The vision: Beautiful Euston

Transcription

Homes&
Property
Wednesday 5 March 2014
The big
drawer
Martino Gamper
at the Serpentine
Page 12
COMMUTER TOWNS SET TO SOAR P8 STEAL THE STYLE: THE RESTAURANT MAN P28 SPOTLIGHT ON MAIDA VALE P30
The vision:
Beautiful Euston
Page 6
London’s best property search website: homesandproperty.co.uk
4
WEDNESDAY 5 MARCH 2014 EVENING STANDARD
Homes & Property Online
homesandproperty.co.uk with
This week: homesandproperty.co.uk
news:
Now you must tell lenders how
much you spend on the kids
Not so fast: new
rules coming
into force next
month requiring
full financial
disclosure will
“inevitably”
lead to fewer
mortgages being
granted, say
experts
FROM next month, tough new regulations will make
home buying even more difficult for beleaguered
Londoners who already face a shortage of available
properties, the nightmare of sealed bids and rapidly
rising prices.
Borrowers will be required to disclose all their monthly
outgoings — from credit card and student loan
repayments to season ticket costs and how much they
spend on child care or school fees — before they can be
given a mortgage.
Experts say the Mortgage Market Review, drawn up by
the Financial Conduct Authority, will “inevitably” lead to
more buyers being refused mortgages or being offered
much smaller amounts than they need.
Property
search
London buy of the week
a bit of all white in Chiswick
£675,000: this Chiswick mews house is rather more than a
bit of all white — thanks to its W4 location, close to the
Thames in the heart of Strand on the Green. A simple
palette of whites runs throughout its open-plan kitchen and
dining space and the 19ft reception room — all perfect for
entertaining. There are two bedrooms, one en suite,
and Kew Palace and Gunnersbury Tube are both only 10
minutes away. Through Faron Sutaria.
O Visit homesandproperty.co.uk/buyoftheweekmews
Out of town buy of the week the
coach house of a grand country pile
£700,000: head for the pretty
Essex village of Wickham Bishops and
set your sights on this Grade II-listed
home, formerly the coach house to
High Hall — a rather grand country
pile. Manicured lawns, rustic red brick
and Gothic leaded-light windows are
all part of the charm of the extended
four-bedroom home. The woodpanelled hallway leads to a lovely
O Read Ruth Bloomfield’s full story at homesandproperty.co.uk
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drawing room warmed by an open
fireplace. The sitting and dining
rooms and the kitchen/breakfast
room all have fine views over the
gardens, and trains run to London
from nearby Witham and Hatfield
Peverel. Through John D Wood.
O Visit homesandproperty.co.uk/
outwick
Life changer a sweet deal in
store at ye olde corner shop
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£695,000: in Much Hadam, Hertfordshire, The Stores —
a glorious village home dating from early Tudor days —
enjoys a prime setting, useful in its former life as, you’ve
guessed it, the village corner shop and tea room. Now a
2,700sq ft four-bedroom home, it could happily convert
back to a nice little earner, with the added sweetener
of a self-contained annexe you could let, plus a garage.
Through Savills.
O Visit homesandproperty.co.uk/lifechangermuch
Editor:
Janice
Morley
+++
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"+%"$"+ "$ +!#+&#$+(((' # "$$' VISIT homesandproperty.co.
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By
Faye Greenslade
Win spectacular perennials
Or buy a collection from our shop and save £64
A NEW collection of 72 beautiful
hardy perennials — perfect for creating
a cottage garden or simply filling gaps
in your borders — is exceptional value.
We’ve teamed up with quality plant
supplier Van Meuwen to offer five
readers the chance to win a collection
pack of 72 plants. If you don’t win,
you can still buy six plants of any one
variety for £6.99, 12 plants of any one
variety for £11.98 — saving £2 — or the
complete collection of 72 plants, with
six of each variety, for only £19.88,
saving £64. To buy, and to see the full
collection, visit homesandproperty.
co.uk/shop. For your chance to win a
72-plant pack, see below.
Cottage favourite: aquilegia is one of
a dozen varieties in the collection
TO ENTER
For a chance to win a pack of 72 perennial plants, visit homesandproperty.co.uk/offers
before the end of March 19. Usual rules apply, see homesandproperty.co.uk/rules for details.
5
EVENING STANDARD WEDNESDAY 5 MARCH 2014
News Homes & Property
A heady brew of styles by Jocasta Innes
Second
reality
star sis
sells up
O Visit homesand
property.co.uk/brew
Hustle to get your
offer in, Jennifer
É THE Kardashians seem to be
offloading their property portfolio.
Following in little sister Khloé’s
footsteps, Kourtney, right, has put her
home on the market.
The American TV reality star, 34,
recently revamped the four-bedroom,
5,400sq ft house, above, adding
wacky interiors including a blackand-white zigzag-themed room.
Kourtney’s partner, entrepreneur
Scott Disick, describes the new
look as “Alice in Wonderland
meets Beetlejuice”.
The couple, who have two
children, want even more space so
they are planning to move out soon.
Meanwhile, Sotheby’s has the
property on its books at £2.09 million.
REX
The Culture Show, it’s
in a creative hotspot.
Old Spitalfields Market
is just around the
corner, where US
actress Mischa Barton,
right, has a boutique.
GETTY
É ONE of East
London’s funkiest
homes is for sale. The
Brewer’s House, built
by the Master Brewer of
Spitalfields in 1820, was
lovingly restored by
Jocasta Innes.
The late designer
decorated it in a
classical yet eclectic
style, with stippling,
stencilling and checkpattern floorboards.
