A self-made mogul and former champion boxer who cannot read or write fluently. He thinks “differently” and built a £400 million fortune by creating and then selling a buy-to-let empire of almost 6,000 rental properties. Panayiotou takes the view that it is “moral[ly]” right to pay taxes in Britain and of those who call Heath Hall, a £65 million property he developed in North London, as “impersonally hideous as a brothel”, he rightly responds: “These guys are just jealous”. This maverick is indeed a businessman worthy of admiration rather than envy.
Tag: vulgar
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Andreas Panayiotou
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Picture of the Week: White fleece
Amy Childs: A brash young lady with questionable taste
Our last picture of the week featuring a Range Rover Sport was of one that had been driven by a couple described in the comments section of a Mail Online article as a “pair of pillocks in a puddle.” We subsequently received a Tweet from one of them whining about our article in which he stated that our editor was a “prat.” Those that saw this, excuse the pun, laughed like drains about such a missive coming from a person who drove their car into a flooded ford and then wondered why that vehicle sank.
Amy Childs in a well managed pose with signage for a tyre company, a new car, a new numberplate and another of her vehicles Mr and Mr Drewitt-Barlow, primarily known for having had five children by a surrogate, had been at an event named Essex Fashion Week on the evening in question and today’s picture features another of their number, the former The Only Way is Essex “star,” Amy Childs along with two white Range Rover Sport vehicles.
Miss Childs, a “beautician” aged 22, is someone who has been moulded into a “brand” by Claire Powell of Can Associates, a lady who variously has been the representative of Katie Price, Peter Andre and Kerry Katona. Though the appearance fees Childs received on TOWIE were “minimal,” she’s amazingly made a lot of money since “[shooting] to fame in 2010.” Childs, the Mail revealed, has just spent £80,000 of her new found wealth on a personalised plate based on her favourite phrase, WE11 JEL.
Whilst the Mail Online suggest Childs posing in the lot of Imperial Cars in Romford with her new Range Rover and its expensive plate came about because she “outbid a premiership footballer and a TOWIE producer to win” it in a DVLA auction, we’re not entirely convinced.
The Mail are especially keen to share with their readers that Amy Childs paid for the car itself on her American Express platinum card but publishing an image of her in a far from glamorous yard under a sign for “part worn tyres” and next to a wheelie bin just looks silly. This story seems just as staged and ludicrous as that of the puddle dwellers and for that reason we make this Essex girl and her pointless “purchases” our picture of the week.
Read the Mail Online’s report about WE11 JEL at: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2238775/Former-TOWIE-star-Amy-Childs-shows-customised-licence-plates–cost-80-000-privilege.html
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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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Windows on the WAGs
A £15 million mansion fit for a self-made tycoon or an upwardly mobile WAG
While the youth of the Kings Road and Loughton have featured in the reality shows Made in Chelsea and The Only Way is Essex, their counterparts in Cheshire have yet to undergo the same social experiment. Having come across a fair few of their number though, I can only imagine their antics would result in television of comparable car crash proportions.
Wayne and Coleen Rooney and their home on Collar House Drive in Prestbury, East Cheshire 
Warrington born Kerry Katona isn’t considered one of the “Cheshire set’s” finest exports Cheshire itself is a county of contrasts: there’s the farming and hunting set and then there’s the new money. From the 1950s onwards an invasion of nouveau riche footballers and self-made business people came to Alderley Edge and Wilmslow and it is said that there are more Rolls-Royces per square mile here than anywhere else in the UK.
Though today’s Coronation Street actresses and Man United players generally favour brand new homes in Prestbury, the new wealth have not just consigned themselves to such. The likes of Take That’s Gary Barlow, for a time, owned Delamere Manor at Cuddington but sold it in 2005 due to his ever-growing commitments elsewhere. Equally, Neil Hamilton, whilst MP for Tatton, lived at The Old Rectory at Nether Alderley with his formidable wife Christine but when their days in politics came to an end, they too moved on. For a time, David and Victoria Beckham were the undoubted glitterati of this manor, but of those footballers still resident Wayne and Coleen Rooney are definitely now the best known.
