I was born in 'The Towers' in The Bishop's Avenue Hampstead London. This is the only photograph that I could find of it I'm afraid . It had 28 rooms, a bathroom for each bedroom, an island with palm trees in the middle of its indoor swimming pool, a staircase fit for a Queen and a huge ballroom....Continues after the headline story
This piece is a year old but may have most breathless sub-head we've seen in a while.
From City AM:
How the super-rich are breathing new life into the grand old houses at the heart of London
THE Queen is your neighbour, St James’ Park is your garden and Fortnum and Mason is your grocery shop – where do you live? With an illustrious Regency history and a host of nine figure properties, Carlton House Terrace is one of the most desirable streets in the world. Residential properties this big in central London are rare, since most of the largest houses were sold off by their ailing aristocratic owners during the first half of the 20th century and turned into flats or offices.And back to the lady's story:
Now they’re being bought up and changed back into palatial residences by luxury developers eager to capitalize on a super-rich elite unaffected by the straitened economic climate of the past five years. A 2011 survey of the 20 most expensive homes in Britain found that Bernie Ecclestone was the only Briton among the owners. As Peter Wetherell, managing director of Wetherell’s estate agent says, in the days of the British Empire “the world was ruled from the great houses of Mayfair. These days, the people who rule the world want to buy houses in Mayfair.”
Discretion is a priority for security obsessed billionaires. Often it’s difficult to ascertain whether or not the properties are really for sale as they are often sold without public listings. Take the mansion that Saudi Arabia’s Prince Abdul Aziz bin Fahd recently put up for sale in Kensington Palace Gardens (otherwise known as Billionnaire’s Row) – potential buyers reportedly had to sign a confidentiality agreement before looking around the property. And when Elena Franchuk bought her Upper Phillimore Kensington villa in 2008 for a then record-breaking figure of £80m, the property was shown only to a select group of international potential buyers. Meanwhile Rinat Akhmetov made headlines in 2011 when he paid £136.4m for three apartments in the Richard Rogers designed One Hyde Park.
The grand old houses of Mayfair and Knightsbridge possess the one luxury feature you can’t build – history. Here City A.M. Bespoke looks at the stories behind some of the residential properties set to break records in the near future.
CAMBRIDGE HOUSE 94 PICCADILLY This property was built for Charles Wyndham, 2nd Earl of Egremont between 1756 and 1761 and went on to be passed between various aristocrats before eventually falling into the hands of Prince Adolphus, Duke of Cambridge. Because Adolphus was a royal, the name stayed with the property, which was bought by the Naval and Military Club in 1865. The house became known as the “In and Out” club thanks to the prominent signs on the front gate. Cambridge House was bought from the Naval and Military Club in 1996 by billionaire Simon Halabi for £50m but fell into disrepair. The famous “in and out” sign remained, though, even after an imaginative graffitist changed it to “anarchy in and Tories out”. Cambridge House lay neglected, its white facade grubby from years of disuse. Set back slightly from the rumbling traffic of Piccadilly, it was as if the grand old house were stepping away, respectfully declining to participate in a world too fast and loud for it to understand. It lay abandoned and forlorn, a ghost of aristocratic op- ulence like the wreck of the Titanic. That is set to change after billionaire property tycoons the Reuben brothers acquired the property for £130m in 2011. The siblings are planning a transformation that will turn the building back into a single 48-room palace. Upon completion the property will have a gym, an underground swimming pool and a 35,000 bottle wine cellar, and has been speculatively valued at £250m....MORE
...MORENow, before you get the wrong idea that we were 'loaded', 'The Towers' used to be the home of Gracie Fields. Dame Gracie Fields was an English born actress, singer and comedienne. She donated her house ' Tower' in London's The Bishops Avenue, to a maternity hospital and that is how I came to be born in a road that is a favourite with the 'uber-rich' and was often referred to as ' Millionaires Row' but, because of inflation, is now referred to as ' Billionaires Row' !!!!