It is home to her son,
the writer and historian
Jason Goodwin, who
has put the fourbedroom gem on the
market for £2.3 million
with Hamptons.
Next to the Rag
Factory, which is used
as a filming location for
MTV, Newsnight and
O Take a peek inside at homesand
property.co.uk/kourt
By Amira Hashish
Got some gossip?
Tweet @amiranews
Abbey ending for a Beatles fan
GETTY
ÉTO CELEBRATE the
Beatles’ 50th anniversary
this year, Sir Paul
McCartney and Ringo Starr
reunited for a special US
concert before an audience
including Johnny Depp,
Tom Hanks, Kate
Beckinsale and Sean Penn.
Who knows what other
anniversary surprises the
pair have up their sleeves?
But fans with big budgets
can mark it by spending
£2.39 million on a three-
ÉHOLLYWOOD actress Jennifer
Lawrence and her English actor
boyfriend Nicholas Hoult, above, are
said to be eagerly house hunting in
Hampshire. It is perfect timing for
American Hustle star Lawrence, who
plans to take a break from filming for
the rest of the year.
A seven-bedroom mansion on the
market for £2.75 million in Little
London, Andover, could be right up
their street. Designed by Peter Huf,
the brains behind German pre-fab
architecture practice Huf Haus, it is
thought to be the largest example of
timber and glass housing in the UK.
The breathtaking space is filled with
light and surrounded by nature, with
deer often spotted in the grounds. It
could be the perfect country escape
for this cool young couple.
O Visit homesandproperty.co.uk/little
bedroom flat overlooking
the iconic north-west
London zebra crossing
pictured on the cover of the
band’s Abbey Road album,
inset left. Listed with Green
& Co, the flat has three
balconies, far left, with
great views, an indoor
swimming pool and 24hour concierge. It’s a pad to
twist and shout about.
O See homesandproperty.
co.uk/abbey
$$!
Studios, 1, 2 and 3 bedroom Shared Ownership apartments at this
premium development available to anyone living or working in London
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8&9
MARCH
6
Homes & Property New homes
Euston,
we don’t
have a
problem
A super-terminal will be the
X factor that transforms Euston
into a fabulous new district with a
triumphal arch. By David Spittles
C
HANCELLOR George
Osborne’s backing for a new
super-terminal at Euston
paves the way for a complete redevelopment not
only of the station, but of the whole
neighbourhood — the kind of radical
makeover that has made King’s Cross
a shining example of the power of
regeneration.
Euston is already a vital entry point
to London. Earlier plans to demolish
the existing station as part of the HS2
high-speed rail project were dropped
last April after protests, but a full-scale,
radical rebuilding is back on track.
It could transform what is widely
considered a horrible station set in a
crushingly uninspiring neighbourhood. Instead, the Eustonvision.com
consortium promises a lively
“quarter”, with new homes, shops and
offices, integrated with King’s Cross
Central, the new district emerging fast
up the road.
Euston has been a place to pass
through rather than live in. Office
towers loom over car-clogged Euston
Road, which is the congestion charge
boundary and one of the capital’s least
From £980,000:
apartments in
The Triton
Building, below
right, part of the
Regent’s Place
office and
residential
“campus” on the
north side of
Euston Road. Call
020 7993 7397.
Below, the new
Facebook HQ at
Regent’s Place
pedestrian-friendly thoroughfares. Yet
even today, there are positives. A short
stroll from Euston are the village-like
backstreets of Fitzrovia, Marylebone
and Bloomsbury, plus all the landscaped grandeur of Regent’s Park — a
giant “back garden” for locals.
Few places in Britain are better served
by public transport, with trains to
everywhere from Paris to Perth. And
once HS2 is up and running, long-distance commuting will be revolutionised.
From Euston, it will be quicker to get to
Birmingham — 49 minutes — than to
many M25 commuter towns, while
Manchester and Leeds will be within 75
minutes of the capital. And by 2026
Japanese-style bullet trains will arrive.
Euston’s revamp chimes with London
Mayor Boris Johnson’s policy for many
more new homes to be built around
and above transport hubs.
The unloved station dates from 1962.
This could turn a horrible
station — set in a crushingly
uninspiring neighbourhood
— into a lively new quarter
It replaced the Euston Arch, a classical
1837 portico, which campaigners want
reinstated as a spectacular monument.
The available railway land covers 15
acres, big enough for a Canary Wharf-size
project. Early proposals envisage four
million square feet of space, including
hundreds of new homes.
Perfectly located to benefit from all
this regeneration, new homes are
already part of the local mix at Regent’s
Place, a big office and residential
“campus” which includes Facebook’s
new HQ. The project scooped top prize
in the Mayor’s London Planning Awards
this year and despite its corporate feel
with 14,000 employees, it has become
a convivial hub with restaurants, cafés,
a food market, art studios and a theatre,
plus a public space for performances,
art installations and events. The Triton
Building is one of the new residential
towers, offering 94 apartments including a pair of spectacular penthouses,
with 999-year leases (homesand
property.co.uk/regents). Call Jones
Lang LaSalle on 020 7993 7397. The
estate is managed by British Land,
which offers a concierge service and
24-hour uniformed security.
Sir Terry Farrell, the main architect
of Regent’s Place, has also devised an
area masterplan that includes a public
park with trees and water sculptures
on decking above Euston underpass.
If it comes to fruition it would help to
unite neighbourhoods either side of
the current divide. The area south of
Euston Road, between Great Portland
Impressive
vision: this
proposed
masterplan
shows how the
station could be
rebuilt with an
open plaza and a
new Euston Arch
£150,000: for a
quarter share of
a flat at Origin
Housing’s
Constable Court,
below, in King’s
Cross Road. Call
0800 068 8990.
