Minute apartment in Chelsea Barracks with barely enough room to swing a cat goes on sale for the same price as a massive mansion in Shropshire with 102 acres
Last week, The Steeple Times featured the sale of the vast, Grade I listed, 33,106 square foot treasure Kinlet Hall and now, for the same sum, we share news of the sale of a 713 square foot apartment in London where you’d barely have enough room to swing a cat.
Priced at £3.5 million ($4.4 million, €3.9 million or درهم16.3 million) and situated within the controversial Chelsea Barracks development on the borders of Belgravia, the ground floor space offered consists of a 20-foot by 17-foot open-plan kitchen and reception room, a 12-foot by 11-foot bedroom and a shower room. Aside from that, you do get access to the 12.8-acre grounds and use of a residents’ ‘club’ where facilities number a swimming pool, gym, spa and cinema room.
Chelsea Barracks attracted public attention in a 2010 court case after Prince Charles termed a previous scheme for it by Lord Rogers “awful.” As a result of the royal’s “hand grenade,” that was dropped and now, instead, the developers, Qatari Diar Europe, somewhat ostentatiously laud their project as: “A city home… with the facilities of a country estate.”
For £4.85 million ($6.02 million, €5.36million or درهم22.10 million), an-ever-so-slightly larger 1,023 square foot ground floor apartment is offered also by agents Savills. It has a dressing room and an additional lavatory, but your extra wonga doesn’t get you much else. We’ll take two; NOT!
The floor plan clearly illustrates that £3.5 million here buys you anything but a mansion. The asking price equates to a very punchy £4,909 per square foot.The apartment is certainly compact and though lavishly appointed and “dressed by the renowned interior design studio Albion Nord,” has just one entertaining space (that is also merged with the kitchen).There is one (just about) double bedroom. It does have views of a garden, but not much else.There is a shower room, but not enough space for a bath. Those millionaires that love a long soak would do well to take their property search elsewhere.Residents do, however, have access to a swimming pool and other leisure facilities. Whether anyone will actually use them is another thing, given most buyers will likely hardly ever be in residence.
A ‘brand film’ for the Chelsea Barracks development was uploaded to YouTube a year ago. It is quite beyond beyond bizarre and lauds the scheme as: “A heritage. A destiny. A legacy.” No mention of the likely ‘McMoneya-esque’ occupants the punchily priced properties will attract is, however, mentioned.
A video tour of ‘The Residences’ at Chelsea Barracks bangs on about the benefits of living in Belgravia and suggests the scheme to be inspired by “traditional garden squares” and that it will become a location of “future heritage.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yajs2gIB6Gc
Another gushing video gives a tour of the Chelsea Barracks spa facilities. They have named it ‘The Garrison Club’ in homage to the site’s military past.
Double artist’s studio in Glebe Place, Chelsea that has been home to a fugitive billionaire oligarch, a Tolstoy and a man suspected of being Jack the Ripper slashed in price by 25%; it is now subject to a forced sale
House in Glebe Place, Chelsea, SW3 created from two artist’s studios reduced in price from just under £9 million to £6.95 million as part of a sale forced by authorities.
It was home to the now in exile fugitive billionaire Sergei Pugachev and his ex-partner Alexandra Tolstoy from 2009.
Previous occupants include the artist Sir William Rothenstein and before him his fellow artist friend Walter Sickert – a man the author Patricia Cornwell spent £6 million trying to prove to be the serial killer Jack the Ripper.
Alexandra Tolstoy bleated to the ‘Mail Online’ about how she’d been “evicted” from the house 12 days before the coronavirus lockdown in May; her most recent Instagram posts, however, suggest she is still in residence along with her children.
German born artist Walter Sickert RA (1860 – 1942) took a great interest in the gruesome crimes of Jack the Ripper. He believed he had lodged in a room used by the serial killer and from the 1970s onwards, authors and historians including Patricia Cornwell have suggested he could have been the murderer himself (or possibly his accomplice).
For a time, Sickert – whom counted the newspaper baron Lord Beaverbrook (1879 – 1964) amongst his closest friends and a man lauded by some as “the greatest British painter between Turner and Bacon” – lived in an artist’s studio at 53 Glebe Place in Chelsea and in 1894, a fellow artist, Sir William Rothenstein (1872 – 1945), took the property over. According to Wendy Baron, in her 2012 study of The Camden Town Group in Context for the Tate, the latter was “ever amazed by Sickert’s ‘taste for the dingy lodging-house atmosphere,’ and his ‘genius for discovering the dreariest house and most forbidding rooms in which to work.’”
More recently, in 2009, the now fugitive oligarch Sergei Pugachev – a man nicknamed ‘Putin’s Banker’ (until the one-time billionaire and the President spectacularly fell out) – rented 53 Glebe Place along with his then partner Alexandra Tolstoy. The house was subsequently purchased by a trust in 2010 and in 2011, the adjoining house, 54 Glebe Place, was bought and the two combined to become Pugachev and Tolstoy’s London residence.
The resulting 3,868 square foot single family residence – which includes 3 reception rooms, 5 bedrooms and 5 bathrooms and an interior by designers from Sibyl Colefax and John Fowler described as “exuberant” by House & Garden – features a 57-foot south facing façade and ceiling heights of upto 22-feet. In total, it is believed the price paid for the two properties was around £8.325 million prior to subsequent renovations.
In the years that followed, 53 and 54 Glebe Place have become part of the legal tussle between the Russian government, Sergei Pugachev, his ex-wife Galina Arkhipova, his father Victor Pugachev and his Instagram loving ex-partner Alexandra Tolstoy. With Pugachev Jr. in exile in France, Ms Tolstoy has remained in residence but in 2019, the courts decided the house would have to be sold. It was placed on the market through Savills for £8.975 million.
With Ms Tolstoy subsequently ludicrously claiming at one point she could not live on £10,000 per week or without two drivers and a live-in doctor and then more recently featuring in an hour long BBC documentary in May titled The Countess and the Russian Billionaire, the sordid saga has become very public. Now, this week, the house has been relaunched for just £6.95 million again through Savills.
Whilst a single studio house featured in The Steeple Times in September 2015 was marketed for the seemingly sky-high sum of £5.45 million (it sold in March 2020 for just £4.5 million), even the now reduced figure for the combined 53 and 54 Glebe Place still seems very punchy. On that basis, we imagine, Alexandra Tolstoy may be able to stay there for some time still yet; as she herself once remarked: “We’re just surviving.”
