Tag: society

Gaining a Lambo (or five)

Convoy of five yellow Lamborghinis spotted cruising around Kensington and Chelsea

Someone once said: “Work until you feel a Lamborghini is cheap” and plainly the owner of a convoy currently in London has exactly that attitude.

Pictured here on Brompton Road opposite the former premises of La Brasserie, a fleet of five yellow examples of these supercars has been seen driving around Kensington and Chelsea in recent days. Plainly, if indeed the vehicles belong to one owner, here is a man living by the opposite mantra of Oscar Wilde’s: “To lose one parent may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.”

Truly, however, most people would argue such a noticeable convoy to be nothing other than ostentatious. Get them parked!

September 9, 2017
Big Shorting Gatsby

Long Island mansion with links to ‘The Great Gatsby’ and ‘The Big Short’ for sale for £13.1 million (or 152% more than it sold for in 2011)

F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896 – 1940) set his ‘Roaring Twenties’ classic The Great Gatsby in the fictional locations of East Egg and West Egg on Long Island and now one of the homes that inspired him is available for sale.

Owned by Cornwall Capital founder James Mai – a man whose firm ironically made over 80 times its capital by buying credit default swaps on CDOs prior to the 2008 financial crisis – and his wife Chiara since 2011, 235 Middle Neck Road at Sands Point on Long Island’s Gold Coast was built in 1926 and home to the Rumsey-Harriman railroad dynasty from 1929.

Fitzgerald is said to have spent time at the residence learning about “the lifestyle of the moneyed aristocracy of Old Westport, Long Island, and their involvement in the movement of eugenics” from the Rumseys and ironically, James Mai, is also representative of a clash between ‘old’ and ‘new’ money. In 2008, he and his partner are said to have been the ones “screaming about [the coming crash] as loud as they could, but everyone turned a deaf ear.” The character Jamie Shipley, played by Finn Wittrock in the 2015 film The Big Short, is loosely based upon him.

Current owners Chiara and James Mai are said to have spent vast sums on the renovation of the estate

Featuring 11,955 square foot of renovated accommodation that includes formal and informal entertaining spaces, 13 bedrooms and 8 bathrooms. There is also a 6-car garage with a 3-bedroom caretaker’s cottage, a 4-bedroom beachside cottage and a boat house.

Outside, on a plot of some 5.3 acres, there is a 391-foot private beach, a tennis court and in spite of its seeming isolation, the property is situated just 29 miles from Downtown Manhattan and 25 minutes by boat.

235 Middle Neck Road is listed by Nava Mitnick of Daniel Gale Sotheby’s International. In December 2016, of it, she commented: “Obviously, it’s so imposing – you drive down and see the sweeping views. But when we entered the house, I described it as a ‘glorified cottage’, because it’s so homey.”

235 Middle Neck Road – The Numbers

August 2017 – Relisted for £13.1 million ($16.88 million, €14.2 million or درهم62 million).

December 2016 – Listed for sale for £15.4 million ($19.8 million, €16.6 million or درهم72.7 million).

June 2011 – Sold for £5.2 million ($6.675 million, €5.6 million or درهم24.5 million).

February 2011 – Listed for sale for £7.7 million ($9.9 million, €8.3 million or درهم36.4 million).

August 27, 2017
Flying a White Elephant

Orange County mega-estate sold last for £14 million on an original asking price of £67 million offered for sale again for £43 million after death of owner

The largest residential estate on the Newport Coast of California is back on the market. One Pelican Hill Road North in Newport Beach – alternatively known as ‘Villa Del Lago’ or ‘Villa of the Lake’ – is a property with an extraordinary past and though listed on construction for £67 million in 2009, eventually sold at a fire auction in 2012 for just £14 million. Its subsequent owner, a Japanese industrialist and publisher, death has now resulted in it being placed for sale again and this time £43 million is sought.

Situated on a plot of 12.47 acres and comprising 17,706 square foot of ‘Italianate-style’ accommodation, One Pelican Hill Road North was last marketed as having 8 bedrooms and 17 bathrooms. On a new, dedicated marketing page for it, it is now being promoted as having, amongst other things, 2 screening rooms, a china/silver room, an “indoor lap pool with fibre optic twinkling star ceiling”, a 14-car garage and a “wine cave”. Outside, there is a “cascading private lake”, stabling, a riding ring, a putting green, an “organic edible garden” and potential for a vineyard.