Below right,
grand local
buildings include
Cornwall Terrace,
off Regent’s Park
7
New homes Homes & Property
Return of an old favourite: a replacement Euston Arch could include some of the
original stonework, which was dumped in an east London river in the Sixties
CHARLIE FORGHAM-BAILEY
Street and Tottenham Court Road, is
about 30 per cent more expensive than
the northern side.
Redevelopment of listed Elizabeth
Garrett Anderson Hospital for
Women has greatly improved a formerly rough patch moments from the
station. Occupying an entire block, the
scheme comprises 47 homes, a shiny
new headquarters for the Unison
union, a gallery and exhibition space.
Despite the disparate elements, the
buildings are brought together by a
“village square” concept — an open,
public atrium, with glazed cafés and
restaurants allowing clear views in and
out to the street. The shared-ownership
and rental homes are managed by
Origin, a local housing association
whose roots in the area go back to the
Twenties, when it was set up to provide
accommodation for railway workers.
Priority is given to key workers and
Radical rebuild: how the new Euston
super-terminal could look. Chancellor
George Osborne backs redevelopment
people already living or working in
Camden borough. Call 0800 068 8990
or visit originsales.co.uk to identify
homes and book viewings online.
The station redevelopment will entail
bulldozing some nearby council housing, but Camden council is insisting on
replacement affordable homes.“Euston
needs massive redevelopment, it truly
is a horrible station,” says local resident
Paul Wright, who travels by Tube to his
job at a tech company in Victoria.
PERIOD GEMS
Euston is sprinkled with fine period
buildings such as the defunct National
Temperance Hospital, which the area
masterplan seeks to make the most of.
The district also has strong academic
and charitable links, with numerous
university buildings and medical campuses, including Wellcome Trust. This
settled backbone gives the area character amid the scurrying commuters.
Euston properties, in the NW1 postcode, typically range from £300,000
to £1.75 million, according to estate
agent Foxtons, which is selling flats,
including a three-bedroom duplex with
roof terrace, at a new development in
Chalton Street. Call 020 7973 2020. By
contrast, homes in Marylebone, only
moments away, range from £485,000
to £3.25 million, while those in Lisson
Grove, an edgy patch just north of
Euston on the Maida Vale border, cost
from £275,00 to £449,950.
DISTRICTS TO WATCH
Between Euston and St Pancras, Somers
Town is worth watching. Now largely
council estates, it is regarded as a “lost
quarter” and is being targeted for new
private housing. When first developed
in the late 18th century it was envisaged
as a middle-class address but suffered
when the London and Birmingham
Railway cut through the area in the
1830s. Another micro spot to watch is
around Drummond Street, best known
for Indian restaurants, where gentrification has started.
Developers are also scouting for sites
around the northern tip of Euston
towards Mornington Crescent and Camden Town. Michael Stone, of estate agent
Greene & Co says: “The regeneration
ripple is rolling. We are seeing a surge in
demand, particularly from graduates,
young professionals and buy-to-let investors. Over time, the area will entice
more people out of the West End.”
O Find a home in Euston: visit
homesandproperty.co.uk/euston
8
Homes & Property Commuting
D
£450,000 to £600,000 you could buy
a big period house with five or more
bedrooms in the town centre, while a
quality semi could be yours for
£300,000 to £350,000. Modern twobedroom riverside flats cost about
£170,000. Charlie Croft, a director of
estate agent Walker Croft, reports
growing numbers of house hunters
from the capital. “They can’t believe
what they can buy compared to
London,” she says.
She recommends the Singlewell area
of town, with its good stock of period
homes. Expect to pay £650,000 to
£700,000 for a five-bedroom Victorian
villa, or just under £250,000 for a
three-bedroom Thirties terrace.
O Find a home in Gravesend: visit
homesandproperty.co.uk/gravesend
ALAMY
ESPITE its good schools,
reasonable house prices
and great commuter location, Bracknell in Berkshire
has always been the poor
relation to its neighbour, affluent
Ascot, largely due to the ugliness of its
Sixties town centre. This, however,
could turn out to be Bracknell’s year.
The northern side of the town centre
is in the throes of a £750 million regeneration project which will see Marks &
Spencer open an 80,000sq ft shop.
Other confirmed new arrivals include
a 12-screen Cineworld Cinema and
restaurants including Carluccio’s.
Comer Homes has put forward plans
to knock down the former 3M office
block — a giant yellow-clad eyesore,
derelict since 2003 — and build 300
flats and leisure facilities including a
gym and restaurants.
Improving the heart of Bracknell
could be just the boost the town needs,
as it already scores highly in other
areas. Train journeys to Paddington
take from 55 minutes, and you can be
at Waterloo in a fraction over an hour.
An annual season ticket costs £3,392.
By home counties standards, Bracknell is highly affordable. The average
property price is £261,009, up a
healthy 5.6 per cent in the last year,
says Zoopla property website.
In smart satellite villages around the
town you could easily spend up to
£4 million on a country house with all
the trimmings, but in town, £500,000
would buy a four- to five-bedroom,
detached, modern family house.