Swettenham Hall, Swettenham, Congleton, Cheshire, CW12 2JZ 
Double glazing tycoon Brian Kennedy In a “grey area between old and new” sits Swettenham Hall at Swettenham near Congleton. This 12,590 square foot Georgian mansion dates to 1795 but since it was acquired by Brian Kennedy, a double glazing, home improvements and mobile telephone entrepreneur, the house has been given a total makeover. The colourful style he’s given the house can best be described as being akin to: “Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen meets Austin Powers.”
Swettenham Hall’s drawing room is decorated and furnished in a cacophony of colours 
The kitchen is painted in an equally vivid shade of lime green 
A bedroom boasts a carpet that would make Austin Powers shout: “Yeah, baby, yeah!” 
The same carpeting continues into the wood paneled “gentleman’s study” 
At Swettenham Hall, bathrooms, equally, are far from neutral in their styling 
Mr Kennedy and his wife Christine employed Julian Bicknell Associates to design an impressive leisure wing in 2004 Swettenham Hall is most definitely a party palace and along with the addition of a leisure wing consisting of a swimming pool, Jacuzzi®, plunge pool, steam room and gymnasium in 2004, Kennedy has also constructed a 47ft by 44ft helicopter hangar complete with a retractable helicopter pad.
Standing in 100 acres of grounds, the house does seem a tad expensive at £15 million especially since that the adjoining former farm buildings were sold off and converted into eight homes in 1999. The driveway is partly shared with these homes and for those seeking the ultimate in privacy, this could indeed be an issue. It is perhaps why Swettenham Hall has yet to sell.
The former farm buildings next to Swettenham Hall were sold off and converted into eight homes by Egerton Estates and Watts Developments in 1999 
The proximity of Swettenham Hall to the neighbouring barn conversions is illustrated in this Google Earth map Brian Kennedy is someone I hadn’t heard of until I came across Swettenham Hall but here is a fascinating man whose meteoric rise is frankly very clearly linked to windows. The son of a window cleaner from Edinburgh, this self-made tycoon started his career as a trainee manager at the Royal Bank of Scotland. He subsequently briefly worked as a trainee accountant but left when offered the chance to become youngest branch manager of Moben Kitchens at the age of 20.
At around this time, Kennedy acquired a stake in Farouche Kitchens and with a Rochdale born property entrepreneur named David Russell, he was transformed from a door-to-door salesman to a pioneer in direct sales. In 1988, when Farouche was sold, Kennedy netted circa £1 million. From here, this entrepreneur returned to his family’s roots by venturing into double glazing with Weatherseal Windows and then home improvements with Space Kitchens & Bedrooms.
In 1999, with the help of funds raised by private equity investors 3i, Kennedy paid £42 million for the well known brand Everest but sold part of his stake to the management for £63 million in 2003. In due course he added to his shareholding and then sold 21.5% of the company to Hutton Collins in a deal which valued the company at £150 million in 2007.
Ever the empire builder, Kennedy paid £29 million for a conservatory manufacturer named Ultrafame in 2006 and then also added another double glazing brand, Zenith Staybrite, to his portfolio in 2008. Many other business ventures followed but not being afraid to diversify, Kennedy formed Patrick Properties, whose portfolio is now valued in excess of £100 million, in 2002 and Kennedy Renewables, which specialises in wind energy, in 2009.
In the technology sector, a chance conversation in a Knutsford wine bar in 1995 led to him venturing into the mobile telephone market with a company named Genesis Communications. The business was sold to Dixons in 2002 for £31 million.
In January 2012, Kennedy merged his main Latium Holdings business with Jim Rawson’s Epwin Group to form Epwin Holdings. The merger resulted in a company with more than 2,500 employees and brands numbering Spectus, Swish, CET and Kestrel.
