The Steeple Times

Tag: USA

  • Which bear will take the 13th seat?

    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]

  • For the love of Jobs

    For the love of Jobs

    Edward Kay takes a look at a yacht that forms part of the legacy of Steve Jobs

     

    In a bittersweet moment, Steve Jobs’s yacht was launched on 29th October from the Feadship’s de Vries yard in Aalsmeer, The Netherlands with his wife and three children aboard. The Jobs family gave the members of the yard iPod’s inscribed with the name of the yacht to show their appreciation for the six-year build.

     

    The unusual 256-foot yacht has been christened “Venus” after the Roman goddess of love and features huge floor to ceiling windows and teak decks.

     

    Venus emerges from the Feadship de Vries yard
    A closeup of the bridge deck of Venus shows seven 27-inch iMacs
    The iMacs in situ
    Venus in all her glory
    Steve Jobs (1955 – 2011)

    The minimalist Phillipe Starck designed aluminium vessel has been described as looking like an iPhone resting on an iPad resting on a MacBook Air and there are indeed seven 27-inch Mac screens clearly visible on the bridge deck.

     

    Jobs told his biographer Walter Isaacson: “I know it’s possible I will die and leave Laurene [his wife] with a half built boat. But I have to keep going on it. If I don’t, it’s an admission that I’m about to die.”

     

    Of the boat itself, Starck adds:

     

    “The idea for the boat was very simple. It was mainly philosophical. It is not like a lot of mega yachts showing the vulgarity of money. It’s a boat showing the elegance of intelligence.”

     

    Indeed, when Jobs saw the designs, he is said to have stated: “My God, it’s better than I could have dreamt.” I quite agree. Venus is a spectacular bequest.

     

    Remembering Steve Jobs: http://www.apple.com/stevejobs/

     

    To view more examples of the works of Feadship, go to: http://www.feadship.nl

  • Adele Adkins

    Adele Adkins

    “I don’t know what’s going to happen if my music career goes wrong,” states this Tottenham born singer. Having been named “one of the most influential people in the world” by TIME Magazine and broken the record for the longest number-1 album by a woman in Billboard history, she really need not worry. Adele’s still “Someone Like You,” except she’s now worth in excess of £23 million and is guaranteed a place amongst the music greats. Gordon Brown wrote to this Labour supporter to tell her that she’s a “light end of the tunnel” but we prefer the view of former Guns N’ Roses guitarist Slash. Of her, he proclaims: “She’s great. She’s a shot in the arm for this industry.”

  • Beverley Craven

    Beverley Craven

    This British singer-songwriter was born in Colombo, Sir Lanka whilst her father was there working for Kodak. Influenced by Elton John and Kate Bush, she began her career touring with Bobby Womack but it was her 1991 single, “Promise Me,” that catapulted Craven into the big time. After a period raising a family, she’s now back in the business and even appeared with her daughter, Mollie, on ITV’s Take Me Out in February 2012.

  • Tom Ford

    Tom Ford

    This Texan born designer and film director turned around the fortunes of Gucci and YSL and had a huge success with A Single Man. A fixture at New York’s Studio 54, his designs are hugely influenced by the club’s disco-era glamour and his love of all things black and square. Ford met his journalist partner, Richard Buckley, at a fashion show in 1986. They share a love for smooth fox terriers and announced the birth of their son, Alexander Buckley Ford, in September 2012. Of being “gay,” he comments: “I hate that word” but declares that he’ll marry when same-sex marriage is legalised in California. Of Ford, his partner, Buckley, adds: “There’s only one Tom for me.”

  • Picture of the Week: Autumnal steam

    Picture of the Week: Autumnal steam

    The glorious colours of autumn

     

    At The Steeple Times we love steam trains and, courtesy of Rex Leyland, we featured a video of one in August on Kew Bridge.

     

    Today, with thanks to our television personality and animal advocate campaigner friend Lorenzo Borghese, we feature a superb image of a locomotive in the forests of America. We’re yet to find out where this was taken so if readers know or indeed have travelled on this service, please do let us know.