Bracknell: £750 million is being spent bringing new homes, shops, jobs and leisure facilities to the Berkshire town’s centre
They’re splashing the cash
Ruth Bloomfield discovers three towns for new commuters where
regeneration will bring added value to the homes they buy
£825,000: left, a
three-bedroom
maisonette at
Cranbourne Hall,
Winkfield,
Bracknell (homes
and property.co.
uk/cran)
O Find a home in Bracknell: visit
homesandproperty.co.uk/bracknell
GRAVESEND: £120 MILLION PLAN
FOR HOMES AND BUSINESSES
The centre of this North Kent town is
in line for £120 million regeneration
creating 330 new homes and some 800
jobs. A hotel, cafés and restaurants are
planned by developer Edinburgh
House, and there will be a new market
square and a community centre. Work
is due to start this year and will add to
Gravesend’s not inconsiderable
charms, which include a swift commute and affordable homes.
The town centre already has a reasonable mix of independent shops and
chains, a market several days a week
and plenty of cafés and restaurants,
£185,000: a twobedroom flat at
Melbourne Quay,
Gravesend (homes
andproperty.
co.uk/mel)
although precious little nightlife. The
recently restored Victorian town pier,
reaching out into the Thames, is cute,
and architect Sir Terry Farrell, who is
advising the Government on the future
of the Thames Gateway, wants it to be
a stop on a new water taxi service.
Shorne Woods Country Park is popular for a weekend ramble, while for
rainy days there’s the Paul Greengrass
Cinema, named in honour of the director of Bafta-nominated Captain Phillips, plus two of the Bourne films, who
lives locally. Gravesend benefits from
Kent’s grammar school system. Mayfield Grammar School is “outstanding”
according to Ofsted, while Gravesend
Grammar School and Northfleet School
for Girls are both rated “good”.
The town also benefits from Kent’s
high-speed rail link, which means the
commute to St Pancras takes just 23
minutes. However, high-speed travel
doesn’t come cheap — an annual season
ticket costs £4,284. This drops to £3,176
if you take regular services with a journey time of about 45 minutes.
The average Gravesend property
costs £236,004, up 5.51 per cent in the
last year according to Zoopla. For
!
!
The Bloom is a development of 1, 2 and 3 bedroom
apartments in bustling Shepherd’s Bush with Private Sale
apartments launching 8 & 9 March. Underground parking
available to select apartments.
Scan
to register
To find out if an apartment at The Bloom is right for your
life call 020 7603 1384 (Quote ES5) or visit the-bloom.co.uk
READING: £500 MILLION FOR
TOWN CENTRE REGENERATION
A project to rebuild this Berkshire
town’s station ends next year. Five new
platforms should reduce delays, as
trains will no longer have to queue to
get into the station.
The trip to Paddington, timetabled
from just 27 minutes, is quicker than
from many London suburbs, and an
annual season ticket is £4,856.
In December, developer Stanhope
won permission for a £500 million
Reading town centre redevelopment
scheme to include 300 new flats,
shops, leisure facilities and offices.
Work, due to start this year, is scheduled to take until 2024.
Reading’s existing facilities include
two shopping centres, regular farmers’
markets, an annual beer festival, a
concert hall and several theatres.
Prospect Park is good for sports fans
and nature lovers.
St John’s CofE (Aided) Primary School
is rated “outstanding” by Ofsted and,
for seniors, Chiltern Edge Community
School and Reading Girls’ School are
both considered “good”.
On the downside, the town centre is
a bit drab, with some poor restaurants
and many uninspiring chain shops.
The average property price currently
stands at £236,004, up 5.51 per cent in
a year, according to Zoopla.
O Find a home in Reading: visit
homesandproperty.co.uk/reading
9
Affordable homes Homes & Property
Follow the value-for-money pioneers
Harlesden is shaking
off its gritty past as
young media and
City workers find
homes below the
stamp duty threshold,
says David Spittles
£220,000
flats at Spring,
the latest
phase of
homes at New
Stonebridge
Park in
Harlesden. Call
Hyde housing
association on
0845 606 1221
H
EADING north from
Paddington up bustling
Harrow Road is a demographic journey through
London: past prosperous
Maida Vale, a place where Parisians
would feel at home, through unassuming Kensal Green — reasserting itself as
a neat address for young families
priced out of Queen’s Park — and on to
gritty Harlesden, one of the cheapest
Zone 3 addresses.
Once avoided by home buyers
because of its gang crime and notoriety
as the “murder capital of England”,
Harlesden is changing and the area’s
new potential is slowly being recognised.
Among the newcomers are BBC staff
and junior City workers in search of
housing association fair rents, sharedownership deals and flats priced below
the £250,000 stamp duty threshold.
£235,000
new flats at
Langhorne
Place, with
recently
revamped
Gladstone Park
on the doorstep
in Dollis Hill.
Call Network
Group on 0300
373 3000
£225M REGENERATION
Harlesden still has a hard urban edge,
but the town centre is getting a facelift,
part of a £225 million regeneration
initiative that is seeing Stonebridge
council estate’s grim towers replaced
by 1,400 mixed-tenure low-rise homes
and a community hub.
Spring is the latest phase of homes
at the reincarnated estate, called New
Stonebridge Park. It offers a mix of
studios, apartments and three-bedroom houses priced from £220,000.
Development is due for completion
next year, and the centrepiece is a
distinctive rotunda apartment building
with communal roof terrace and set in
landscaped gardens bordering a rerouted canal. Incentives such as furniture packs and legal fee refunds are
being offered to off-plan buyers. Call
Hyde housing association on 0845 606
1221 for details. Local estate agents look
optimistically at the major commercial
development emerging at nearby Park
Royal, but it is Old Oak, a 195-acre wilderness of railway freight depots and
the proposed site of a transport superhub for Crossrail and HS2, that will one
day set the seal on regeneration here.
There are plans for up to 24,000 new
homes, 50,000 jobs and a new Queen’s
Park Rangers football stadium.
