The Steeple Times

Tag: rich

  • Alfie Best – What’s on your mantelpiece?

    Alfie Best – What’s on your mantelpiece?

    A 20-question interview with self-made businessman and star of ‘My Fat Gypsy Fortune’ Alfie Best

     

    The Steeple Times shares “wit and wisdom”. What’s your guiding force?

    For a man to know where he is going, he must remember where he is from.

     

    “Don’t get even, get medieval” is, in our humble opinion, a great motto. What’s yours?

    Life is a light, it is your job to make it shine brighter.

     

    Kerry Katona was considered unacceptable in 2007. Who or what is unacceptable in 2017?

    Internet trolls who are brave behind keyboards.

     

    Tony Blair misses being Prime Minister. What do you miss most in your life?

    Time.

     

    What might you swap all your wealth for?

    More time.

     

    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 state of the financial system?

    If you treat the bank as a bank, they will treat you as a customer but if you treat the banks as a partner within your business and build your relationship with the management of the bank, they will consider you as a partner and offer much more insight and help which it is own way, is free to you as a business.

     

    What phrase or word do you most loathe?

    “We have a problem”; one man’s problem is another man’s opportunity.

     

    In the UK, some people consider charity to “begin at home”. What’s your view and what causes do you personally support?

    I do believe charity begins at home but I also believe giving is not as good as teaching. If you give a man a fish, he will feed his family for a night, show the man how to fish and he will feed his family for a lifetime.

     

    We’re actually setting up own charity – Wyldecrest Parks Charity – which hopefully we’ll be able to help vulnerable people in need.

     

    The judge in Law Abiding Citizen states: “I can pretty much do whatever I want” before being blown up whilst answering her mobile phone. What’s your view on the appropriate use of such devices?

    Connection is unbelievable and the forward bounds it has given us a society is unprecedented but we have to remember not to become disconnected from society.

     

    If you could fill a carriage on The Orient Express, who would be your fellow passengers?

    I would fill the carriage with my family and friends and invite Tracy Chapman and the musical artist Rodriguez; I would look for them to enjoy the ride and party whilst it lasted.

     

    If you were unfortunate enough to end up on death row, what would be your last meal and where would you eat it?

    Pie, mash and liquor at the White House with the President to try and get a reprieve whilst eating my last meal.

     

    What time is it acceptable to consume the first drink of the day?

    6:30am with a nice cup of lemon tea.

     

    A Negroni, a martini or a cup of tea?

    A cup of tea.

     

    Whose parties do you enjoy the most and why?

    I enjoy my son’s parties because the charisma he brings to the room is like a ray of sunshine on the beach.

     

    Who is the most positive person you know?

    Me.

     

    What’s your most guilty pleasure?

    Chocolate.

     

    If a tattoo were to sum you up, what would it be of?

    If I were to have a tattoo, it would state ‘BEST’ across my back because it would mean the best is behind me and there is even better to come.

     

    If you were a car, what marque would you be?

    A black Lamborghini.

     

    Cilla Black presented Surprise, Surprise. Tell us the most surprising thing about you.

    After becoming a millionaire at 20, I nearly went bust and slept in my car for 3 months.

     

    What’s currently sitting on your mantelpiece?

    A backward clock – it confuses everyone!

     

    Alfie Best is a successful entrepreneur driven by tenacity. With humble origins, born and raised in a Romany Gypsy family, this self-made man started his professional path totally from scratch. Alongside Wyldecrest Parks, Alfie Best also owns other very successful businesses within the hospitality and leisure, events, trading and finance industries including Vinyl Bar, Kyoto Furniture, Axiom Uno and Wylde Event Management.

     

    Follow him on Twitter at @alfiebest33.

     

  • Alfie Best II

    Alfie Best II

    A tenacious Romany Gypsy turned multi-millionaire businessman, Mayfair and Hertfordshire based Alfie Best overcame “many obstacles and prejudices” to make his fortune in cars, mobile phone stores and mobile home parks. The owner of Wyldecrest Parks also produces his own gin and claims his life philosophy is “90% perspiration and 10% inspiration”. His equally entrepreneurial son, Alfie Best III, appeared with him on Channel 4’s My Big Fat Gypsy Fortune.

  • Barbed Manors

    Barbed Manors

    Grade II* listed Kent manor house for sale for £3.95 million; the purchaser will get a controversial £107.9 million EuroMillions jackpot winner as their neighbour

     

    Sold last in 2009 for £1.9 million (the equivalent of £2.3 million, $2.8 million, €2.2 million or درهم 10.3 million today), Waystrode Manor at Cowden, near Edenbridge in Kent is a Grade II* listed manor house.