Pictured top: 53 and 54 Glebe Place (left) were bought for a combined sum of around £8.325 million in 2010 and 2011. The resulting house – for which Savills states “steps are currently being taken to obtain the necessary statutory consents” for combination – is now on the market for just £6.95 million; Fugitive oligarch Sergei Pugachev (top right) and socialite ‘adventurer’ Alexandra Tolstoy (bottom right).
The house in question – 53 and 54 Glebe Place, Chelsea, London, SW3 5JB, United Kingdom.Sick Dick? Walter Sickert photographed in 1911 by George Beresford (top left); ‘Jack the Ripper’s Bedroom’ painted by Sickert in 1906 – 1907, the oil on canvas was bequeathed by Mrs Mary Cicely Tatlock to the Manchester Art Gallery in 1980 (top right); The setting for the painting and the home of Walter Sickert, 6 Mornington Crescent, Camden, NW1 now has a Greater London Council blue plaque commemorating the painter and etcher’s residence there.
In 2017, best-selling author Patricia Cornwell claimed she had spent over £5.6 million “proving” that Walter Sickert was Jack the Ripper.Old Battersea House, 30 Vicarage Crescent, Battersea, London, SW11 3LD, United Kingdom is another house that Pugachev and Tolstoy plainly purchased at a crazy price. They paid £12.5 million and it is now for sale for just £9.975 million. The house was previously owned by the late billionaire publishing magnate Malcolm Forbes.
The Names & Numbers – 53 and 54 Glebe Place, Chelsea, London, SW3 5JB, United Kingdom
June 2020 – The combined house is relaunched for sale at a reduced price of £6.95 million ($8.62 million, €7.69 million or درهم31.66 million) by Savills, a discount of 23% on the previous asking price.
May 2020 – Alexandra Tolstoy claimed she had “been evicted from her multi-million home with only 12 days notice during the coronavirus outbreak” in comments to the Mail Online. Posts in June 2020, however, indicate her still to be in residence at Glebe Place with her children.
January 2020 – The Evening Standard reported that Galina Arkhipova “lost her bid to win a share” of the Glebe Place property. Chief Master Marsh dismissed Arkhipova’s claim on the basis of her “casual approach” to “complying with a court order requiring her to make full disclosure of her bank statements and access to legal documents, as well as her ‘unexplained failure’ to attend the latest hearing or instruct lawyers.”
2019 – Placed for sale for £8.975 million ($11.134 million, €9.929 million or درهم40.890 million) through Savills after the order of the courts.
October 2018 – At a “commercial court hearing, the judge, Master Price, made an order compelling the sale of Pugachev’s London home” according to the Guardian. A deadline was set for Ms Tolstoy to move out of January 2019 and at this time also, Pugachev’s former wife, Galina Arkhipova, “said she was also laying claim to the Glebe Place property, arguing that the house was a matrimonial asset.”
February 2016 – In absentia, Sergei Pugachev is found guilty of contempt at the high court in London and sentenced to two years in prison. The “convenient dissident” was described as someone who “could not be trusted” and subsequently, a warrant for his arrest was issued. To this day, Mr Pugachev has positioned himself as an innocent man and a “victim of Putin’s revenge.”
March 2012 – Mr Pugachev changed the locks at Glebe Place and “refused to let [Ms Tolstoy] back in. Pugachev subsequently visited Count Nikolai Tolstoy, the father of Alexandra Tolstoy, and explained that the Glebe Place house was controlled by a trust and that “he had bought Old Battersea House in a trust for Ms Tolstoy and the children… Old Battersea House was to be the family home and he and Ms Tolstoy were going to live there with the children.”
December 2011 – Old Battersea House is purchased for £12.5 million ($15.5 million, €13.8 million or درهم56.9 million) supposedly in a trust to benefit Alexandra Tolstoy and her three children with Sergei Pugachev. That house was subsequently offered for sale in 2017 for £12 million ($14.8 million, €13.3 million or درهم54.7 million) and is now on the market for just £9.975 million ($12.370 million, €11.031 million or درهم45.429 million) through Savills in June 2020.
July 2011 – Assuming the legal document figures to be exact, the total paid to purchase 53 and 54 Glebe Place was £8.325 million ($10.324 million, €9.208 million or درهم37.915 million).
July 2011 – 54 Glebe Place is purchased for a sum undisclosed on Land Registry Records through a trust. The two houses are subsequently merged as one. At around this time, Victor Pugachev “provided another loan of £4.2 million ($5.2 million, €4.6 million or درهم19.1 million) to Redflame as a loan” for the purchase. Legal documents state: “Later accounting documents show the lender as Mr Pugachev and include a loan agreement executed by Mr Pugachev and Redflame.”
July 2010 – 53 Glebe Place is purchased for a sum undisclosed on Land Registry Records through a trust, the ownership deed reportedly being in the names of Sergei Pugachev and Victor Pugachev (his father, as “beneficiary and Protector”). At around this time, Victor Pugachev “provided £4.125 million ($5.115 million, €4.562 million or درهم18.788 million) to Redflame as a loan” for the purchase.
2009 – Sergei Pugachev and Alexandra Tolstoy rented 53 Glebe Place as their London home.
July 2009 – 54 Glebe is sold for £2.55 million ($3.16 million, €2.82 million or درهم11.61 million) according to the Land Registry.
January 2005 – 54 Glebe is sold for £2.175 million ($2.698 million, €2.405 million or درهم9.906 million) according to the Land Registry.
March 2001 – 54 Glebe is sold for £1.8 million ($2.2 million, €2 million or درهم8.2 million) according to the Land Registry.
March 1995 – 54 Glebe is sold for £900,000 ($1.1 million, €995,000 or درهم4.1 million) acording to the Land Registry.
After a ritzy New York penthouse goes into contract for a sum 64% lower than it sold for in 2014 during a government orchestrated fire sale, the building’s board go crackers
A 5,955 square foot penthouse in New York’s 328-foot tall Walker Tower that sold for £41.2 million in 2014 went “into contract” recently for just £14.78 million much to the chagrin of the building’s other residents. The story of this massive 64% ‘discount’ echoes that of another penthouse we featured in April – that went on the market for a sum 48% lower than in 2012.
Built in 1929 by Ralph Walker (1889 – 1973), a man described as “the architect of the century” by TheNew York Times and “the only other honest architect in America” by Frank Lloyd Wright, the Walker Tower was intended to be “as modern as the telephone activity it houses.” It originally was used by the New York Telephone Company and subsequently partly converted to provide 47 condominiums in 2013 by JDS Development Group.