O Find a home in Harlesden: visit
homesandproperty.co.uk/harlesden
DISCOVERING DOLLIS HILL
Beyond Harlesden is Dollis Hill. This
solidly suburban enclave, connected
by the Jubilee line to central London
and Canary Wharf, is being discovered
by smart singles and young couples.
Conversion of a listed Victorian
school, Shortcroft Mead Court in
Cooper Lane, has spawned affordable
homes with a difference. Prices start
at £275,000, or £68,750 for a 25 per
cent shared-ownership stake. Call
Genesis housing association on 0800
542 7243. Also in Dollis Hill is the first
project funded by the Mayor’s Housing
Covenant, a low-cost homes initiative.
Langhorne Place is moments from
revamped Gladstone Park, the area’s
main green space, and offers 160 flats
for private sale, shared ownership and
rent. Prices start at £235,000. Call
Network Group on 0300 373 3000.
The Lexington, in the more soughtafter NW11 postcode, has courtyard
flats, a modern mansion block and
mews houses with underground parking, concierge and communal space.
From £455,000. Call Affinity Sutton
housing association on 0845 6060765.
O Find a home in Dollis Hill: visit
homesandproperty.co.uk/dollishill
10
Homes & Property Homes abroad
Spain was battered
by the recession but
choose carefully and
new-build villas and
sports resorts offer
value for money, says
Cathy Hawker
W
HETHER it is the sun,
the beaches, the golf
resorts or a combination of all three, Spain
has been the British
number one go-to holiday and secondhome destination for more than a
decade. The serious money heads to
Ibiza, Majorca or Malaga but it’s the
bright lights and much less sophisticated resorts of the Costa Blanca that
attract the majority of British buyers.
The Costa Blanca stretches 120 miles
from the delightful former fishing
From £556,820: for newly released villas, and from
£189,700 for plots at Las Colinas Golf and Country
Club, 10 minutes from the sea and 45 minutes from
Alicante airport on the southern Costa Brava
Tempting the British back with good design
village of Dénia towards the more
populist Mar Menor in the south. It
includes two of Spain’s most notorious
names, Benidorm and Torrevieja, both
overbuilt, high-rise resorts that are
often lampooned for the mass tourism
they attract. But the coastline is a long
one — and there are other choices.
Property portal Kyero reports an
average property price on the Costa
Blanca of £162,500. “The southern
Costa Blanca has been a destination for
foreign buyers for 30 or 40 years so
along with a wonderful climate, there’s
a good infrastructure of shops and
services, which foreign buyers like,”
says Spanish property expert Mark
Stucklin. “British buyers are coming
back to the market across Spain. Around
Torrevieja they tend to be looking in the
£40,000 to £80,000 price range.”
The strong infrastructure includes
airports at Alicante, Valencia and
Murcia where it’s not just British visitor
numbers that are rising. Last year,
Norwegian arrivals at Alicante airport
were up 31 per cent, Danes by 56 per
grow...
‘At this peaceful
place, we switch
into relax mode’
Rugged beauty:
coastline near
the town of
Calpe. New-build
three-bedroom
Taylor Wimpey
homes only
moments away
start at £140,830
UR
OF O
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*Reevoo percentage correct at 6th January 2014.
cent and Russians by 54 per cent. And
they are buying homes, too. “In 2005
British buyers were 75 per cent of our
market throughout Spain,” says Marc
Pritchard of house builder Taylor
Wimpey España. “Today they remain
our most important single market, but
are only 20 per cent of buyers. The market has become truly international.”
SOUTHERN COSTA BLANCA
A few minutes inland from the long,
wide sandy beach at Campoamor, Las
Colinas Golf and Country Club is
attempting an Ibiza design vibe on the
southern Costa Blanca. The resort
opened in 2010 and has an impressive
completed infrastructure of roads and
facilities. There is an attractive and
expertly maintained Cabell B Robinson-designed golf course, a clubhouse
with two good restaurants and 137 built
and sold homes.
There are no British owners at Las
Colinas — the residents come from
Sweden, Norway, Denmark and
Belgium. However, the resort’s owner,
Antonio Montoro, points out that the
UK has twice as many golfers as any
other European country.
Las Colinas was the Montoro family’s
private estate and they still farm
oranges and lemons and own holiday
homes there. They manage the 330hectare sports resort carefully, developing it slowly with good attention to
detail. “The main appeal for members
is our golf course but the facilities and
rural site are also popular,” says
Antonio. “We have carefully preserved
trees and wildlife and we have landscaped using natural stone.” Newly for
TENNIS professional Olivier Rochus
has travelled the world for more than
15 years in top-level tournaments.
The Belgian player chose the Costa
Blanca for his perfect holiday home.
In 2012 he stayed with his family at
Las Colinas Golf and Country Club
and liked it so much he bought an
apartment there with his girlfriend,
Jessica.
“We usually live at a very fast pace,
travelling all the time. But as soon as
we turn into the natural gorge at the
entrance to Las Colinas, we switch
into relax mode,” says Rochus, 33.
The couple love the sports facilities
and the warm, dry climate that
allows them to play golf and tennis or
go running on the nature trail.
“The hilly resort and surrounding
areas are ideal for cycling, too,” says
Rochus. “The setting is beautiful and
peaceful. It was exactly what we were
looking for.”
O Las Colinas: aworldapart.es
(00 34 965 32 40 04)
sale are 14 plots and 11 detached villas
hidden among the pine forests and
overlooking the golf course. These are
refreshingly stylish, solidly built homes
designed with a contemporary flavour
by London architects Woods Bagot.