Of his success, Kennedy states:
“Business is common sense [and] dealing with people is common sense. I don’t think I have any particular flair. I think it is about common sense, taking the opportunity when it comes and hard work.”
Brian Kennedy’s wealth has allowed him to indulge many of his passions. A period of semi-retirement “drove [him] and [his] kids nuts,” but this Scotsman’s love of rugby resulted in him acquiring the Sale Sharks Rugby Club in 1999. He is said to have set the “club on a sound financial footing” and turned it into “one of the leading rugby clubs in Britain.”
Philanthropy is something that Kennedy, a Jehovah’s Witness, has also dedicated his wealth to. Through his Brian Kennedy Trust, he has supported a number of charities and organisations but it is for his role as the main backer of Find Madeleine Fund that he has come to public attention. Of his reasoning for backing the missing child’s parents financially, he stated:
“In light of the quite literally incredible accusations against Gerry and Kate McCann, which are clearly exacerbating their emotional torture, I felt compelled to offer, along with other like-minded businessmen, financial support and the full logistical support of the Latium team. That support is principally our in-house lawyer Ed Smethurst and [official spokesman] Clarence Mitchell.”
Brian Kennedy was involved in the funding of a team that included Clarence Mitchell for the Find Madeleine Fund until 2009. Here Mitchell (standing) is pictured with Gerry and Kate McCann. 
An ex-lawyer and campaigner Anthony “Tony” Bennett is the former secretary of The Madeleine Foundation who has been involved in various legal disputes with Brian Kennedy and Gerry and Kate McCann Kennedy’s donation attracted much press attention in 2007 in the weeks following Madeleine McCann’s disappearance and he continues to support them to this day. A very public spat involving him, Gerry and Kate McCann and a campaigner named Tony Bennett, who also was involved in The Madeleine Foundation, has been the subject of various legal actions. In October 2011, Mr Bennett was forced to publicly apologise to Mr Kennedy and separately an August 2009 Evening Standard article by Mark Hollingsworth “investigat[ing] the investigators,” was pulled because for “legal and editorial reasons.” In it, “someone who worked closely with [Kennedy]” was quoted as saying:
“He was appalled by the Portuguese police, but he also had visions of flying in by helicopter to rescue Madeleine.”
Angelina Jolie, another avid aviator, once commented: “Wherever I am I find myself looking out of the window wishing I was somewhere else.” We do not know why Brian Kennedy is selling Swettenham Hall, but Jolie is indeed one of the few with the resources to take these particular windows off his hands.
For more information about Swettenham Hall, Swettenham, Congleton, Cheshire, CW12 2JZ, contact Edward Welton of Knight Frank on +44 (0) 20 7861 1114.For more details about Brian Kennedy, go to: http://www.brian-kennedy.co.uk
For more details about the Find Madeleine Fund go to: http://www.findmadeleine.com and for information on The Madeleine Foundation: http://www.madeleinefoundation.org.uk/
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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
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Tarred by Paparazzi
The bonfire sale of a monster of a mansion that has had a $15 million price reduction
A property was first built at 10425 West Sunset Boulevard in Lower Bel Air, Los Angeles in 1936. Here, in this most exclusive of districts, the homes of the prosperous residents are hidden from view and this address, this day, is no exception.
One of the original owners of a house on this site, which has a main access from the cul-de-sac Revuelta Way, was William R. Wilkerson (1890 – 1962), a nightclub owner and founder of The Hollywood Reporter. A compulsive gambler, he is also credited with contributing to Hollywood’s “Golden Era” through the venues he opened. These included Vendome, Café Tocadero, Sunset House, Ciro’s, LaRue, L’Aiglon and most famously The Flamingo Hotel. An involvement here with the ruthless gangster Ben “Bugsy” Siegel (1906 – 1947) turned sour in 1946 and resulted in him having to flee to Paris in fear of his life. Siegel’s death allowed him to return to Los Angeles in 1947 and having “quit gambling cold turkey” following the birth of a son in 1951, he led a much quieter life. He is remembered as being a man who preferred his “beloved French poodles to any wife or friend.”