Jeffrey Janger and Linda Janger of Pace Properties have the listing currently but given another agent, Michael Gosselin of Surterre Properties, previously commented: “Newport Coast has yet to see any homes sell for more than $20 million (£15.5 million)”, it’ll be likely there’ll be a few price cuts yet.

One Pelican Hill Road North – The Extraordinary Numbers

2003 – Land purchased for $3.2 million by Monarch Estates. Subsequent construction loans total $27.3 million.

February 2009 – Completed house placed for sale for sale for $87 million by a realtor named John McMonigle, the managing member of a partnership developing the project.

May 2010 – Price reduced to $57 million.

January 2011 – Three offers received, all were below $37 million and not accepted.

April 2012 – Offered at a court-sanctioned auction with “no opening bid sought”. Sold for $18.5 million to Toshiaki Ogasawara, an industrialist and publisher of the Japan Times.

January 2017 – Placed on the market after Ogasawara’s death in December 2016 for $55 million.

August 18, 2017
Grim Grenfell

Matthew Steeples suggests the giant coffin and stain on government that is the Grenfell Tower should be demolished immediately

The giant, grim carbuncle that is Grenfell Tower is a stain on the councillors of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and it should be torn to the ground immediately.

Allowing this monstrous edifice to bad government remain standing is wrong. Ash and debris from it blow across the surrounding environs and for survivors of this tragedy, that it still stands can only bring back hideous memories of witnessing friends and neighbours burn to death.

Of the building, an unnamed resident recently told The Independent: “The block needs to be tore down. It’s haunting, there used to be faces in those windows.” They are right and that suggestions have been made to cover the structure in tarpaulin simply do not cut the mustard. A proposal to demolish at the end of 2018 will leave the Grenfell Tower insensitively dominating a damaged community far too long and any useful evidence, surely, must by now have been gathered. This giant coffin should be terminated far sooner and it should be blasted to smithereens as soon as is physically possible.

Follow Matthew Steeples on Twitter at @M_Steeples.

August 15, 2017
A Con and A Cabriolet

One-off 1971 Rolls-Royce Phantom VI cabriolet to be auctioned; originally commissioned by a British playboy turned jailbird with connections to Princess Margaret but only actually completed in 1993

A 1971 Rolls-Royce Phantom VI all-weather cabriolet with bodywork by the renowned Italian automotive stylist Frua is to be auctioned this month.

Offered with an estimate of £308,000 to £462,000 ($400,000 to $600,000, €340,000 to €511,000 or درهم1.5 million to درهم2.2 million), this truly unique, one-of-one design was amazingly the final Rolls-Royce Phantom VI completed in spite of the model remaining in production until 1991. This mammoth beast of a car, surprisingly, however, has just 72 miles on its clock and is thus described as “as brand new.”

The car’s first owner, Robert ‘Bobby’ Buchanan-Michaelson, was a bit of a playboy but sadly he never got to actually drive or be driven in it. A “member of Princess Margaret’s inner circle of friends,” this Cambridge graduate was a member of the “Mayfair mammas’ lists of the season’s most eligible bachelors” until “exchanging his Edwardian hacking jacket for prison grey” in 1954 after being jailed for 12 months for an import/export fraud according to a report in Sydney’s World’s News in August that year.

Some years after being freed, ex-con Buchanan-Michaelson took part in the 10,000 mile 1968 London to Sydney Marathon in a Mercedes-Benz 280SE. In a book about the adventure he was described as both a “successful and wealthy businessman, employing a cook, a butler, a maid and a chauffeur” and as an “accomplished sportsman.” Also listed as a lavish spender, Buchannan-Michaelson was later bankrupted in November 1977 – though at the time he lived in grandeur at both at Churchbury Manor at Fairford, Gloucestershire and 26 The Vale, in Chelsea, London, SW3.

In 1970, in the period between the international car race and his bankruptcy, Buchanan-Michaelson commissioned Rolls-Royce to build him a Phantom VI. After delivery to Jack Barclay Ltd. In June 1971, the vehicle’s chassis was sent to Frua of Torino, Italy to have bodywork fitted but for some reason work stopped and it was not until 1977 – and by now with a new American owner, James Leake, and new drawings of its eventual form – that the project continued.

With Pietro Frua (1913 – 1983) retiring soon thereafter and Mr Leake’s death in 1983, the chassis passed to new ownership and it was only eventually completed as a finished motor vehicle in 1993.