Full-height windows and doors and
fabulous high-gloss kitchens and large
bathrooms fill the interiors with light.
Prices start at £189,700 for plots and
£556,820 for villas from 2,120sq ft, half
as much as a comparable property in
prime Costa del Sol, says Antonio. Elsewhere on the resort, newly completed
two-bedroom 1,185sq ft flats are
£206,200, with resale homes from
£302,700. Facilities include a kids’ club,
tennis courts and gym with an Ibizastyle beach club 10 minutes away at
Campoamor. Rentals are managed on
site with a high-season week in a threebedroom house reaching £1,480.
From £208,350:
three-bedroom
apartments at
Taylor Wimpey
España’s
Montesol
compex near
Calpe
NEW-BUILD COSTA HOMES
Sporting breaks: Belgian tennis pro
Olivier Rochus bought at Las Colinas
They are building again on the Costa
Blanca. “Alicante province finished last
year with 2,037 new homes being built,
a 362 per cent increase on 2012 levels,”
says Richard Way of the Overseas Guide
Company.
Meanwhile, Taylor Wimpey reported
its best sales year since 2006. It has four
new-build developments across the
coast with an average price of £132,800.
Five minutes from the beaches at Calpe
with their dramatic rock, Calpesol has
three-bedroom homes with a communal pool and gardens priced from
£140,830, while three-bedroom townhouses at Las Brisas de Alenda, adjacent
to Alenda golf and 15 minutes inland
from Alicante, start at £131,700.
CONTACTS
O Las Colinas:
aworldapart.es
(00 34 965 32
40 04)
O Taylor
Wimpey:
taylorwimpey
spain.com
(08000 121
020)
O Overseas
Guides:
overseasguides
company.com
12
Homes & Property My home
Inventive: Gamper’s wife decorated their Hackney flat on a
shoestring with found objects, skip salvage and patchwork
before he moved in, and the designer made his own additions
Bright and quirky: eclectic items of furniture include
brightly coloured stools by Gamper, who made his name
with the 2007 exhibition, 100 Chairs in 100 days
Practical by design
W
Martino Gamper, star of the Serpentine’s new
design show, delights in creating furniture with
use and beauty, says Philippa Stockley
Chair is light-hearted, functionality is
vital for Gamper. From metallic leather
coasters to new wooden salt and pepper
grinders on sale in his fledgling online
shop; from mass-produced chairs for
Magis, to the 2009 double arch in the
V&A made from 120 stacked Ercol
chairs, everything is thoughtful.
Born in the South Tyrol, Gamper,
who says he was a hyperactive, dyslexic
child who “always loved fixing things”,
trained from the age of 14 with the local
carpenter but didn’t want to become
a cabinet-maker, so he studied sculpture and applied arts in Vienna. In 1998
he came to London and studied design
at the Royal College of Art, eventually
becoming a tutor himself. Few designers have this balance of professional
and theoretical training. It shows in
Gamper’s delight in combining beauty
with use, a continuation of William
Morris’s “form follows function”. He
says: “I like it when the things I make
are part of a bigger story. If I design a
table, people can have dinners on it.”
Gamper lives and works with his New
Zealand-born wife, sculptor Francis
Upritchard, in Hackney. Married in
2009, they share the ex-council flat that
Upritchard gutted and decorated on a
shoestring before Gamper moved in.
DAVID BUTLER
ITH a major exhibition
opening today at the
Serpentine Sackler
Gallery, Kensington,
Martino Gamper is
clearly influential — but the key to his
creations is that they do their job, and
with grace.
One-off chairs by the London-based
Italian designer, 42, can sell for £1,000plus. However, Design is a State of Mind,
of which he is guest curator — only the
second design exhibition staged at the
gallery — is about shelving. With work
by stars from the Forties to the present
day, from architect Giò Ponti to Ikea,
these shelves are meant to be looked at,
to enhance what they display.
Gamper’s contributions include his
Robot Chair, a humanoid assembly of
drawers on tubular steel legs, from 100
Chairs in 100 Days, the 2007 exhibition
that made his name. But while Robot
She made the kitchen out of various
cupboards, some found, laminated with
different coloured Formica, adding
brass lug handles. The result is pretty
and practical. The rest of the flat was
decorated just as inventively with found
objects, patchwork, and skip salvage.
Gamper’s many additions include the
kitchen table made from off-cuts, and
the couple’s bedhead reworked from
Giò Ponti pieces. Style and comfort
don’t have to cost the earth.
However, the couple’s studio, in a
Victorian industrial unit nearby, is like
13
My home Homes & Property
Left: Martino
Gamper, seen in
his studio, is
guest curating a
major exhibition
at the Sackler
Serpentine
Gallery, today
until April 21
Right: the pretty
and practical
kitchen created
by Gamper and
his wife, the
sculptor Francis
Upritchard, at
home in Hackney
Photographs by:
2014 Tom
Mannion/The
New York Times
Syndicate
Below: Robot
Chair, 2008,
Martino Gamper.
The light-hearted
work is on show
at the Serpentine
Sackler Gallery
exhibition
their second home, so much time do
they spend there. The space is divided
into three, the first section being a huge
living room, top-lit down one side by
roof lights. Beneath it is the kitchen,
made from a long run of teak, under
which sit deep, industrial-looking
drawers containing chopping
boards, utensils, and even
stock for sale. Nearby, a bank
of wall boxes encases oven,
fridge and dishwasher.
The library shelves look like
casually stacked wooden boxes.