Media mogul William R. Wilkerson (1890 – 1962) pictured with Marilyn Monroe (1926 – 1962) 
American film personality and the publisher of “The Hollywood Reporter” Beatrice “Tichi” Wilkerson Kassel (1926 – 2004) Wilkerson is first recorded as living at 10425 West Sunset Boulevard in the 1940 California Census with his fourth wife, Estelle Jackson Brown. He subsequently remained there with his fifth wife, Vivian DuBois, and sixth wife Beatrice “Tichi” Noble. After his death, Tichi Wilkerson (1926 – 2004) sold first 10425 West Sunset Boulevard and then, in 1988, The Hollywood Reporter for $26,700,000.
Greg Bautzer (1911 – 1987) with Ginger Rogers (1911 – 1995) Another famous owner of 10425 West Sunset Boulevard was a “celebrity attorney” named Greg Bautzer (1911 – 1987). Bautzer is best known for having represented not only William R. Wilkerson but also Ginger Rogers, Ingrid Bergman, Joan Crawford, Kirk Kerkorian and Howard Hughes. He is described as having been “as dashing and popular as any successful Hollywood movie star” and was engaged to but did not marry the actresses Barbara Payton, Lana Turner and Dorothy Lamour. He did, however, make the actress Dana Wynter his second wife in 1956, then Buffy Cobb Chapman and finally Nicola Dantine. This “man-about-Beverly Hills,” it seems, was indeed plainly a magnet for anything dramatic.
Philanthropist and Bernini owner Yousuf Tar The current owner of the house, which is now somewhat ludicrously named Chateau d’Or or The House of Gold, is a man named Yousuf Tar. The president of the “faux-Italian mall fixture Bernini men’s clothing [company],” bought 10425 West Sunset Boulevard in 1992 for $6,000,000 and set about creating what his realtor, Sally Forster Jones, calls a “cross between The White House and Versailles.” The resulting remodeled residence isn’t quite either but frankly combines a mixture of one of the palaces of the deceased tyrant Colonel Gadaffi and the set of Dynasty.
The gaudy gates to Chateau d’Or, 10425 West Sunset Boulevard, Bel Air, Los Angeles, California, CA 90077, USA are an indication of the “tackiness” that lies behind 
A 600ft main driveway leads to the front of the house from Revuelta Way. Secondary access comes from West Sunset Boulevard. 
The garden elevation of the Chateau d’Or 
The exterior of Chateau d’Or is anything but understated Decorated throughout in a white and gold, the aim of the redesign was to create the look of an 18th century palace complete with acres of marble, columns, cupolas, gold leaft and mouldings. Instead, the interpretation looks more Chigwell-esque than Parisian and has simply attracted criticism and mockery. An example, such as this from Curbed.com, gives a guide to the opinion of the majority about this ugly monstrosity:
“[The mansion] houses some of the cheapest-looking French-inspired interiors ever made, highlighted (or, rather, lowlighted) by a towering, clunky fireplace and a cartoon-worthy master suite, with gilded everything. Even San Simeon’s William Randolph Hearst would object to this level of pointless expenditure.”
The dining hall is currently furnished with a $300,000 table capable of seating upto eighty for a formal dinner. With an entirely gold dinner service, realtor Sally Forster Jones comments: “Food tastes so much better off gold.” 
The opulent meets gaudy theme continues with a marble hallway and staircase 
A sitting room fit for Saddam Hussein 
Chateau d’Or’s double height media room is supposedly “styled like an opera house” 
The master bedroom suite is as nearly as large as most homes and is some 5,000 square foot in size 
No restraint is shown in the choice of bathroom fittings either Chateau d’Or, according to the listing on Forster Jones’s website, features 25,953 square foot of living space with 15 bedrooms and 16.5 bathrooms. There is a vast dining hall capable of seating upto 80 for a formal dinner which currently features a $300,000 dining table and a 1,600 square foot “oversized gourmet kitchen” complete with 800 square foot of cupboards, an “indoor sunlit gazebo” and a double Viking oven. A double height media room styled as an opera house has also been created and there’s also a cigar and wine tasting room. The Chateau d’Or is nothing other than a “home” on a lavish and ludicrous scale.