     

    The image, we feel, captures all that is stunning about this time of year and for this reason we make it The Steeple Times picture of the week.

  • Post-Fordism

    Post-Fordism

    The flexible £12.75 million former home of Tom Ford

     

    Number 26 Gilston Road in London’s SW10 is a property that has been on and off the market repeatedly in recent years. On each and every occasion it has been promoted as the “former home of the fashion icon Tom Ford” and though he hasn’t lived there in years, it is still just as he left it.

     

    Designer and film producer Tom Ford
    “The former home of design icon Tom Ford”: 26 Gilston Road, London, SW10 9SS

    Situated at the end of a terrace on the corner of Priory Walk, one can see why the house appealed to the Texan born designer credited with turning around the fortunes of Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent. Hidden behind a high wall and hedging, 26 Gilston Road is private yet minutes from the restaurants of Old Brompton and Fulham Roads.

     

    This 4-storey townhouse was sold in June 1997 for £2,250,000 and again marketed in 2009 for £8,500,000 through Aylesford. In the time since, it has been available to let at prices ranging from £5,500 to £7,500 per week, but is now back for sale at the extraordinary figure of £12,750,00 through Russell Simpson.

     

    One of the reception rooms, just as Tom Ford left it
    Another of the Tom Ford styled rooms
    A Tom Ford designed bedroom
    The garden of the property is extremely private

    What explains such a rise during a period of economic downturn? Well, it’s because developers Equilibrium have gained permission to “de-Ford” the house. As is now the trend in London, they have planned a total redesign. Their illustrations incorporate a new sub-basement and as a result the gross internal area will increase from just over 3,700 square feet to just under 5,300 square feet.

     

    Equilibrium’s plans include a vast living-dining-kitchen with a study in the void over. The space is lit by a skylight.
    A cutaway shows the extent of the redevelopment planned
    A view of 26 Gilston Road from the corner of Priory Walk

    Whilst the layout Tom Ford, himself a graduate in architecture from Parsons The New School of Design, created at 26 Gilston Road was ideal for A Single Man; the new floor plan with 4 bedrooms is much better suited to a family. Ford and his partner, Richard Buckley, announced the birth of their son, Alexander, in September. Perhaps they should put in a bid.

     

    For more information about 26 Gilston Road, London, SW10 9SS, contact Russell Simpson, 5 Anderson Street, London, SW3 3LU. Telephone: +44 (0) 20 7225 0277. View a brochure for the property at: http://www.russellsimpson.co.uk/assets/12/06/15/5081/pdf_archive-1.pdf

     

    View Equilibrium’s website at: http://www.equilibriumlondon.com

     

    View Tom Ford’s website at: http://www.tomford.com

  • Hugh Bonneville

    Hugh Bonneville

    In his role as Downton Abbey’s Lord Grantham, this actor warned that “scandals” always have a habit of coming out. He graduated in Theology at Cambridge but, according to Adam Helliker of the Daily Express, Bonneville wasn’t especially keen to show Christian compassion towards Lord Archer at a party at The Cadogan Hotel when it was requested that the pair be photographed together.

  • Docked excess

    Docked excess

    Matthew Steeples compares two comparable examples of motoring excess: the “Golden Zebra” and the Fulda Maybach Exelero

     

    In recent weeks I’ve received a number of messages about an $8,000,000 car named a Fulda Maybach Exelero. One of them referred to it as “one of the most over the top cars on the planet” and so it piqued my interest.