The room also serves as a dramatic banqueting hall. “We spend
a lot of time here,” says Gamper,
who likes to cook, “and sometimes
come at the weekend to have dinner
with friends.” The very long geometric
teak table, lit by pendant lights made
by Upritchard, easily seats 20. Gamper,
an unstoppable design dynamo,
designed it all, moving from one
project to the next.
The work-in-progress bathroom is
sheathed in fresh chipboard with a new
slate floor, while the “sink” is an
upturned polypropylene stool he
designed for Arnold Circus.
Off this room are two studio
spaces reached through a huge
door. Gamper’s is full of carp e n t r y t o o l s a n d wo r kbenches, with chairs hung on
pegs on the walls, some finished, some in bits. On the
floor is a prototype double
chair with two joined seats,
one pink and one yellow. It’s
a cross between a bench and
a 19th-century “conversation
chair” with the fun of a dolly
mixture thrown in.
“I don’t believe it when people say
they can’t afford to buy quality,” he
*$./,$(4*$$.*000
.$)%$&/2
says. “We have to embrace quality, an
appreciation for things that are wellcrafted and sustainable. Materials have
to be renewed and craftspeople have
to be paid. Ten years ago, my 80-yearold aunt told me about a cupboard in
her house. After the war, they’d saved
up to commission the local cabinetmaker to make it, because, she said,
‘we wanted something that was
ours’. They were poor farmers
in the mountains, and it cost
more than a cow.
“Well-made furniture lasts,
so even if you spend £1,000
on eight chairs, they will last
your lifetime, and you can
pass them on to your
children.”
Spice it up: “Spitz” salt and
pepper mills by Martino
Gamper, £76 each
THE DETAILS
O Martino Gamper: Design is a
State of Mind, runs from today
until April 21 at the Serpentine
Sackler Gallery in West Carriage
Drive, Kensington Gardens, W2.
Visit serpentinegalleries.org for more
details.
O To buy homewares at Martino’s Shop
visit martinogamper.com
O Vigna chair (suitable for outdoors)
£192
O Vigna café table (suitable for
outdoors), £330
O Pepper and salt “Spitz” mills, £76
each
O Arnold Circus stool (suitable for
outdoors), 12 colours, £59 each
O In Vino Veritas leather coaster,
three-glass size, £10
O In Vino Veritas leather coaster, fiveglass size, £18
O Trouble apron, £25
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14
Homes & Property Events
1 LIVING LABORATORY: RICHARD
PARE ON LE CORBUSIER AND
KONSTANTIN MELNIKOV
1
March 21 to May 11 at PM Gallery &
House, Pitzhanger Manor, Walpole
Park, Mattock Lane, Ealing, W5 (020
8567 1227, ealing.gov.uk/pmgallery
andhouse). Admission free.
HERE’S a March must for fans of
modernists, a show of photographs
devoted to two of the most influential
architects of the early 20th century —
Swiss/French Le Corbusier (18871965) and Konstantin Melnikov
(1890-1974) from Russia. The images,
including this one of Le Corbusier’s
Sainte Marie de La Tourette priory
near Lyon, were taken by
architectural photographer Richard
Pare, whose detailed and multifaceted approach entailed
numerous visits to the buildings and
the innovatory use of both film and
digital techniques.
A bonus is the show’s setting — in
an extension to one of Sir John
Soane’s great architectural
treasures, Pitzhanger Manor, his
“dream house” for entertaining and
showing off his art and antiquities.
2
45
3
5 DIVERSE MANIERE: PIRANESI,
FANTASY AND EXCESS
Open from Friday until May 31 at Sir
John Soane’s Museum, 13 Lincoln’s Inn
Fields, WC2 (020 7405 2107; soane.
org). Admission free
2 THE SPRING KNITTING &
STITCHING SHOW
LONDON is currently going crazy for
craft, and here’s where to soak up
skills in everything from
dressmaking, knitting, sewing and
quilting to crochet, cross stitch,
embroidery and textile art. More
than 200 exhibitors will be selling
everything from stunning fabrics,
wools and threads, through to
sewing machines, patterns and
books, and there will be a wealth of
practical workshops and demos.
“We now often have three
generations of Londoners coming to
these events together,” said director
Helen Marriott, “daughters, mums
and grannies. And there’s a massive
surge of men, both as exhibitors and
visitors. We call it the homemade
revolution.”
O Readers ticket offer: two adult
tickets for just £12.50. Quote ES1
when booking (plus 95p booking
fee). Offer ends 12 March.
Five things to do in March
3 THE CLASSIC CAR BOOT SALE
Saturday and Sunday, March 15 and 16
at Southbank Centre’s Queen’s Walk
and Hungerford Bridge Car Park, SE1
(classiccarbootsale.co.uk)
WAYNE HEMINGWAY is the designer
who has rescued last century’s
chuck-away stuff and made it cool in
a series of fairs and design events.
“Vintage” is the magic word, and
you’ll get it in spades at this latest
jolly jamboree, with classic cars
cranking open boots filled with
vintage homewares and fashion, all
for sale. Car buffs will adore seeing
such iconic vehicles as the 1966 Ford
Mustang, and the 1942 Chevrolet
Stylemaster. Music, too, is in period
— but the snacks will be fresh from
London’s inventive street food
traders, and served from vans and
campers.
FACTUM ARTE
March 13–16 at Olympia Central,
Hammersmith Road, W14 (0844 848
0159; theknittingandstitchingshow.
com/spring)
4 A CELEBRATION OF BRITISH
HARDWOODS
March 15, 16, 22 and 23 at
Heal’s, 196 Tottenham Court Road, W1
(020 7636 1666; heals,.co.uk)
WATCH a woodsman at work in
Heal’s windows when young
designer-maker Sebastian Cox crafts
his new five-drawer tallboy,
available in a choice of 10 British
hardwoods — ash, oak, chestnut,
beech, sycamore, London plane,
walnut, cherry, elm and hazel.