With units ranging in size from 1,100 to 6,500 square feet in size, Penthouse One is one of the largest. It includes 5 bedrooms and 5.5 bathrooms and aside from a kitchen that reportedly cost £200,000 to install, there are 3 wood-burning fireplaces and a 500 square foot private terrace.
Of the penthouse, during a 7:58 minute tour he conducted in April 2019, self-declared “YouTuber and adventure filmmaker” Erik Conover remarked:
“Penthouse One is widely considered to the most exclusive penthouse downtown in all of Manhattan… This [is] a one of a kind luxury apartment… You feel like the king of the kingdom here… I have no words for this place, it’s hands down my favourite apartment I’ve toured.”
Speaking to Conover, realtor Shaun Osher, CEO of Core NYC, predictably went into overdrive with gushing praise of the unit:
“The sky is the limit here… One of the great things about this apartment is that you separate public space from private space… The back of the house is not too shabby either… All of the views are protected forever… When guests come, their jaws will hit the floor.”
Now, according to Mansion Global, a “battle is brewing” over Penthouse One – which is being sold on behalf of the U.S. Department of Justice in the wake of being seized as part of the 1Malaysia Development Berhad scandal – as other residents have sought to stop the sale and “buy the condo [themselves] for the same sum, then relist it for more.”
Speaking on their behalf, David Berkey, an attorney for the condo board, remarked:
“The contract price can only be described as steeply distressed and unrealistic and one which could adversely affect the market value of other homes at Walker Tower. The board is acting in the best interests of all Walker Tower owners by exercising its right of first refusal to ensure that its value is recognised.”
A resident of the building, Vickey Barron, added:
“We’re all scratching our heads saying, ‘How did this happen?’ What we’re talking about is almost 70% discount. It’s almost like a sample sale. Walker Tower is not a sample sale.”
Bizarrely Ms Barron, herself a realtor with the Compass Group, sold the apartment back in 2014 when she worked for Douglas Elliman Real Estate. At the time, she gushed to The New York Times: “I feel like I blinked and I sold it… This was a man [the buyer] who knew what he wanted and had the money to pay for it.” He plainly passed due diligence back then – somewhat, with hindsight, one might argue most surprisingly.
Meanwhile, elsewhere in the building – which has a lobby concierge, landscaped common roof deck, yoga room, sauna and a ‘library lounge’ with a bar for the use of residents – Penthouse Two is currently listed to rent by Knight Frank. They seek £69,000 per month for the 6,700 square foot space.
Ironically, whilst Ralph Walker shot himself with a silver bullet he had forged himself in 1973, whomever next overpays for Penthouse One at Walker Tower might well be taking a bullet in terms of misfortune for their wallet.
The Names & Numbers – Penthouse One, Walker Tower, 212 West 18th Street, Chelsea, New York, NY 10011, United States of America
June 2020 – Penthouse One goes “into contract” for just £14.78 million ($18.25 million, €16.33 million or درهم67.02 million), a discount of 64% on its sale price in 2014.
April 2019 – Penthouse One marketed at a price of £28.3 million ($35 million, €31.3 million or درهم128.5 million) by Shaun Osher of Core NYC.
2013 – Units in the residential conversion are listed for sale, with the highest priced penthouse priced at £47.8 million ($59 million, €52.8 million or درهم216.7 million). According to Wallpaper in November 2013, Penthouse One sold “after less than a month on the market.” It comanded a sum of £41.2 million ($50.9 million, €45.5 million or درهم186.9 million) on an asking price of £44.5 million ($55 million, €49.2 million or درهم292 million).
2016 – Of the building, realtor Vickey Barron, who purchased a unit there herself ultimately, remarked: “You don’t need to give its address. You just say ‘Walker Tower’ like ‘the Plaza’ and people know what you’re referring to.”
2013 – Construction completed with the residential units given their own entrance at 212 West 18th Street separate from the commercial space, entered at 17th Street.
2011 – Construction commences on the scheme.
2009 – Part sold for conversion to 53 residential units, the number is later reduced to 47 in total. The buyer was Michael Stern, managing partner of JDS Development Group whilst Verizon, the sellers, kept the lowest eight floors.
In January 2016, of his buy, Stern told Multi Family Executive: “I had to be dragged kicking and screaming to see it, back in 2009, when a broker called… But I went up to the roof and was astonished by the unobstructed views. It was the tallest building in Chelsea, since it had been built before zoning limited heights… [It was the] most complex residential conversion I’ve undertaken, and ever may.”
1929 – Constructed to the designs of Ralph Walker as a telecommunications centre and offices. The building is described as “of concrete-encased steel frame” and reflecting “the importance of its era’s telephone technology.” It featured chevron-patterned brickwork and what was termed a “wedding cake setback.”
As art fraudster Inigo Philbrick is arrested and dragged onto a private plane by the FBI, his on-off lover ‘Made in Chelsea’s’ Victoria Baker Harber shows no sympathy for victims; meanwhile fellow art conwoman Angela Gulbenkian has been deservedly detained in Lisbon
‘Mini Madoff’ Inigo Philbrick, ex-Jay Jopling employee and on-off squeeze of gobby ‘Made in Chelsea’ participant Victoria Baker Harber, snared in Vanuatu, Oceania last Friday.
Philbrick had bizarrely spent his time as a fugitive from justice petting “abandoned” dogs.
Fellow socialite and art fraudster Angela Gulbenkian, whose victims include Chelsea based interior designers Percy Bass, snared on the same day in Lisbon.
She traded on her loose connections to one of the richest families in the world, the Gulbenkians. Connected foundations and museums consistently have denied any association with the German born crook.
The two con artists are unconnected in terms of their nefarious activities and victims named thus far, but their paths may likely have crossed given the social circles they operated in and around.
‘The Talented Mr Philbrick’ was how one art newspaper somewhat cornily lauded Inigo Philbrick in the wake of this dastardly double dealer being exposed as a Madoff of the art world. He was snared in Vanuatu in Oceania last Friday whilst on Tuesday in Lisbon, fellow trader-on-a-well-known-name Angela Gulbenkian was taken into “preventative detention” to be extradited back to the UK.
Speaking to The Steeple Times on Friday, Jane Morris, managing director of acclaimed Walton Street interior designers Percy Bass remarked:
“Angela Gulbenkian came to Percy Bass to get her flat decorated. We did the work, but never got paid. She forged a bank transfer note pretending to be part of the Gulbenkian Foundation. Percy Bass had a judgment against her, but she fled abroad.”