That year, the four-door ‘state cabriolet’ was displayed at the Geneva Motor Show and its boxy look must have surely either have wowed or horrified visitors. It is described as having “an elaborate multi-position convertible top allows the car to be configured as a sedanca de ville, landaulet or fully open convertible.” The interior is trimmed in burled walnut with sterling silver inlays and amongst other luxuries are front and rear heating, air-conditioning, fresh-air ventilation systems, a television, a video player, a radio and a cocktail cabinet. Underneath the seats is a portable Davidoff cigar humidor and even a matching silk-lined ladies’ vanity case. What more could anyone ever need?

RM Sotheby’s will sell the Frua Phantom VI at their Monterey sale in California on 19^th August and term it: “The last word in modern opulence.”

August 8, 2017
Palming Off Il Palmetto

Billionaire founder of Netscape has failed to sell his Palm Beach mansion in a year; it remains on the market for £105 million (or 754% more than he paid for it in 1999)

Four times married, a father of four and a collector of rather large gin palaces, Texan James H. Clark founded Netscape in 1994 and earnt $2 billion (the equivalent of $3 billion, £2.3 billion, €2.6 billion or درهم11 billion today) from that project when it was sold to AOL in 1998.

Clark paid just $11 million for a Palm Beach mansion named ‘Il Palmetto’ in 1999 (the equivalent of $16.2 million, £12.3 million €13.8 million or درهم59.5 million today) and spent four years renovating the 5.46-acre property. He placed it for sale for $137 million (£105 million, €117 million or درهم503 million) last August but has plainly failed to attract a buyer.

Built to the designs of the Swiss architect Maurice Fatio (1897 – 1943) as an “Italian Renaissance-style palazzo” in 1930, the house – which is also known as 1500 South Ocean Boulevard – is described by selling agents Sotheby’s International Realty as “without peer in Palm Beach.” The building was subjected to a four year renovation by Mr Clark, reportedly extends to around 44,200 square foot and aside from including 10 bedrooms, 14 full-bathrooms and 12 partial-bathrooms, also comes with a 20,000 bottle wine cellar and a second cellar for an additional 1,000 crates.

Architecturally “a series of pavilions connected by cloisters,” the main house is dominated by formal entertaining areas with 16^th century carved ceilings and accessed from a private tunnel underneath the road is a 2-bedroom beach house with an infinity pool that “blends into the turquoise waters of the Atlantic Ocean.” To the other boundary, on Lake Worth, is a boathouse with motorised launches for two vessels and a 2-bedroom apartment above.

July 30, 2017
Strictly Come Mayfair

Grosvenor Square apartment for sale; it comes with access to a private residents’ ballroom and will appeal to any fan of ‘Strictly Come Dancing’

Built circa 1958 on the site of an earlier house damaged during the war, a ground floor apartment within 17 Grosvenor Square in London’s Mayfair has gone on sale for £3.75 million ($4.9 million, €4.2 million or درهم18.1 million).

Offered on a lease with 40 years remaining, the 1,481 square foot property includes not only an impressive 29-foot by 17-foot drawing room but also two bedrooms and two bathrooms. It does require but modernisation but comes with a bonus in the form of access to a private residents’ ballroom measuring 55-foot by 22-foot.

That space supposedly can accommodate upto 350 people for a cocktail party and though said to be “rarely used,” it certainly could be the perfect space for any fan of BBC One’s Strictly Come Dancing to practice the Samba.

Agents Wetherell have the listing.

Pictured above: The ballroom shared by residents of 17 Grosvenor Square.

July 30, 2017
Dr No More

Gatecrasher ‘Dr Nastro’ admits defeat and announces he’ll be retiring from the ligging circuit; perhaps Denis Doble, David Pun and Sandra Shevey ought to follow his lead

On Wednesday, we received a message from a known member of London’s ligging community of aging oddballs using the pseudonym ‘Dr Nastro’.

In an email to our main editorial email address and sent from a Yahoo account, this gatecrasher accused Matthew Steeples of effectively being responsible for his being “banned from venues” and suggested that one of the worst of his very own number “had me thrown out of a place. ” also. He added a link to an article on a website named ‘Stop Wine Liggers’ and rather pathetically concluded: “I will not be going to events any more.”