The pool sits alongside a 6-bedroomed guest house 
Chateau d’Or also has it’s own championship tennis court 
One of numerous terraces In addition to a swimming pool, spa and gym, Chateau d’Or also has a championship tennis court, guest accommodation and 1.7 acres of grounds. Accessed by a 600ft driveway and surrounded by privacy walls plainly designed to keep prying eyes out, the house featured in Lady Gaga’s 2009 video for her song Paparazzi. Mr Tar plainly isn’t that private at all.
Lady Gaga filmed the video for her 2009 song “Paparazzi” at Chateau d’Or 
Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta (AKA Lady Gaga) in one of the “cheap looking” chairs at Chateau d’Or Not shy of renting the house out for other purposes, it has also been used for a photoshoot for Versace, a television advert for Foot Locker and Addidas starring Ken Jeong and as a venue for a Dubai themed party for Donald Trump where Christina Aguilera performed.
Ken Jeong in a 2010 advert for Foot Locker and Addidas at Chateau d’Or 
Donald Trump, Sr. with his daughter Ivanka Trump and son Donald Trump, Jr. at a party at Chateau d’Or Yousuf Tar put Chateau d’Or on the market in 2009 for just shy of $40,000,000 and though Michael Jackson supposedly wanted to buy it to create a “new Neverland,” his sad demise meant that this fell through. Relisted repeatedly since and despite the best efforts of Sally Forster Jones, Chateau d’Or’s gaudiness plainly hasn’t appealed to the market.
You’d had to have been gaga to have paid $40,000,000 for Chateau d’Or Reduced by nearly $15,000,000 to $25,000,000 this month, Chateau d’Or still doesn’t look like much of a bargain. Somehow, we suspect, it’ll have to be marked down a fair bit more before anyone’s even vaguely tempted.
For more information Chateau d’Or, 10425 West Sunset Boulevard, Bel Air, Los Angeles, California, CA 90077, USA contact Sally Forster Jones of the SFJ Group at +1 (310) 281 3999 or email her at: [email protected]
Visit the official website for the house at: http://www.lechateaudor.com
Watch a tour of Chateau d’Or by Sally Forster Jones at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjOAf_cfm0Q
Watch Lady Gaga’s Paparazzi video at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2smz_1L2_0
For more information about William R. Wilkerson, go to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Wilkerson
Read The Hollywood Reporter at: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com
For more details about Bernini, go to: http://www.bernini.com
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Bravo the Beeb
Matthew Steeples reacts to the BBC quietly dropping the “Sir”
This morning when I turned on Radio 4’s Today programme, as has become customary in the last weeks, the first item on the news was about a man who will forever be associated with abuse and paedophilia, Jimmy Savile.
In recent days, as more and more allegations have surfaced against the Jim’ll Fix It presenter, politicians like David Cameron have looked to make hay by calling for Savile to posthumously lose his knighthood. They talk twaddle as such a title cannot be taken from you once you are dead as that very title actually dies with you. To actually “remove” the title would involve a costly change in the law and frankly, as disgusting as this pervert now appears to have plainly been, is it really worth the expense and parliamentary time during these times of austerity?
Plain old Jimmy Savile When Jeffrey Archer was jailed, calls were made to strip him of his seat in the Lords. In, my humble opinion, rightly, nothing was done. Since leaving prison, Lord Archer has righted his wrongs by doing much good. Archer’s situation and crimes, I admit, were different to those of Savile but his and that of Lord Lucan should be a guide.
If Jimmy Savile were to lose his title now, should the hereditary title of Lord Lucan also be removed? Should his son lose a title because, even though never convicted, his presumed deceased father stands accused of the murder of his children’s nanny? This area of law could indeed become very complex and frankly the exploration of it is pointless.