Now, in addition and facing charges relating to a £1.1 million ($1.4 million, €1.2 million or درهم5 million) Kusama pumpkin sculpture and a £115,000 ($142,000, €127,000 or درهم522,000) Warhol print of Queen Elizabeth II and the theft of £50,000 ($62,000, €55,000 or درهم227,000) from a woman named Jacqui Ball, 38-year-old socialite Gulbenkian is ludicrously still claiming to be an “art collector” and linked to what she lists as the “Gulbenkian Private Art Collection” on Instagram. She is, in fact, even by her own admission, the owner of “just three works of art” and the daughter of an optometrist from Munich, Germany.
Angela Ischwang (as this shameless swindler was born) supposedly moved to London in the early 2000s to study politics. She subsequently met and married Duarte Gulbenkian, the great-grand nephew of the one-time richest man in the world Calouste Gulbenkian, and went into the art business in around 2016.
Listing herself as someone who “brokers high end arts works” through “valuable contacts,” this crooked conwoman – whose suggestions of links to the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation have been firmly denied by the trustees of those organisations – Gulbenkian is surprisingly linked to only one dissolved company, Doctor Duve Medical Skin Care Ltd. of Southwark Bridge Road, SE1.
Charged in relation to the Kusama pumpkin sculpture and the money stolen from Ball in May last year, Angela Gulbenkian was released on unconditional bail in September 2019 after appearing at Southwark Crown Court. She then failed to appear in May 2020 and a European Arrest Warrant was issued for her arrest. Now, ‘Awful Ange’ – as an embarrassed former friend told us she now calls her – will be rightly returned to face her comeuppance and this time she’ll be unlikely to get bail.
Philbrick meanwhile – who was until recently subject to ‘Where’s Wally?’ like speculation since having disappeared off the face of the planet after last being seen with his brash Made In Chelsea motormouth on-off lover Victoria Baker Harber in Australia in late 2019 – was found last Friday in Port Vila, Vanuata, an island nation in the South Pacific.
“Grabbed” by a mix of uniformed and ununiformed cops, the “startled” 33-year-old crook and estranged son of museum director Harry Philbrick – was “hustled” into a police car and taken to the local airport reported Artnet News on Wednesday. “A large Gulfstream jet was waiting on the tarmac” and this, “under instructions from the FBI,” flew him to New York.
Facing allegations of theft, misappropriation, borrowing money against artworks he did not even own and selling overlapping shares of artworks, Ponzi-like pillock Philbrick had supposedly been hiding out in a “house of an expat who died in a tragic accident.” Bizarrely, he had been busying his days helping “abandoned” dogs and of him one local remarked: “He was always calling me about an animal he found.”
Now in chains for his crimes against amongst others the Reuben family, Philbrick faces not only a real-life trial but also further exposure in the media. One-time friend, but ultimately a victim of the shameless scammer, art writer, curator and dealer Kenny Schachter this week wrote:
“I have no doubt that Inigo will capitalize on our collective financial misfortune and turn it into a multimedia bonanza for himself. As far as my own movie and documentary projects, for which deals will be announced shortly, all I want and/or expect is that they make good on part of the money Inigo took from me.”
Meanwhile last Sunday, dippy dope Victoria Baker Harber showed no regret for her association with Philbrick – a man who ferried her around in a private jet at the expense of others – in retweeting an attack on Schachter by someone named ‘Koogs’ on Twitter on 14th June. They opined: “Who quotes themselves?? Get over it! Your wife is a billionaire! Are you crying about cash or cock?”
Though at around £16.2 million ($20 million, €17.9 million or درهم73.5 million) Inigo Philbrick’s total scam is far bigger than Angela Gulbenkian’s, the effects are the same for the victims of these high society crooks: May the authorities now chuck the book at this rotten pair of ratbags.
Pictured top – Con artist Angela Gulbenkian appeared at Southwark Crown Court in September 2019 “in a blue dress decorated with silver stars and black Christian Louboutin high heels” according to ‘Metro’ (right); art fraudster Inigo Philbrick poses looking startled as television screen loving terror Victoria Baker Harber attempts to look sexually provocative.
Aided by their surnames –Inigo Philbrick duped the art world and the use of the surname he shares with his estranged art curator father certainly aided him in his ‘endeavours’; Angela Gulbenkian traded on her connections to the legendary art collecting, billionaire Gulbenkian family also.You’re snared! – A newspaper frontpage chronicling Inigo Philbrick’s detainment; social media users mocked the former fugitive with one joking: “OK bye now!”The ultimate deceiver – In March, Angela Gulbenkian posted an image accompanied by the caption: “Life is art!” on her Instagram page. She hashtagged it with amongst other things #letsgofar and #successfulwomen, but neglected to add the truth about herself: “My life is the art of deception!” is what it should have read.No sympathy for Philbrick’s victims – Victoria Baker Harber took to Twitter on 14th June to retweet an unpleasant comment mocking one of her on-off lover Inigo Philbrick’s victims, Kenny Schachter.Living the high life – Inigo Philbrick liked private jets and swilling champagne in the company of amongst others Victoria Baker Harber; he’s now getting used to porridge.
Grand Grade I listed Shropshire mansion Kinlet Hall for sale after coronavirus forced the closure of its wedding venue and summer school
Striking Grade I listed Palladian mansion in Shropshire for sale.
Kinlet Hall is priced at £3.5 million or just £104 per square foot.
The house has until recently been a school and wedding venue, but this usage has been stopped because of the coronavirus lockdown.
A cricket ground included with the property was lauded as one of “Britain’s most scenic” by ‘The Telegraph’ whilst HRH Princess Anne has competed in horse trials in the parkland.
Coinciding with the partial relaxation of the coronavirus lockdown, the ‘trophy country house’ market seems to be revving up with the commencement of marketing of several historically significant residences.
Significantly cheaper at £3.5 million or £104 per square foot and in far better condition than 33,406 square foot Lilford Hall, the 33,609 square foot Grade I listed Kinlet Hall comes with less land – 102 acres as opposed to 321 acres. It is further from London, which may limit its appeal to wealthy city sorts, but given it has been used as both a school and wedding venue until lockdown, it is in actual “working condition” as opposed to the perilously falling down state that Lilford is sadly currently in. That is, indeed, a major plus.
Featuring a seven-bayed central block of three storeys plus cellars, the hall is flanked by two two-storey wings. Presently configured to provide 5 reception rooms and 15 bedrooms, there are classrooms, gyms and flats also. Surprisingly, unlike with many residential to school conversions of mansions in the 1940s where ugly modern extensions were distastefully tacked on, damage to the integrity of the original structure has been minimal.
