennedy leaving the house in 1964

Offered by Washington Fine Property, the 6 bedroom, 5.5 bathroom, 7,000 square foot residence dates to 1794 and features “extraordinary proportions and entertaining spaces”. It was home to Secretary of War, Newton D. Baker, during the First World War and was owned by a former Miss America, Yolande Betbeze Fox, from the 1970s until her death in February this year.

Now in need of some renovation, Mrs Kennedy bought the house in late 1963, moved in in February 1964 and moved out later that year. According to <em>The Wall Street Journal, she is said to have left because the property was “too exposed to tourists and the press, with tour buses stopping outside the house throughout the day and sightseers peering into the windows”.

Also featuring an elevator to link its five floors, Kennedy sold to her stepsister Nina Auchincloss Steers and her husband, Michael Straight.

From the front

The drawing room

The dining room

The staircase

From the rear

Yolande Betbeze Fox

December 5, 2016
A house for Trump

Replica of the White House in Texas for sale for a record sum – it’d be the perfect plaything for ‘bored of the race for president’ Donald Trump

Last week, Michael Moore suggested Donald Trump doesn’t really want to end up in The White House. For the media loving mogul it’s all about ‘the game’ and as he looks increasingly bored with a campaign he’s ended up railroaded into, he could choose an alternative in the form of a replica of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in Texas and take life a little easier on a beach created by the current owner there.

A house for Trump – A genuine White House replica at 515 Bayridge Road, Shoreacres, Morgan’s Point, La Porte, Houston, Southern Texas, TX 77561, United States of America

The house was built for Governor Ross S. Sterling and his family

It is currently owned by Dr. Marcos Masson

Offered for sale for £4,584,000 ($5,995,000 or €5,293,000) – an extraordinary sum in a location where there are very few properties priced over $1,000,000 – 515 Bayridge Road at Morgan’s Point on Galveston Bay was designed by a respected architect named Alfred E. Finn for Ross S. Sterling (1875 – 1949), founder of Humble Oil and 31^st Governor of Texas (1931 – 1933), after the politician and businessman handed his architect a $20 bill in 1924 and said: “Build that for me”.

Completed in 1927 and significantly smaller than the 55,000 square foot “real thing” according to The Wall Street Journal, the 20,689 square foot limestone house – known as The Governor Ross Sterling Mansion – was the largest property in Texas when it was built and now includes 9 bedrooms, 15 bathrooms and a 43-foot long great room with a Gone with the Wind style staircase. Its most notable feature is a columned portico flanked by two sets of stairs and topped with a flagpole that resembles the South Portico at the White House.

Donated to charity by Sterling in 1946, 515 Bayridge Road was used as a juvenile home by the Houston Optimist Club until 1961 and purchased in 2013 by Dr. Marcos Masson, an orthopedic surgeon, for £2,447,000 ($3,200,000 or €2,825,000). He claims to have spent £1,147,000 ($1,500,000 or €1,325,000) on renovations and brought in sand and palm trees to create a small private beach on the 6.365 acre plot.

The house is offered by Lin E. Neese and Chris Foster of John Daugherty Realtors.

This double reversed Gone with the Wind style staircase frames the entrance

The grand salon doubles as a ballroom and is 43 foot long

Whilst this dining room could be a little more tastefully decorated

A reception room with a somewhat ill-coordinated colour scheme and a truly hideous corner sofa

A library without many books

Questionable decoration has also been introduced in this morning room

The kitchen looks as if it belongs in the 1970s

Especially attractive lighting has been used in this media room

A games room featuring a barbers chair antique bar and an Artex ceiling

A gym with yet more Artex

Another reception room

The master bedroom

A somewhat antiquated bathroom complete with a rusty radiator

The rotunda portico rises 22 feet above the bay

From the rear at night

From the front at night

From the road

From the beach

An aerial shot of the house and its plot

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August 23, 2016
An unlucky mansion

Unlucky mansion in Yorkshire with 13 bedrooms for sale for a lower sum than it was marketed for in 2007 – despite having been renovated internally in the time since

Offered for sale for less than it was last marketed in a “dilapidated condition” in 2007, Whinburn Hall in the gritty West Yorkshire mill town of Keighley has now been largely restored internally but is still surrounded by neglected yet Historic Buildings and Ancient Monuments Act 1953 protected grounds.