The Today programme, however, have found a far simpler and cheaper solution. This morning, they did what we should all do. They now simply refer to this revolting individual as plain old “Jimmy Savile.” Let’s all follow this lead, drop the “Sir” and leave it at that.
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Now who’d want to live in a house like this?
Matthew Steeples discovers a penthouse that even the most ambitious estate agent may struggle to flog
Estate agents are a tough breed and there are very few properties that they might admit could verge on being impossible to sell. We believe, however, that we might have found one that could be in the same league as, perhaps, the homes of Myra Hindley, Harold Shipman or John Christie. In fact, this Leeds penthouse could be even more difficult to sell given how many photographs the last owner had taken there during his lifetime.
The exterior of Lake View Court, Roundhay, Leeds, West Yorkshire, LS8 2TX gives little a way other than the resemblance to a Soviet apartment block 
The penthouse enjoys superb views across Roundhay Park and the Waterloo Lake 
The split-level 33ft reception offers a vast entertaining space and comes complete with a shagpile carpet that Austin Powers would be proud of 
In view of their tiling advertisement, perhaps the owner did a deal with Callerton Kitchens (http://www.callerton.co.uk) 
A bedroom gives further indication that this place hasn’t had much done to it since the 1970s On first inspection, this 3-bedroomed £325,000 top floor flat in Lake View Court at Roundhay in Leeds sounds like it could be a bargain. It includes a 33ft by 13ft split-level living room, a large balcony, a fitted kitchen (that bizarrely features tiling prominently displaying the name of the kitchen’s manufacturer, Callerton Kitchens), 2 bathrooms, a single garage and a double parking space in an underground garage.
Though the agents, Alan Cooke, give a hint that it needs a complete makeover when they state that the apartment is “now ripe for improvement,” it has a “security entry phone system, an automatic lift giving private access, gas central heating system and double glazing.” They also add that it features a “magnificent outlook” across Roundhay Park and the Waterloo Lake and is on a lease of 125 years from 1971. The ground rent is just £60 per annum and a maintenance charge of £2,000 per annum doesn’t seem to be too bad either.
“And here, for our home and studio audience, here’s who house it was…” Jimmy Savile 
This image of Savile in a state of undress might indeed have put off a few buyers 
Savile pictured in the reception room of the penthouse Now what could be wrong with this pad and why has it languished on the market since the summer? Well, it turns out that this is the former main home of the late Jimmy Savile. Though his possessions were removed and auctioned some months ago, the disgraced television presenter’s tawdry style of décor remains as a legacy of his occupation of the flat. One simply would not want to think of what the Jim’ll Fix It presenter got upto in this place and frankly, who’d want to move into this poisoned chalice?
Equally, we don’t think Loyd Grossman will be calling round at any point in the near future to ask: “Now, who’d want to live in a house like this?”
For more information on The Penthouse, Lake View Court, Roundhay, Leeds, West Yorkshire, LS8 2TX, contact agents Alan Cooke Moortown, Moortown, Leeds, LS17 6PY on +44 (0) 113 288 8666.
See full details of the property at: http://www.alancooke.co.uk/property_details.php?id=116111
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Why pay less?
Living life to the full Donald G. Abbey style
“Why pay less when you can pay more?” is a mantra that some strangely choose to live by. In my time, I have encountered a couple with a different Ferrari for each day of the week, someone who proudly declared their home had a window for each day of the year and an heiress who insists upon the local baker feeding her dog daily with a freshly baked caviar pie.
When I discovered a house in California priced at $78,000,000, I didn’t expect to subsequently find out that the same vendor is also selling another of his homes in Montana at the very same price. Having done a little research into Donald G. Abbey, the commercial real estate tycoon who owns both The Bradbury Estate and Shelter Island, I discovered that here indeed is another personality whose excess knows no bounds.