     

    For sale currently for £3.95 million ($4.81 million, €4.56 million or درهم 17.65 million) through Savills, the main 4,435 square foot house dates back as far, perhaps, as 1208. The present Tudor residence includes 4 reception rooms, 5 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms, but aside from that there is a 3 bedroom cottage, a converted oast house providing a recreation space, a Grade II listed double vaulted timber frame barn, an orangery and a coach house.

     

    Within the 7.8 acres of formal and informal gardens and grounds of this attractive, restored property – which has been offered as a film and photo shoot location through the JJ Media agency – there is also an outdoor swimming pool, a hard tennis court, three ponds and an orchard.

     

    Though the eventual purchaser of Waystrode Manor will of course be a multi-millionaire, they will most likely not be nearly as rich as their controversial neighbours, Neil Trotter and his partner Nikki Ottaway. Mr Trotter won £107.9 million ($131.4million, €124.6 million or درهم 482.4 million) on the EuroMillions lottery in 2014 and subsequently bought the adjoining 423-acre estate, Leighton Manor, for £5 million ($6.1 million, €5.8 million or درهم 22.4 million). In 2016, Trotter and Ottaway were “slammed” in the national press by locals after installing what was termed an “unsightly” barbed wire fence.

     

    Barbed Manors – Waystrode Manor, Spode Lane, Cowden, Edenbridge, Kent, TN8 7HW – For sale for £3.95 million ($4.81 million, €4.56 million or درهم 17.65 million) through Savills – Neighboring estate to Leighton Manor, owned by EuroMillions winners Neil Trotter and Nikki Ottaway
    Neil Trotter was a garage mechanic before he won a EuroMillions jackpot
    Barbed Manors – Waystrode Manor, Spode Lane, Cowden, Edenbridge, Kent, TN8 7HW – For sale for £3.95 million ($4.81 million, €4.56 million or درهم 17.65 million) through Savills – Neighboring estate to Leighton Manor, owned by EuroMillions winners Neil Trotter and Nikki Ottaway
    Waystrode Manor, Spode Lane, Cowden, Edenbridge, Kent, TN8 7HW
    Barbed Manors – Waystrode Manor, Spode Lane, Cowden, Edenbridge, Kent, TN8 7HW – For sale for £3.95 million ($4.81 million, €4.56 million or درهم 17.65 million) through Savills – Neighboring estate to Leighton Manor, owned by EuroMillions winners Neil Trotter and Nikki Ottaway
    A sitting room in the main house
    Barbed Manors – Waystrode Manor, Spode Lane, Cowden, Edenbridge, Kent, TN8 7HW – For sale for £3.95 million ($4.81 million, €4.56 million or درهم 17.65 million) through Savills – Neighboring estate to Leighton Manor, owned by EuroMillions winners Neil Trotter and Nikki Ottaway
    A drawing room with an equally imposing fireplace
    Barbed Manors – Waystrode Manor, Spode Lane, Cowden, Edenbridge, Kent, TN8 7HW – For sale for £3.95 million ($4.81 million, €4.56 million or درهم 17.65 million) through Savills – Neighboring estate to Leighton Manor, owned by EuroMillions winners Neil Trotter and Nikki Ottaway
    This hallway is used as a dining space
    Barbed Manors – Waystrode Manor, Spode Lane, Cowden, Edenbridge, Kent, TN8 7HW – For sale for £3.95 million ($4.81 million, €4.56 million or درهم 17.65 million) through Savills – Neighboring estate to Leighton Manor, owned by EuroMillions winners Neil Trotter and Nikki Ottaway
    Whilst this is described as a breakfast room
    Barbed Manors – Waystrode Manor, Spode Lane, Cowden, Edenbridge, Kent, TN8 7HW – For sale for £3.95 million ($4.81 million, €4.56 million or درهم 17.65 million) through Savills – Neighboring estate to Leighton Manor, owned by EuroMillions winners Neil Trotter and Nikki Ottaway
    The kitchen is one of the few “modern” rooms in the main building
    Barbed Manors – Waystrode Manor, Spode Lane, Cowden, Edenbridge, Kent, TN8 7HW – For sale for £3.95 million ($4.81 million, €4.56 million or درهم 17.65 million) through Savills – Neighboring estate to Leighton Manor, owned by EuroMillions winners Neil Trotter and Nikki Ottaway
    The master bedroom has its own bathroom