In addition, to a 5-bedroom detached house named ‘The Old House’ and a range of farm buildings within the grounds, there is a cricket pavilion and a cricket pitch. The Telegraph named its runner-up for “Britain’s most scenic cricket ground” in 2008 and interestingly amongst the many established plant and tree species in the grounds is a Wellingtonia that allegedly came as a seed in a matchbox from the Americas.
Of Kinlet Hall, Tony Morris-Eyton of Savills comments: “[This is] an exquisitely beautiful Palladian country house, formerly a prep school, awaiting its next chapter with enormous potential as either a private home or [for] other uses.”
The village of Kinlet is situated on the northern edge of the Wyre Forest about 18 miles from Telford and 23 miles from Birmingham.
Design Maestros – Villa Pisani, Montagnana (top left) by Andrea Palladio (lower centre) inspired both Francis Smith of Warwick (lower left) in his designs for Kinlet Hall and William Buckland (lower right) in his creation of the Hammond-Harwood House (top right).
The Names & Numbers – Kinlet Hall, Kinlet, Bewdley, Shropshire, DY12 3AY, United Kingdom
June 2020 – Put up for sale for £3.5 million ($4.4 million, €3.9 million or درهم16.3 million) through agents Savills. Orchard Lodge, a 4-bedroom cottage with an acre of paddock, is available by separate negotiation.
July 2017 – Moffats School closes for the final time citing financial pressures. Of the decision, school chairman Julian Engleheart told the Shropshire Star: “We have always been a small school by choice, maintaining the family ethos of our founders. However, the current financial climate is putting enormous pressure on small schools and we have decided that it would be unwise to commit to a new year this September. However, we will continue to run educational activities in our lovely house and grounds, which provide such a wonderful environment for learning.”
1946 – Moffats School (founded in 1934 by the children’s writer Natalie Engleheart in a Hertfordshire house called Moffats) is relocated to Kinlet Hall.
1939 – 1945 – The house was temporarily home to a school for the blind; the parkland became a camp for the US army as part of their preparations for the Normandy Landings.
1827 – Ballroom added to the designs of Sir Jeffrey Wyattville (1766 – 1840) trained architect Edward Haycock (1790 – 1870) for William Baldwyn Childe. He died three years before it was completed and “this is the only significant part of the house not dating from 1729.”
1727 – 1729 – Kinlet Hall is “built in a classic early Georgian style with the symmetry and grand elevations synonymous with [the English master-builder and architect] Francis Smith of Warwick (1672 – 1738)” for Tory politician William Lacon Childe (1700 – 1757) close to the site of an older Tudor manor house.
Other notable works by Smith and his family include Calke Abbey, Fawsley Hall, Kirtlington House, Ombersley Court and Stoneleigh Abbey. His design was said to be inspired by Andrea Palladio’s (1508 – 1580) Villa Pisani at Montagnana – which also reportedly was the influence for the ‘Anglo-Palladian’ Hammond-Harwood House by the English architect William Buckland (1734 – 1774) in Annapolois, Maryland, USA.
During construction, the old village was removed to “improve” the setting. Only the original church, St. John the Baptist, which contains monuments dating to the 1580s, was left as a “remnant.” It was restored subsequently in 1892.
Cambridgeshire mansion used by Special Operations Executives in the Second World War and as a borstal subsequently for sale; Gaynes Hall is next to the prison that housed Max Clifford and was briefly a cannabis farm in 2019
Grade II* listed Georgian mansion in Cambridgeshire for sale for £2.65 million in spite of being in far from perfect condition and next door to a prison housing 1,220 convicted sex offenders.
The estate was owned by the aristocratic Duberly family from 1798 until 1940. An earlier house on the house had been home to Oliver Cromwell’s namesake and uncle.
It was requisitioned in the Second World War by the Special Operations Executive. Hitler was so annoyed by the operations at Gaynes Hall that he supposedly nicknamed the place “the hornet’s nest.”
After the war, the hall became a borstal and after that closed, part of the estate became HM Prison Littlehey – famous for housing PR ‘guru’ Max Clifford, victim of a miscarriage of justiceStephen Downing and Australian cricketer Alex Hepburn.
More recently, the estate came to public attention after being discovered to be the centre of operations for drug lords. £250,000 of cannabis were seized there in 2019.
In June 2019, once ritzy Gaynes Hall at Perry, near Huntingdon in Cambridgeshire came to public attention when a drugs baron who’d turned part of the building into a cannabis farm was jailed. For his troubles, Nebir Tahiraj was relieved of £250,000 of drugs and ‘gained’ a sentence of 13 months.
Grade II* listed and built circa 1800 for Sir James Duberly (1758 – 1832), the gault brick house was originally plaster rendered. Of three storeys plus cellars and seven bays, the 20,795 square foot building is currently being marketed by agents Wilson Peacock for £2.65 million – up from £2.2 million back in 2019.
Gaynes Hall (also known as ‘Gaines Hall’ occasionally) stands in 16 acres of grounds including lakes and a moat and comes with a three bedroom cottage “requiring full modernisation and refurbishment.” It was home to the Duberly family until 1940 when it was requisitioned by Special Operations Executives (SOE) on the instructions of Winston Churchill.
Supposedly, according to the local Parish Council’s website, Hitler was so exasperated by the activities at Gaynes Park that he referenced the house “the hornet’s nest.” It was known locally during this period as a “spy school” and its master, Wing Commander Thomas Odett, was nicknamed ‘The White Rabbit’ on the basis that “he was always popping up in unexpected places.”
After the war, the mansion became the governor’s residence and administrative offices of the newly created Her Majesty’s Borstal Gaynes Hall and remained in that use until 1983 when the borstal closed. Her Majesty’s Prison Littlehey, which is best known as the place of death of the public relations ‘guru’ paedophile Max Clifford, was subsequently opened next door and residents of Perry get to hear its sirens periodically if a prisoner escapes or there is a disturbance.
In 1985, AIM Cambridge (later AIM Technology) leased the hall and from the Ministry of Defence and converted it into offices. When their business failed, the building became empty and in 1990, Gaynes Hall was sold again. In the years since, it has been in mixed use.