I suppose when people sell homes of this worth, the asking price they set is quite irrelevant. “What,” I’m sure they ask, “is $5 million between friends?” Equally, when it comes to developing such properties, characters of this nature do not show any reserve. Bling is most definitely the order of the day and the larger and flashier one can build, I guess, the better.
An aerial shot of The Bradbury Estate, 172 Bliss Canyon Road, Bradbury, California, CA 91008, USA 
The front elevation of the main house 
The owner and his guests need not get wet on arrival in their limousines Abbey’s Bradbury Estate is a case in point. This vast property consists of a 33,000 square foot main house with 7 bedrooms and 10 bathrooms. It is almost entirely made of French limestone and includes a chef’s kitchen with a pizza oven, a 2,000 bottle wine cellar, an oak paneled elevator and a leather paneled poker room. Bedrooms include domes with hand painted frescos and in addition there is a detached 6,700 square foot guest house above a 10 car garage and a 5,700 square foot pool house with a catering kitchen, gym, massage room and a subterranean EPA certified 25 yard rifle shooting range complete with a gun storage room and 2 large safes.
The hall of the main residence comes complete with a gallery and bar 
A vast library provides the perfect space to enjoy a good book 
The library’s glazed ceiling 
Another palatial reception room 
The house features a rather impressive kitchen 
Mr Abbey’s copper bath tub comes complete with a mat displaying his initials in front of it Within the 8 acre grounds there is a cross shaped infinity-edged pool – perhaps Mr Abbey is religious – that is “just a few feet short of Olympic length.” It requires 350,000 gallons of water if it is to be filled to capacity. Adjoining this is something even more ludicrous: a 1,000,000 gallon, temperature-controlled rainbow trout pond that cost some $8,000,000 to construct. The pond is said to be “adorned with perennials,” is heated by a custom gravity separator with UV filters and is “chilled for the trout by a 300-tonne central cooling plant.” At Bradbury, thoughts of water crisis in Sudan and Ethiopia come way behind the needs of Abbey’s rainbows.
The rear of the house viewed from above The Bradbury Estate’s $8,000,000 trout pond 
The estate’s 350,000 gallon near Olympic length cross shaped infinity edged swimming pool 
The property’s EPA certified 25 yard rifle range For those wanting to avoid California’s UV rays, Bradbury also boasts an acre of porches, decks, loggia and walkways. A 600ft blue stone driveway completes this “once in a lifetime trophy property” that “belongs in the portfolio of the most astute collector” and it has space for “60 foot truck access or multiple limousines.”
When Mr Abbey has tired of California, he is able to retreat to his own island in Montana. The 24 acre Shelter Island on Flathead Lake includes 7,000 feet of frontage to the water, a world class sporting clay course and 3 computer controlled tracks and docking systems that allow boats to be landed in the dry dock without riders ever leaving the craft or handling a line. The island is powered via an underground armoured utility cable that carry 12,000 amps to it along with CAT-5 computer cable and phonelines and the main entertaining space features a mammoth television of some 120-inches in size.
An aerial view of Donald G. Abbey’s Shelter Island 
Mr Abbey’s passion for copper continues with a conservatory made out of the metal on the lakeside elevation of the main residence on Shelter Island 
The Great Room of the main residence on Shelter Island 
Mr Abbey’s passion for fine wines is displayed in a bar and tasting room in the property 
The owner and his guests can access their boats without having to go anywhere near the water Abbey has built over 44,000 square foot of accommodation on his island. The main house has 5 bedrooms and 8 bathrooms. His “Great Room” features ceilings of some 45 foot in height and in addition to yet another indoor shooting range, there is a kitchen that woudn’t look out of place in The Savoy hotel.
In the UK, the property most similar to anything Abbey has built has to be Updown Court at Windlesham in Surrey. Developed by a former bricklayer named Leslie Allen-Vercoe, the house was described by him as being: “The most important residence to be built in England since the 19th century.” Architectural critics did not agree and some went as far as to say that it looked like: “A cross between a Tesco superstore and Center Parcs.”