    Barbed Manors – Waystrode Manor, Spode Lane, Cowden, Edenbridge, Kent, TN8 7HW – For sale for £3.95 million ($4.81 million, €4.56 million or درهم 17.65 million) through Savills – Neighboring estate to Leighton Manor, owned by EuroMillions winners Neil Trotter and Nikki Ottaway
    This barn is Grade II listed
    Barbed Manors – Waystrode Manor, Spode Lane, Cowden, Edenbridge, Kent, TN8 7HW – For sale for £3.95 million ($4.81 million, €4.56 million or درهم 17.65 million) through Savills – Neighboring estate to Leighton Manor, owned by EuroMillions winners Neil Trotter and Nikki Ottaway
    It features a double height, vaulted interior
    Barbed Manors – Waystrode Manor, Spode Lane, Cowden, Edenbridge, Kent, TN8 7HW – For sale for £3.95 million ($4.81 million, €4.56 million or درهم 17.65 million) through Savills – Neighboring estate to Leighton Manor, owned by EuroMillions winners Neil Trotter and Nikki Ottaway
    An oast house stands in the grounds also
    Barbed Manors – Waystrode Manor, Spode Lane, Cowden, Edenbridge, Kent, TN8 7HW – For sale for £3.95 million ($4.81 million, €4.56 million or درهم 17.65 million) through Savills – Neighboring estate to Leighton Manor, owned by EuroMillions winners Neil Trotter and Nikki Ottaway
    The interior of the building
    Barbed Manors – Waystrode Manor, Spode Lane, Cowden, Edenbridge, Kent, TN8 7HW – For sale for £3.95 million ($4.81 million, €4.56 million or درهم 17.65 million) through Savills – Neighboring estate to Leighton Manor, owned by EuroMillions winners Neil Trotter and Nikki Ottaway
    A view of the gardens
    Barbed Manors – Waystrode Manor, Spode Lane, Cowden, Edenbridge, Kent, TN8 7HW – For sale for £3.95 million ($4.81 million, €4.56 million or درهم 17.65 million) through Savills – Neighboring estate to Leighton Manor, owned by EuroMillions winners Neil Trotter and Nikki Ottaway
    This orangery is quite impressive from the outside
    Barbed Manors – Waystrode Manor, Spode Lane, Cowden, Edenbridge, Kent, TN8 7HW – For sale for £3.95 million ($4.81 million, €4.56 million or درهم 17.65 million) through Savills – Neighboring estate to Leighton Manor, owned by EuroMillions winners Neil Trotter and Nikki Ottaway
    As is its interior
    Barbed Manors – Waystrode Manor, Spode Lane, Cowden, Edenbridge, Kent, TN8 7HW – For sale for £3.95 million ($4.81 million, €4.56 million or درهم 17.65 million) through Savills – Neighboring estate to Leighton Manor, owned by EuroMillions winners Neil Trotter and Nikki Ottaway
    There is a tennis court
    Barbed Manors – Waystrode Manor, Spode Lane, Cowden, Edenbridge, Kent, TN8 7HW – For sale for £3.95 million ($4.81 million, €4.56 million or درهم 17.65 million) through Savills – Neighboring estate to Leighton Manor, owned by EuroMillions winners Neil Trotter and Nikki Ottaway
    And a swimming pool
    Barbed Manors – Waystrode Manor, Spode Lane, Cowden, Edenbridge, Kent, TN8 7HW – For sale for £3.95 million ($4.81 million, €4.56 million or درهم 17.65 million) through Savills – Neighboring estate to Leighton Manor, owned by EuroMillions winners Neil Trotter and Nikki Ottaway
    A further outbuilding
    Barbed Manors – Waystrode Manor, Spode Lane, Cowden, Edenbridge, Kent, TN8 7HW – For sale for £3.95 million ($4.81 million, €4.56 million or درهم 17.65 million) through Savills – Neighboring estate to Leighton Manor, owned by EuroMillions winners Neil Trotter and Nikki Ottaway
    The setting
    Barbed Manors – Waystrode Manor, Spode Lane, Cowden, Edenbridge, Kent, TN8 7HW – For sale for £3.95 million ($4.81 million, €4.56 million or درهم 17.65 million) through Savills – Neighboring estate to Leighton Manor, owned by EuroMillions winners Neil Trotter and Nikki Ottaway
    Another view of the main house
  • Jan Harvey

    Jan Harvey

    Penzance born actress Jan Harvey is married to her Howards’ Way co-star Stephen Yardley. She played Jan Howard in the popular series that depicted Thatcherite, nouveau riche excess from 1985 to 1990, has also appeared in Inspector Morse and Lovejoy and was pushed off a balcony to her death in Eastenders in 2016. In 2013, she suggested the wealthy yachting drama should be remade as “it could show all the problems of the young rich”.