In need of some attention – Gaynes Hall has variously been used as a grand residence by aristocracy, requisitioned for use by Special Services Executives (SOE), served as an administrative office and governor’s house for a borstal and been converted to offices. It is currently configured in ‘mixed-use’ format and includes 20,975 square foot of accommodation.An aristocratic drug farm – Nebir Tahiraj was imprisoned in 2019 after having turned part of Gaynes Hall into a cannabis farm. He was caught with over £250,000 of drugs on the premises after neighbours complained about the noxious smell.Proximity to a prison – An aerial view of Her Majesty’s Prison Littlehey. Gaynes Hall is situated just to the west.Rapists next door – Convicted rapist and ex-cricketer cricketer Alex Hepburn, Stephen Downing (whose conviction for murder was overturned in 2002 after he had served 27 years in prison) and paedophile Max Clifford (who died in the prison) are connected by having been imprisoned at the Category C male prison HM Prison Littlehey. It has a capacity for 1,200 male prisoners – who all have been convicted of sexual offences.A once grand gentleman’s residence – Gaynes Hall in an image taken circa 1913. An earlier house on the site was leased for 21 years by Sir Oliver Cromwell (1566 – 1655), the uncle and namesake of the lord protector, from 1599.
The Names & Numbers – Gaynes Hall, Perry, Great Staughton, Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, PE28 0ST, United Kingdom
December 2019 – Listed for sale by Wilson Peacock Country Homes at the increased price of £2.65 million ($3.35 million, €2.96 million or درهم12.32 million).
14th June 2019 – 35-yeard old Nebir Tahiraj found guilty at Cambridge Crown Court of “being concerned in the production of cannabis” in his flat at Gaynes Hall and jailed for 13 months. When police raided the property, they “found more than 200 plants at varying stages of growth, growing equipment and two large bags of cannabis ready to be sold” worth circa £250,000 ($316,000, €279,000 or درهم1.2 million). He attempted to claim “he was being exploited and kept at the flat against his will,” but the National Crime Agency (NCA) discovered he had been willingly involved.
Mid 2019 – For Sale for £2.2 million ($2.8 million, €2.5 million or درهم10.2 million) through Michael Graham.
March 2019 – Fleet Assist announce they will be moving their business from Gaynes Hall to Ermine Business Park in Huntingdon.
2002 – Purchased by the Malik family (according to Wikipedia).
1994 – 2002 – Owned by the McCallion family (according to Wikipedia).
1985 – Converted to offices and used by firms including AIM Cambridge (AIM Technology) and Fleet Assist in the years subsequently. Part-let as apartments and by the room also for residential use.
1945 – 1983 – Used as the governor’s residence and administrative officers of the Her Majesty’s Borstal Gaynes Hall. ‘Boys’ who were detained there have recounted their experiences on this fascinating Facebook page; it plainly was not an especially pleasant place.
1940 – Requisitioned for use by Special Operations Executive (SOE). Gaynes Hall – under the codename ‘Station 61’ – became the headquarters for Air Liason Officers and used as a ‘hotel’ for them prior to their being dropped into occupied Europe.
1798 – 1940 – Owned by the Duberly family. The present house was constructed for them circa 1800 to the designs of architect George Byfield (circa 1756 – 1813).
Crumbling Northamptonshire estate Lilford Hall – where the little owl was introduced to Britain – for sale for £10 million, a sum £35 million lower than in 2014
Grade I listed Jacobean mansion with 13 chimney stacks for sale for £10 million; it was for sale last for £44.9 million in 2014 in spite of being listed on English Heritage’s ‘At Risk Register.’
Lilford Hall – parts of which have not been occupied since 1947 –is currently owned by a businessman who tried to sell burial plots in the grounds for £1,250 a pop and shares in a yacht loosely associated with Frank Sinatra for £23 each.
The 321-acre estate includes not only overgrown parkland, but also a zoo with cages that formerly housed bears and a lake for flamingos.
From 1711 until 1990, Lilford House was the seat of the Powys family – the 4th baron is credited with introducing the little owl to the UK.
More recently, in 1969, the “sexual mystic” artist Penny Slinger used the at-the-time derelict mansion in one of her best-known works.
A 32,406 square foot Grade I listed Jacobean mansion 82 miles from Central London has gone on sale for £10 million – or the equivalent of just £308 per square foot.
On this basis, Lilford Hall – set in 321 acres near Oundle – seems a comparative bargain when considered against the £4,786 per square foot sought for a Lennox Gardens, Knightsbridge triplex flatThe Steeple Times featured in May, but buyers need to remember this – parts of this crumbling building, most notably the major state rooms, have not been used since 1947.
Marketed last in 2014 for the even more punchy sum of £45 million, the “exceptional residential and amenity estate located on the River Nene,” is now offered by agents Savills. The “wonderfully proportioned” U-shaped mansion itself is constructed of grey limestone and includes over 100 rooms and amongst them are 7 “impressive” reception rooms, a ballroom, a ‘great chamber’ and 9 bedrooms. In addition, there are two Georgian pavilions that were formerly coach houses and stabling, three cottages, a former zoo, the oldest private softball court in the world, a former flamingo enclosure and a deer park.
“Impressiveness in the chief attribute of Lilford Hall as a specimen of architecture” claimed County Life in 1990 and as the seat of the Powys family from 1711 until 1990, it became not only a Downton Abbey-esque entertaining pad, but also housed nurses in the Second World War. Here, indeed, is an English country house that has seen lavishness and decline and thankfully here is an example that thankfully escaped the wrecking ball wrought so disgracefully on such houses in the 1950s and 1960s.
Fascinatingly in the 1880s, Thomas Powys, 4th Baron Lilford filled his aviaries on the estate with rheas, kiwis, pink-headed ducks, free-flying lammergeiers and it was from here that he also introduced the little owl into the UK. There are said to be around 5,700 breeding pairs today, but sadly, according to the RSPB, their numbers are now in decline.
More recently, in 1969, “sexually erotic” performance artist Penny Slinger took over the by then “derelict” mansion in conjunction with the filmmaker Peter Whitehead. Their resulting work, titled An Exorcism, was exhibited internationally and in 2004, after the current owners, Charles and Aziza Micklewright, acquired the house, they did something equally avant-garde; they attempted to sell burial plots in the grounds to Americans by citing the estate’s connections to the founder of the Brownists, Robert Browne – a man better known as ‘The Father of the Pilgrims’ and ‘The Grandfather of the Nation’ (of the United States of America).
Whilst Mr and Mrs Micklewright were lauded for their considerable efforts towards the “huge task” of restoring Lilford Hall, they came to the attention of Historic England in May 2019 when the building was listed on the At Risk Register. At that time, the Oundle Chronicle reported: “The roof covering is in poor condition leading to water ingress and distress to the upper storeys. The front bays require structural attention. A schedule of urgent repairs has been identified but not implemented, and no long-term solution has been agreed.”