Allen-Vercoe’s behemoth of a house is gargantuan in size. With 103 rooms it includes 24 bedrooms, 5 swimming pools, a 2-lane bowling alley, a squash court, a floodlit tennis court, a 50-seat cinema and a panic room. The heated driveway that led to the house is entirely made of marble and cost some £2.5 million to construct but plainly none of this appealed to the market as it languished for sale at a price of £70,000,000 from 2006 to 2011 before being repossessed by the Irish National Asset Management Agency (NAMA). Updown Court was sold for half the original asking price to a foreign buyer in October 2011 and is, I believe, due to undergo extensive remodeling.
Updown Court, Chertsey Road, Windlesham, Surrey, GU20 6HY, UK Allen Vercoe once stated: “If Elton John were a house, he’d be Updown Court.” Equally, I imagine if Mr Abbey’s residences were to be compared to any celebrities they’d be the vulgar car crash that is Donatella Versace and the ludicrous money obsessed singer with a dollar sign in her name, Ke$ha.
Updown Court, Shelter Island and The Bradbury Estate all illustrate that money cannot buy you good taste. I suppose, though, that those who ultimately come to live in them will have plenty of space to choose how and where to enjoy their own form of misery.
For more information about Donald G. Abbey, go to: http://www.theabbeyco.com
For information on both The Bradbury Estate and Shelter Island, contact Bob Hurwitz of the Hurwitz James Company on +1 310-477-8865. Website: http://www.hurwitzjamesco.com
A website devoted to The Bradbury Estate can be viewed at: http://www.bradburyestate.com
A video of Shelter Island can be watched at: http://vimeo.com/11404637
For more details on Updown Court, go to: http://www.updowncourt.com/
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Ferrari's 'F'lipping 'F'ool
The case of a Ferrari FF driver with more money than sense
Last November, on my way to a lunch at The Stafford Hotel with The Steeple Times restaurant critic, Anthony Brown, I took a photograph of one of my favourite vehicles, a Ferrari FF, in Curzon Street, W1.
Emblazoned with a Westminster City Council parking ticket, this particular FF, baring an Arabic registration “66 C,” was especially noticeable as it was “wrapped” in orange and black and I took a photograph of it.
My photograph of the orange-black “wrapped” Ferrari FF in Curzon Street, Mayfair, London, W1 in November 2011 After sharing the image on Facebook, I received, in Margaret Thatcher style fashion, the following reply from the renowned designer, Bruce Oldfield: “No, no, no!” Another friend, Anne Marie Legault added: “It doesn’t fit with the neighborhood.” Karen Ashworth, a Mercedes SL 500 driver and friend from my school days, summed up the thoughts of the majority though when she stated of the car: “I’m not a fan to be honest!”
I subsequently saw the car a few times in the months that followed but never imagined that I’d see it on the Mail Online website and would certainly never have predicted that it would have ended up as an advert against uninsured drivers outside New Scotland Yard.
The very same Ferrari FF outside New Scotland Yard today 
Instead of a parking ticket, this Ferrari FF now has a police notice glued to it’s windscreen 
28-year old His Highness Sheikh Rashid Bin Humaid Al Nuaimi. His nickname is “RRR,” which supposedly stands for “rich in real estate resources.” The Steeple Times picture of the week, following on from this morning’s coverage of it, therefore, has to be of this particular FF. It turns out that it is owned by His Highness Sheikh Rashid Bin Humaid Al Nuaimi, the 28-year old son of His Highness Sheikh Humaid bin Rashid Al Nuaimi, the ruler of Ajman, and was recently impounded in South Kensington, London after he hadn’t bothered to insure it. Having paid £227,000 for such a magnificent vehicle, one would have thought he’d have the brains and finances to have done such. Plainly the age of excess and stupidity is still with us.
Read the Mail Online’s coverage of the story at: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2209551/Going-fast–Ferrari-proudly-display-outside-police-headquarters-deter-uninsured-drivers.html