     

    Jan Harvey – Actress and star of Howards’ Way with her husband Steven Yardley

  • Sex and the Single Zillionaire

    Sex and the Single Zillionaire

    Belvedere, CA home of late tech billionaire and author of ‘Sex and the Single Zillionaire’ Thomas Perkins for sale; he entertained amongst others Sophia Loren and Rupert Murdoch there

     

    Thomas Perkins (1932 – 2016) had it all. Born in New York, this Harvard University and MIT graduate made his fortune in Silicon Valley, California when he co-founded Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers in 1972 and invested in amongst others Amazon, AOL, Compaq, Google, Macromedia, Netscape and Segway. He was said to be worth £6.4 billion ($8 billion, €7.4 billion or درهم29.4 billion), was briefly married to famed author Danielle Steel between 1998 and 2002 and wrote a novel of his own, Sex and the Single Zillionaire, in 2006.

     

    Aside from an £8 million ($10 million, €9.3 million or درهم36.6 million) country house in East Sussex, England named Plumpton Place and ‘The Maltese Falcon’ – his 289-foot long, £104.3 million ($130 million, €120.9 million or درهم477.5 million) sailing yacht – Perkins owned a French style residence on Belvedere Island in Marin County, California. He purchased it with his Norwegian first wife, Gerd Thune-Ellefsen, in 1972 and continued to live there after her death in 1994.

     

    Sex and the Single Zillionaire – 345 Golden Gate Avenue, Belvedere Island, Marin County, California, CA 94920 – £13.2 million ($16.5 million, €15.3 million or درهم60.6 million) – Sotheby’s International Realty – Former home of billionaire businessman Thomas Perkins (1932 – 2016)
    Danielle Steel and Tom Perkins remained friends even after their divorce
    Sex and the Single Zillionaire – 345 Golden Gate Avenue, Belvedere Island, Marin County, California, CA 94920 – £13.2 million ($16.5 million, €15.3 million or درهم60.6 million) – Sotheby’s International Realty – Former home of billionaire businessman Thomas Perkins (1932 – 2016)
    Steel even hosted a party for Perkins’s novel at her Pacific Heights, San Francisco mansion when it launched in 2006
    Sex and the Single Zillionaire – 345 Golden Gate Avenue, Belvedere Island, Marin County, California, CA 94920 – £13.2 million ($16.5 million, €15.3 million or درهم60.6 million) – Sotheby’s International Realty – Former home of billionaire businessman Thomas Perkins (1932 – 2016)
    The tech billionaire’s yacht, The Maltese Falcon, was the largest sailing yacht in the world when it was launched in 1990
    Sex and the Single Zillionaire – 345 Golden Gate Avenue, Belvedere Island, Marin County, California, CA 94920 – £13.2 million ($16.5 million, €15.3 million or درهم60.6 million) – Sotheby’s International Realty – Former home of billionaire businessman Thomas Perkins (1932 – 2016)
    Perkins at his English country home, Plumpton Place in East Sussex
    Sex and the Single Zillionaire – 345 Golden Gate Avenue, Belvedere Island, Marin County, California, CA 94920 – £13.2 million ($16.5 million, €15.3 million or درهم60.6 million) – Sotheby’s International Realty – Former home of billionaire businessman Thomas Perkins (1932 – 2016)
    The exterior of Perkins’s Belvedere home, 345 Golden Gate Avenue, appears modest
    Sex and the Single Zillionaire – 345 Golden Gate Avenue, Belvedere Island, Marin County, California, CA 94920 – £13.2 million ($16.5 million, €15.3 million or درهم60.6 million) – Sotheby’s International Realty – Former home of billionaire businessman Thomas Perkins (1932 – 2016)
    But what is to be found within includes this spectacular ‘Grand Salon’

     

    Extending to 8.885 square foot in total, the house – which was put up for sale last June by Perkins’s children – was built to the designs of architects Julia Morgan and George Kelham in 1928 and features 16th century linenfold wood-paneled walls in a room described as a ‘Grand Salon’. Here, Perkins entertained European royalty, his fellow News Corp board member Rupert Murdoch and the Italian actress Sophia Loren and given the room’s outlook to the Golden Gate Bridge and San Francisco Bay, these luminaries cannot have failed to have been impressed.