Now, someone with very, very deep pockets is required to restore this gem. It would be helpful if they liked erotic art, bears, squash and owls also.
The Names & Numbers – The Lilford Hall Estate, Lilford, Oundle, Peterborough, Northamptonshire, PE8 5SG, United Kingdom
June 2020 – The estate is listed sale for £10 million ($12.5 million, €11.1 million or درهم46 million) through Savills. It includes 321.31 acres, of which 148.17 acres are pasture land whilst 157.48 acres are woodland. The majority of the estate is held on a freehold title, whilst the remaining 127.6 acres – known as ‘The Linches’ and ‘Lilford Woods’ – are held on a lease with 91 years remaining.
2015 – Promoted as ‘The National Memorial Gardens,’ burial plots in the gardens of the hall were offered “available to any UK resident or national for an outstanding price of only £1,250 ($1,568, €1,393 or درهم5,758)” by Mark Bailey of Harley Investments. Around the same time, a website dedicated to Lilford Hall marketed “a piece of the formal gardens” for sale for £299 ($375, €333 or درهم1,377) to include “an officially certified ‘Squire of Lilford’ [title] … with this little piece of history.”
March 2014 – The Irish Times reported that the asking price for the estate had been increased to £44.9 million ($56.3 million, €50 million or 206.8درهم million). They claimed the agents Coldwell Banker blamed “confusion over currency conversion rates and new instructions from the owner.”
April 2014 – The Lilford Hall Estate is listed for sale through Coldwell Banker on MyHome.ie for £33.7 million ($44.2 million, €37.5 million or درهم155 million) on behalf of “an English gentleman.”
2004 – The estate is acquired by the Micklewright family. Little information is available online about the Old Framlingham Charles Micklewright (born July 1958), but he is described as a “patent attorney” on Companies Houses pages. The businessman is mentioned also as a publisher and trustee of the Marsh Christian Trust elsewhere, whilst his Singaporean born wife, Aziza (born 1964), was a director of Lilford Properties Limited from 2013 to 2018.
A website operated by Sign of the Times Limited, a Hong Kong company of Lilford Hall, Lilford, Oundle, Northamptonshire, PE8 5SG, currently offers shares in a yacht named ‘Sinatra the Voice’ for £23.91 ($29.99, €26.64 or درهم110.14) per share. The boat was built in 1956 and is tenuously linked to Frank Sinatra by the fact that a one-time owner, Beale Poste, loaned it occasionally to the crooner between 1968 and 1974 in West Palm Beach, Florida.
1990 – The estate is closed to the public.
1980s – The house is used as a location in the BBC English Civil War inspired historical drama series By the Sword Divided.
1970s – Aviaries on the estate restocked by George Powys, 7th Baron Lilford (1931 – 2005). He “opened [the estate] to the public as a leisure park” and housed more than 350 birds of 110 species there. It remained thus for around 20 years and included a restaurant and shop. The aviaries and the 1,896 square foot restaurant building remain present still today.
1969 – 1970 – American British “sexual mystic” artist Penny Slinger (born 1947) and Liverpudlian filmmaker Peter Whitehead used the “derelict mansion” as the setting for their works An Exorcism and Lilford Hall. They are lauded as a “photo romance” and exhibited at the Blum and Poe Gallery in Los Angeles in 2014, at the Haywood Gallery in London in 2015 and at the Fortnight Institute in New York in 2019.
1949 – Stephen Powys, 6th Baron Lilford (1869 – 1949) died without having married or having had children. His properties aside from Lilford – a house in Mayfair, Bank Hall in Lancashire and the Bewsey Estate in Cheshire – passed to his second cousin twice removed.
1947 – The estate is sold to a company named Merchant Ventures by the Powys family (though they remain present on the estate until 1990).
1939 – 1945 – During the Second World War, the parkland of the estate was used as a military hospital for nearby airfields. From 1949 to 1954, some of the buildings constructed during this period were then used as a Polish school.
1923 – First-class Northamptonshire cricketer Major John Powys, 5th Baron Lilford (1863 – 1945) built the first private softball court in the world in the grounds of the hall. It is now in disrepair and the roof has fallen into the inner court.
1909 – 1910 – The hall was extended in the Edwardian manner including the provision of a new master bedroom with dressing room and bathroom by William Dunn and Robert Watson of Dunn & Watson.
1901 – The estate surrounding the hall reaches its largest size and totals a vast 8,000 acres of land. Around this time, Queen Mary, wife of King George V, is said to have visited the gardens.
1880s – Ornithologist and expert on the fauna of the Balearics Thomas Littleton Powys, 4th Baron Lilford (1833 – 1896) introduces the little owl into England on the estate. His aviaries were said to “feature exotic birds from all around the world” and a species of European lizard, the Lilford’s wall lizard (Podarcis lilfordi), is named in his honour. The 4th baron is repeatedly mentioned in the works of Charles Darwin for his contribution to the study of the science of evolution.
1840s – Further changes to the building are orchestrated by the architect William Gilbee Habershon (circa 1818 – 1891). The Campaign to Protect Rural England described these Victorian extensions as “sensitive” in 2006 – a rare accolade given most additions to English country houses during this period were simply brash and vulgar.
1740s – The Palladian architect Henry Flitcroft (1697 – 1769) adds “outstanding” Georgian interiors whilst “respecting the hall’s Jacobean exterior.” He “softened and brightened” the building as a result and also “constructed the Georgian pavilions and additional storeys to the east end of the two wings.” Other works by Flitcroft can be seen at Bower House in Essex, Wentworth Woodhouse in Yorkshire and Woburn Abbey in Bedfordshire.
1711 – Lilford Hall is sold to the judge and Tory politician Sir Thomas Powys (1649 – 1719), Attorney General to King James II. Powys is best remembered for conducting the prosecution of the Seven Bishops in 1699. He is buried at Lilford.
1630s – Construction of the main exterior of what to this day remains Lilford Hall as a “Jacobean-style gentry house” by William Elmes (the younger).
1473 – The land that forms the estate is acquired by William Browne (1410 – 1489), a wealthy wool merchant and landowner from Stamford, from the estate of Baron Welles (who was beheaded by King Edward IV for treason). In 1495, “in a Tudor style,” he built a hall on the site and it passed to Robert Browne (1550 – 1633), the founder of the Brownists, ‘The Father of the Pilgrims’ and ‘The Grandfather of the Nation’ (of the United States of America).
Moving on homes owned by the newsworthy – including properties owned by society snapper Sir Cecil Beaton, novelist Jackie Collins and film producer-director Peter Minns.