     

    The 2005 Fulda Maybach Exelero concept car was inspired by the design of the 1939 Maybach SW38 Stromlinie
    The front of the car is dominated by an aggressively styled grille
    Whilst the rear would most definitely appeal to Batman
    A view from the side illustrates just how long this 5890mm vehicle truly is

    In these straightened times, such a figure seems quite a lot for a car but what, you may ask, makes it so special? Well, for a start it was a one off and commissioned in 2005 by the tyre company Fulda to showcase their Carat Exelero range. Designed for them by a 24-year old student named Fredrik Burchhardt of the Pforzheim Polytechnic Department of Transport Design and built on the chassis of a Maybach 57 limousine, this 2-seater coupé is 5890mm long and 2140mm wide. The vehicle, which weighs a not so insubstantial 2.6 tonnes, has a 5.9 litre V12 twin turbo engine and in testing achieved a top speed of 218mph at southern Italy’s Motodrom Nardo.

     

    In due course the Exelero was sold to André Action Diakité Jackson, a diamond industrialist, for €5,000,000. Jackson allowed Jay-Z to use the car in his Lost One music video before selling it to a “European entrepreneur” named Arnaud Massartic. Subsequently, various reports state that Massartic sold the vehicle on to the rapper Bryan “Birdman” Williams for $8,000,000 in April 2011 but other articles suggest that he failed to pay for the vehicle. Who knows where it is now.

     

    Rapper Bryan Williams (AKA “Birdman”) is best known as one half of the Big Tymers and is also the co-founder of Cash Money Records (http://birdmanstunna.com)
    Birdman in another of his cars, a Maybach 62s Landaulet
    Sir Bernard and Lady Docker
    The ex-London Motor Show 1955 Daimler DK400 “Golden Zebra” coupé with coachwork by Hooper & Company. Registration number: TYL 575, chassis number: 92705 and engine number: 48771.
    The front of the “Golden Zebra”

    Whether or not this piece of “automotive art” is indeed in the ownership of a “bling-king,” there are countless other examples of individually designed vehicular excess but amongst the most extravagant has to be an example commissioned by Lady Docker in 1955.

     

    Norah Docker (1905 – 1983), whose third husband was Sir Bernard Docker, chairman of Birmingham Small Arms and its subsidiary the Daimler Motor Company, spent £12,000 in 1955 creating the “Golden Zebra” coupé on the chassis of a DK400 limousine. She replaced anything on the car that would have normally been made in chrome with gold and upholstered it in real zebra hide. Black, white and gold-trimmed accessories completed the look and amongst them were picnic stools, folding rear seats complete with a cocktail bar and an elephant ivory dashboard makeup table with a mirror, compact, comb, brush, cigarette case and cream jars.

     

    Commenting as to why she chose to use zebra for the car’s upholstery, Lady Docker’s justification, in a quote that Barbara Amiel could only dream of having come up with, was simple:

     

    “Because mink is too hot to sit on.”

     

    The zebra hide upholstered interior of “The Golden Zebra”
    The car even features a golden zebra as a mascot
    Lady Docker, considered a visionary in her design skills by some and as vulgar and brash by others, even thought to include a drinks cabinet within the folding rear seats.
    In the front, an elephant ivory dashboard makeup table with a mirror, compact, comb, brush, cigarette case and cream jars show how much thought she put into the vehicle’s creation.
    Conrad Black and his wife Barbara Amiel have been much discussed in the press in recent days for their “extravagance.” They had nothing on Sir Bernard and Lady Docker.

    The 4.6 litre “Golden Zebra” was to be last of the cars created to Lady Docker’s designs as shortly afterwards, in May 1956, Sir Bernard Docker was sacked from BSA’s board for squandering the company’s cash. In addition to the extravagance of the “Docker Daimlers,” he’d used shareholder money, in a manner that could indeed be compared to Lord and Lady Black’s days at Hollinger, to buy his wife a castle in Wales and maintain a 212ft motor yacht named Shemara.

     

    Daimler forced the Dockers to return the Daimler vehicles Lady Docker had so diligently designed and in revenge she bought a Bentley Continental from the firm’s rival, Rolls-Royce. The “Golden Zebra” and the other “Docker Daimlers” were stripped of their expensive trimmings and sold. In 1966, the car was offered for sale by Daimler distributors Henlys of Chester for just £1,400 and after passing through the hands of several other owners ended up in California.