By return, Matthew Steeples responded:

“I have nothing to do with the website you have linked to – I am busy enough with my own work – but have responded to the comments there. If they decide to publish, you will see my thoughts.”

“I do believe the behaviour of the ligging community is unacceptable. You and your friends do not add to events, they subtract and they are a nuisance to organisers. Some of your number are thieves and others are just racist bigots. Plainly, you have offended the person behind the site you mention but what I cannot understand is why you are surprised.”

“As for giving up going, it is probably the wisest decision you’ve made given the chaos you’ve caused previously. Enjoy your retirement.”

In reply, ‘Dr Nastro’ immediately answered: “I just did it for fun the rest are not [sic].”

Image taken from ‘Stop Wine Liggers’ website.

July 26, 2017
Removing Ralph

Ralph Lauren are latest to board-up shop in Fulham Road, London

In April, Ralph Lauren shut their flagship Polo store in Fifth Avenue and now they’ve closed one of their two stores on London’s Fulham Road too.

Whilst the reasoning for closing the Chelsea outlet of Ralph Lauren Kids is unknown, the firm has joined many other retailers on the stretch opposite Pelham Crescent to board-up shop.

Matthew Steeples, editor-in-chief of The Steeple Times, observes:

“With an ever-declining number of residents in the Royal Borough, ever increasing commercial rents at the behest of greedy landlords and the prospect of the uncertainty of Brexit, sadly, this won’t be the last closure in the locality.”

July 17, 2017
Canvassing a Con

After a Chelsea chef who came out of nowhere named Michael Riemenschneider is revealed to be a “conman” in the ‘Mail on Sunday’, readers tell of his past form

As can only be expected of a paper that loves a bit of sensationalism this week’s Mail on Sunday’s ‘YOU’ got rather carried away in an interview with a “wealthy widow” named Flora Mascolo – a woman who claims to be a victim of, mind the magazine’s gushingly cringeworthy description, a “delicious romance soon turned sour” with a Michelin starred chef named Michael Riemenschneider.

Bizarrely, that Riemenschneider – a man whose first London restaurant, we noted in February 2014, was literally covered with images of his face and captions referencing his name – is lauded as a “handsome celebrity chef” in the feature by Margarette Driscoll is somewhat ambitious given several locals we contacted remember him as “podgy” and a “little bit greasy.” A well-known Chelsea restaurateur – where the Swiss born chef opened a replacement restaurant that few ever even got to hear of just months after opening and nigh on immediately closing his original Marylebone premises in summer 2014 – recalls an individual whose “ability to talk about himself and his achievements made me immediately question the truth of his claims.”

That Driscoll lauds this individual as “talented and dynamic” is perhaps fair given his “experimental cuisine” most definitely had many merits, but that she describes a man Mascolo herself calls a “coward of a man” and “somebody who was a lie, from the beginning” as “destined for similar success” to Heston Blumenthal and Gordon Ramsay is nothing but far fetched. Here was someone who opened in bizarre off-piste locations, insisted diners fitted into limited time spots and ridiculously thought he could limit customers to a set menu priced at £275 per head or a ‘cheaper’ one at £95 per head.

Riemenschneider, a man whose exploits are reported to have cost the widow of the co-founder of the Toni & Guy hairdressing empire some £2.27 million, is now supposedly bankrupt and living in Austria. Cars bought by him including a Mercedes-Benz GTS have reportedly been seized and of him Mascolo comments: “If you wrong me, you will remember my name. He didn’t know who he was messing with.”

A wealthy female reader of The Steeple Times contacted us to share her thoughts on the interview. She did not wish to be named but stated: “This strange, anything but handsome individual, pestered me on social media. He messaged me one day out of the blue in 2013 and he told me that we had friends in common. I am glad I did not fall for his attempts to lure me. Plainly, Mrs Mascolo did and I am sorry for her.”

She continued:

“This man wasn’t a ‘celebrity chef’ but, in fact, a Facebook stalker of ladies he thought had a bit of cash. In his messages to me, I quickly realised he was an individual who’d come out of nowhere and brought with him an ego the size of Harrods.”

“The journalist [Margarette Driscoll] gets rather carried away about his restaurant. It was in a sub-basement off Sloane Square and it didn’t even have a website. Nobody went there because nobody even knew about it. Where there’s money, there’s muck.”

Michael Riemenschneider will no doubt reemerge someday. He was certainly a good cook, but sadly he turned out to be an even better conman.

July 16, 2017