A Tennis Court Teardown
Paris Hilton’s dad Rick’s realty firm Hilton & Hyland has just launched to the market the former Beverly Hills home of the late Jackie Collins OBE (1937 – 2015) for £13.4 million ($16.95 million). They don’t say much about the bonkbuster author’s residence of some 25 years other than: “Secluded behind gates and foliage lies a great opportunity to purchase a tennis court… Home could use a remodel or rebuild.” Miss Collins and her second husband art gallery owner Oscar Lerman paid £2.4 million ($3 million) for 5,269 square foot 614 N Beverly Drive in 1991.
Limited Living in the ‘Hampshire Highlands’
https://vimeo.com/358107497/b6629a2217
Reduced in price from £4 million ($5.1 million) in September 2019 to £3.73 million ($4.72 million) now through agents BCM, The Oast House at Hartley Mauditt in the South Downs National Park in Hampshire was converted by film producer-director Peter Minns in the 1990s.
This delightful ‘mini estate’ looks like something that could have been in of The Darling Buds of May and comes with 76.28 acres of land suitable for ‘stick and ball’ polo, but the problem is this – a planning stipulation dictates that the majority of the main house is only allowed to be on a “short-term” basis whilst two cottages are for “holiday or seasonal worker use” and a bungalow is limited to “anyone fully employed in agriculture.”
Minns is best known for having produced programmes including Mad Cows & Englishmen for the BBC, A Question of Sleaze – The Neil Hamilton Story for Channel 4 and Citizen 2000 – which followed the lives of twenty children who became 18 in the year 2000.
Moving on Sir Cecil’s Seat
£4 million ($5.1 million) is sought for Queen Anne Reddish House in the Chalke Valley in Wiltshire by agents Savills. Society snapper Sir Cecil Beaton CBE, owner from 1947 until his death in 1980, described it as: “My dream home” and an “exquisite country seat” and between 1987 and 1999, it was home to the I Want to Be Free singer Toyah Wilcox. Aside from 6 acres of glorious gardens, the Grade II* listed house comes with two cottages, a range of follies and a water meadow. Locked-down Instagrammers have been moving all over its marketing brochure and sharing photos online, with one even gushing: “It’s the prettiest house I’ve seen EVER… EVER.”
In spite of a judge rejecting evidence disclosure, Jeremy Bamber’s case now looks more likely to be reviewed by the Criminal Cases Review Commission; new podcast about the case begins Sunday
“If ever there was a case where the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) should be approached to make a decision on what is said to be new evidence, it is this one. This is a massively complex case which has been investigated and re-investigated by more than one police force over some 35 years.”
“The body of material is vast. After so many years, and so much litigation, the CCRC is the body undoubtedly best placed to consider the claimant’s arguments.”
We today urge readers to watch the YouTube video that follows. It examines the sequence of events on the night of 6th to the 7th August 1985 and for those interested in learning more, we also recommend listening to The White House Farm Murders: Is Jeremy Bamber Guilty? podcast by Kaiesha Page. It begins this evening and is available here.
Entitled Hamptons brat Jonathan Davis exposed for allegedly squatting during the coronavirus lockdown; it turns out he’s a realtor with NestSeekers
Jonathan Davis is the founder of the Hamptons Brewing Company and the son of a self-declared “power broker” realtor named Tim Davis. Aside from also being a property agent and claiming to have been “born and raised” in the summer colony that the wealthy of New York flock to, on Friday, he was exposed as something else – Mr Davis has now been outed as a pesky squatter who allegedly doesn’t pay his rent and goes around wrecking other peoples’ homes.
In March, Davis, a graduate of Lynn University “with a passion for business,” featured in an interview with Fox Business in which he bragged about how much business he was doing because of the coronavirus pandemic. In the typically brash style expected of a privileged preppy prat and speaking on behalf of his bosses at the NestSeekers brokerage, he declared:
“Rental season is starting earlier now. Instead of Memorial Day, it’s 1st April… It’s a very proactive time… There is just more room to breathe out here and families feel safer… It’s not a bad environment to be quarantined.”
According to Inside Edition, completely modest to his core “like father, like son, greatness never dies” Davis – whom according to his broker profile has sold properties priced as high as £9.3 million ($11.5 million, €10.3 million or درهم42.2 million) and pompously lauds himself as a “well-regarded agent” selling “a lifestyle, not just a dream home” according to posts on his Twitter handle – has himself taken advantage of the pandemic at the expense of someone who rented him a house.
The “prominent real estate agent” and “alleged squatter,” the syndicated news-magazine reports, rented a 3-bedroom property in Sag Harbor from Paula Rosado and now “refuses to move out.” Davis is alleged to owe £12,100 ($15,000, €13,500 or درهم55,100) and has supposedly allowed his two German Shepherd dogs to “tear apart” the building and urinate all over her rugs and “couches” [sic]. Windows are reported broken also and of the situation, Rosado moaned: “It’s horrific. It really is just horrific… This has been a complete nightmare for us, for our family emotionally and financially.”
When confronted by Inside Edition’s cameras, Davis refused to comment. His lawyer, meanwhile, angrily stated: “I’ve got no comments except: GET ORF THE GROUNDS!”
The Steeple Times contacted Jonathan Davis and his bosses at NestSeekers – CEO and founder Eddie Shapiro, Bridgehampton salesperson Dylan Eckardt and associate broker Peggy Zabakolas – for comment on Saturday. They all failed to respond by 11am GMT Monday and thus provided illustration of the “ethics, integrity, loyalty, education, ingenuity and courage” by which Shapiro’s firm operates by. Allow NestSeekers into your home at your peril.
Pictured top: Jonathan Davis looking annoyed alongside his ritzy Land Rover Discovery and a police officer.
The home rented to Jonathan Davis by Paula Rosado.The gardens of the Sag Harbor property now resemble something inhabited by Stig of the Dump. They were supposedly immaculate prior to Jonathan Davis moving in.Property owner Paula Rosado spoke to ‘Inside Edition’ to share her frustrations.On the Instagram page for his brewing company, Jonathan Davis declares: “A good time starts here.” As can be seen from this image, a good time is not being had by his caged dogs.Jonathan Davis’ unnamed legal representative made quite a scene, when asked for a comment.Mr Davis, however, surprisingly for a mouthy realtor, had little to nothing to say.Davis does like to brag about his supposed successes on his NestSeekers broker profile though. One Hamptons local we approached commented: “I wouldn’t trust him with a garden hoe.”