Described as a “fine country house… contrasting with the cramped rows of terraces in the streets behind them” according to Wikipeda, this Grade II listed Victorian Arts and Crafts mansion was built in 1897 for Prince Smith III (1869 – 1940), an exotically named gentleman who later renamed himself Prince Prince-Smith before becoming Sir Prince Prince-Smith on the death of his father in 1922.

Constructed from wealth generated by the Prince-Smith family’s textile machinery manufacturing business, Prince Smith & Son, the house was redesigned and extended in 1912 – 1913 and became a training centre for the National Institute of Houseworkers in 1940. Sold again in 1950 to the City of Bradford Metropolitan District Council, the “modern manor house” was run as a residential school and special referral unit until 2008 and then, after a period of dilapidation and the rejection of plans to turn Whinburn Hall into flats, was bought by a 35-year old businessman named James Sheldon in 2008.

An unlucky mansion – Whinburn Hall, Hollins Lane, Utley, Keighley, West Yorkshire, BD20 6LU – On the market for £1.45 million in 2016; marketed in 2007 for £1.5 million (or the equivalent of £1.88 million today)

An unlucky mansion – James Sheldon purchased Whinburn Hall at the age of 35 and died there aged just 42

Sheldon, who worked as a lifeboat coxswain in Southport for 18 years, restored Whinburn Hall to use as a family home and also based his business Nav-comm, a specialist in the design of LED lighting systems for emergency vehicles, there.

In the years that followed, Mr Sheldon developed what he claimed to be a new form of “anti-terror security equipment” to detect explosives and drugs from 50 metres and took a stand at a trade show in London in 2013 to showcase this. It was later described as being like “an experiment a first year university student would have tried, but which failed” and in due course West Yorkshire Police’s Economic Crime Unit placed Sheldon and his father, Anthony, under investigation.

Both were arrested on allegations of fraud and on 23^rd June 2015, after two police officers visited Whinburn Hall to inform the duo that they were to be rebailed for three months, 42-year old James Sheldon tragically jumped to his death from the fourth floor tower of the hall. It later transpired he had been served with an eviction order due his non-payment of the mortgage on the house and faced debts of some £1.25 million ($1.62 million or €1.45 million).

The main property, which is now for sale through agents Dacre Son & Hartley for just £1.45 million ($1.87 million or €1.68 million), currently – rather unluckily, some might also argue – features 13 bedrooms and 7 reception rooms. It comes with a detached bungalow and a dilapidated gatehouse and stands in 7 acres of protected gardens that includes a folly designed by the renowned Lancastrian garden designer and landscape architect Thomas Mawson. Hopefully the next owner, aside from tackling this “overgrown jungle”, will also bring with them better luck.

This ‘baronial hall’ is used as a dining room and is dominated a truly tasteless purple ceiling

The purple theme continues in this gallery

And there’s more of it in this corridor

A drawing room complete with ‘classy’ DFS style furniture and a huge television set could be somewhat improved

A striking fireplace in another room is surrounded by some pretty hideously coloured leather sofas

A staircase with a resemblance to something from a fun fair

Another staircase is a little more traditional

One of thirteen bedrooms

The house is surrounded by 7 acres of overgrown grounds

A somewhat amateur attempt at creating a helipad is located close to the house

The entrance gates

The roof of the adjoining gatehouse is literally caving in

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August 15, 2016
Reducing a stately

Grade I listed Sir John Soane designed country house Tyringham Hall reduced in price by 30% (more…)

May 15, 2016
A catch at Cornbury

Grade I listed 40,000 square foot Oxfordshire stately home on the market for just £3.6 million – but inevitably there’s a catch (more…)

May 6, 2016
Modern Millicent

Modern Georgian style country house for sale for £19.5 million – complete with bowling alley and ‘Indian room’ with LED ‘night sky’ ceiling (more…)

May 3, 2016
The ultimate iceberg home

House in The Boltons goes on the market for £27.5 million more than it was marketed for in 2012 complete with an extra four levels of accommodation (more…)

May 1, 2016