     

    In 1988, the “Golden Zebra” was purchased by a Daimler collector named John Wentworth. He restored the vehicle to its original glory with the help of experienced craftsmen and even managed to locate Kenyan zebra hides at a tannery in South Africa. Wentworth died prior to the completion of the car’s restoration and in 2006, it achieved £177,500 at Bonhams. The “Golden Zebra” came up for sale again in 2011 for £175,000 in Florida. It is now on display in the Louwman Museum in The Hague, Netherlands.

     

    “The Golden Zebra” was certainly a car that reflected the excesses of the 1950s and the Exelero was without doubt the equivalent for the 2000s. What on earth could usurp these two moving monuments of extravagence next? We are on the lookout.

     

    Watch a video of Sir Bernard and Lady Docker at: http://www.britishpathe.com/video/sir-bernard-counted-out-1

     

    View the Louwman Museum entry for the 1955 “Golden Zebra” Daimler at: http://www.louwmanmuseum.nl/asp/appmain.asp?appactie=collectiedetail&taalcd=en&collsq=5486

     

    View Fulda’s website dedicated to the Fulda Maybach Exelero at: http://www.das-projekt.com/EN/maybach_homepage_en.html

  • Oliver Estreich: “What’s on your mantelpiece?”

    Oliver Estreich: “What’s on your mantelpiece?”

    The Steeple Times asks contemporary artist and founder of theNativeSociety Oliver Estreich: “What’s on your mantelpiece?”

    The Steeple Times shares “wit and wisdom.” Oliver Estreich, what’s your guiding force?

    Creativity and sex.

     

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

    “Think rich, look poor” and “Nothing exceeds like excess.”

     

    Kerry Katona was considered unacceptable in 2007. Who or what is unacceptable in 2012?

    Who is Kerry Katona? … For me, it has to be the amount of hype over Facebook and other social media ventures.

     

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

    I live in the moment so I have no regrets but I think about my Snoopy stuffed animal I had when I was a kid… He spurred my imagination.

     

    What might you swap all your wealth for?

    One night in Bangkok… Wait, I’ve already done that. My definition of “wealth” is: “One who is rich in friends, family and passion. “

     

    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?

    Trump caused it.

     

    What phrase or word do you most loathe?

    “Same shit, different day.” You might as well be a zombie or in a grave if you say or believe that.

     

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

    Charity is vital to society – if you actually get your hands dirty. Simply donating to a cause to look like a “charitable” person is hogwash.  I am a huge advocate of Humane Society and Special Olympics.

     

    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?

    Can’t live with it, can’t live without it.

     

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

    Ernest Hemingway, Sir Richard Branson, Hugh Hefner and Andy Warhol.

     

    Oliver Estreich

     

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

    Hudut caught with friends and cooked off the coast of Caye Caulker, Belize. It would be served with Marie Sharp’s Hot Sauce and a refreshing Belikin beer.

     

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

    It’s always 12 pm somewhere in the world.

     

    A Negroni, a martini or a cup of tea?

    A martini straight up with two blue cheese olives and a French blond model on the side.

     

    Whose parties do you enjoy the most and why?

    Saturday parties at Le Bilboquet in New York’s Upper East Side. It has a great atmosphere and great staff. It’s like home.

     

    Who is the most positive person you know?

    Everyone I surround myself with is positive. Attitude is contagious.

     

    What’s your most guilty pleasure?

    Too many to count.

     

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

    I have one – Asian symbol for love and pleasure.

     

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

    A Ferrari Testarossa.

     

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

    I sleep naked.

     

    Finally, Oliver Estreich: What’s currently sitting on your mantelpiece?

    A picture of my family next to a hundred other random items that serve some purpose.

     

    Oliver Estreich is the founder of theNativeSociety and a contemporary artist specialising in pop art.  Follow Oliver Estreich on Twitter at @OliverEstreich.