     

    Known simply as 345 Golden Gate Avenue, Perkins’s former home is for sale through Sotheby’s International Realty for £13.2 million ($16.5 million, €15.3 million or درهم60.6 million). It includes a formal dining room seating 18, 6 bedrooms, 7.5 bathrooms, a guest apartment, an outdoor swimming pool and stands on a plot of 0.85 acres.

     

    Prior to his death, in 2014, Perkins attracted controversy when he penned an article for The Wall Street Journal. At the time, he wrote:

     

    “Writing from the epicentre [sic] of progressive thought, San Francisco, I would call attention to the parallels of fascist Nazi Germany to its war on its ‘one per cent’, namely its Jews, to the progressive war on the American one per cent, namely the rich”.

     

    He later apologised for making comparisons to Nazi Germany but subsequently added: “In the Nazi era it was racial demonization, now it’s class demonization”.

     

    Sex and the Single Zillionaire – 345 Golden Gate Avenue, Belvedere Island, Marin County, California, CA 94920 – £13.2 million ($16.5 million, €15.3 million or درهم60.6 million) – Sotheby’s International Realty – Former home of billionaire businessman Thomas Perkins (1932 – 2016) Sex and the Single Zillionaire – 345 Golden Gate Avenue, Belvedere Island, Marin County, California, CA 94920 – £13.2 million ($16.5 million, €15.3 million or درهم60.6 million) – Sotheby’s International Realty – Former home of billionaire businessman Thomas Perkins (1932 – 2016)Sex and the Single Zillionaire – 345 Golden Gate Avenue, Belvedere Island, Marin County, California, CA 94920 – £13.2 million ($16.5 million, €15.3 million or درهم60.6 million) – Sotheby’s International Realty – Former home of billionaire businessman Thomas Perkins (1932 – 2016)Sex and the Single Zillionaire – 345 Golden Gate Avenue, Belvedere Island, Marin County, California, CA 94920 – £13.2 million ($16.5 million, €15.3 million or درهم60.6 million) – Sotheby’s International Realty – Former home of billionaire businessman Thomas Perkins (1932 – 2016)Sex and the Single Zillionaire – 345 Golden Gate Avenue, Belvedere Island, Marin County, California, CA 94920 – £13.2 million ($16.5 million, €15.3 million or درهم60.6 million) – Sotheby’s International Realty – Former home of billionaire businessman Thomas Perkins (1932 – 2016) Sex and the Single Zillionaire – 345 Golden Gate Avenue, Belvedere Island, Marin County, California, CA 94920 – £13.2 million ($16.5 million, €15.3 million or درهم60.6 million) – Sotheby’s International Realty – Former home of billionaire businessman Thomas Perkins (1932 – 2016)Sex and the Single Zillionaire – 345 Golden Gate Avenue, Belvedere Island, Marin County, California, CA 94920 – £13.2 million ($16.5 million, €15.3 million or درهم60.6 million) – Sotheby’s International Realty – Former home of billionaire businessman Thomas Perkins (1932 – 2016)Sex and the Single Zillionaire – 345 Golden Gate Avenue, Belvedere Island, Marin County, California, CA 94920 – £13.2 million ($16.5 million, €15.3 million or درهم60.6 million) – Sotheby’s International Realty – Former home of billionaire businessman Thomas Perkins (1932 – 2016)Sex and the Single Zillionaire – 345 Golden Gate Avenue, Belvedere Island, Marin County, California, CA 94920 – £13.2 million ($16.5 million, €15.3 million or درهم60.6 million) – Sotheby’s International Realty – Former home of billionaire businessman Thomas Perkins (1932 – 2016)

  • The Ark of Brompton Cross

    The Ark of Brompton Cross

    Playboys swarming the streets of SW3 have turned Brompton Cross into the Arabian answer to Oxford Circus (more…)

  • Nicholas Loeb

    Nicholas Loeb

    The son of the former United States Ambassador to Denmark John L. Loeb, Jr., Nicholas Loeb is the founder of Loeb’s Onion Crunch. (more…)

  • Review: Whittard 77% cocoa flaked drinking chocolate

    Review: Whittard 77% cocoa flaked drinking chocolate

    Simon Ogilvie-Harris reviews Whittard’s most luxurious drinking chocolate offering (more…)

  • Repugnant Rolf

    Repugnant Rolf

    Rolf Harris shows his true colours in a letter to a friend (who happily sold him down the river to the ‘Mail on Sunday’) (more…)

  • Ampika Pickston

    Ampika Pickston

    Ampika PickstonOldham born divorcee and former glamour model Ampika Pickston describes herself as “feisty, fun loving and warm hearted”. (more…)