“I want to show off the great choice
of timbers here in Britain,” says Cox,
who prides himself on his fine
dovetails.
He harvests the coppiced hazel
himself from a wood in Kent.
Customers can order chests of
drawers in any assortment of the
timbers on view.
A BEAUTIFULLY detailed book called
Diverse Maniere, published in 1769 by
the great Italian printmaker Piranesi,
was full of inspirational drawings for
home decoration, including elaborate
chimneypieces, vases and pots, but
none of these artefacts was made.
Until now, that is. The 3D printing
studio Factum Arte is turning these
2D drawings, like this wire-framed
coffee pot, into 3D form — and
explaining how it’s done. An
accompanying series of talks features
Grayson Perry, Michele de Lucchi,
Ross Lovegrove and Sam Jacob.
5
By
Barbara
Chandler
15
Renting Homes & Property
Generation Rent — used to a home for now,
not for life — is booming in London. A timely
new book by Joanna Thornhill is packed with
tips on how to turn a rented property into a
stylish home. Barbara Chandler previews
the handbook for renters with design in mind
L
ONDONER Joanna Thornhill
has lived in a dozen rental
properties so far — and she is
only 33. Drawing on her
experience as a stylist for
magazines and advertising, she wrote
a book which comes out in April called
Home for Now (Cico Books, £16.99),
featuring 15 real-life homes and packed
with quirky ideas for making rented
property beautiful
This bright and breezy manual goes
way beyond cushions and throws, with
everything pressed into low-cost, quick
and easy makeovers, from discarded
packaging and leftover paint to handme-downs and finds from charity
stores, junk shops and skips. It will
appeal also to first-home owners whose
funds have been swallowed by huge
deposits. Projects at the end of each
chapter guide cash-strapped novices
through DIY projects.
Thornhill herself has just scrambled
on to the first property rung, sharing
a two-up two-down terrace house in
Walthamstow with her TV producer
boyfriend.
“Everyone needs a proper home,
however short term,” she says. “If you
don’t have somewhere you love to
come home to, life gets very bleak.”
Her ideas, full of colour, joy, wit and
love, are not expensive and are often
portable, in the best more-dash-thancash tradition. Her top tip is to ask the
landlord first. “There may be a plethora
of printed restrictions but landlords
can be very flexible, and may even
share some of the cost.” Ask if you can
paint a wall, put up a blind or curtain
tracks, lay down a few paving slabs,
and so on.
An essential for the author is her own
box of personal treasures, always first
to be unpacked: “Photos, pictures,
cushions, ornaments, mugs, cooking
stuff — these mean home to me.”
CREATE extra
kitchen storage
with an old crate
that you can
perch on a
worktop or on
top of your
fridge. The
author’s tip:
“Organise the
space with extra
cup hooks
inside.”
Thornhill,
below, has rented
a dozen different
homes, and
compiled her tips
along the way.
DISGUISE obtrusive appliances, such
as a boiler like this one, with a piece of
wallpaper, wrapping paper or even a
pretty tea towel. Thornhill adds:
“Double-sided tape should do the job
on metal or plastic surfaces like this.
Be careful not to block any vents.”
The renters’
handbook
IN THIS room a
well-travelled
leather suitcase
creates a novel
basis for a
temporary
DJ station, with
space to store
lesser-played
records inside.
Joanna Thornhill
says: “You don’t
always have to
use bona fide
furniture in
every room — in
fact, making do
with what you
can get your
hands on is
often part and
parcel of the
homes-for-now
approach.”
CHEAPER than cupboards, buy and
paint an old wardrobe, then fit it with
shelves for instant storage. Thornhill’s
tip: “Look out for a basic shelving unit
which you could simply stand inside.”
LET your ladder do double duty as
storage, and just clear it when needed.
“An old wooden ladder works best,”
says Thornhill. “Make sure it’s sturdy
with well-fixed steps.”
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Homes & Property Reader promotion
O The companies
listed here
are wholly
independent of the
Evening Standard.
Care is taken to
establish that they
are bona fide but
we recommend
that you carry out
your own checks
prior to purchases
and use a credit
card where
possible. To offer
feedback on any of
these companies,
email homesand
property@
standard.co.uk
with “Bargain
News” in the
subject line.
For more
bargains, visit
alisonathome.com
or homesand
property.co.uk/
offers.
Alison
Cork
Pause for reflection
in the bedroom
with mirrored tables
ENJOY a light-enhancing set of two
mirrored bedside tables, each with
three drawers.
My Furniture offers a wide array of
mirrored pieces for the home, all
arriving fully assembled for
convenience, and with a 12-month
warranty for peace of mind.
Readers are offered a generous £40
discount on the pair of Lucia bedside
tables, reducing the price from
£299.99 to £259.99. Each table
measures H65cm x W44cm x D44cm.
Visit my-furniture.co.uk or call 0115
9000 405/0800 092 1636 to claim
your offer, using code LUCIA-ES01
before March 14.
Layer up in a luxury throw
FROM cushions to kitchen
accessories, Design Vintage
is a one-stop shop. Its
luxurious lambswool
throws are available in
neutral shades of mid-grey
or oatmeal cream, and
measure 200cm x 140cm.
Readers get 15 per cent
off all soft furnishings at
the company’s website,
reducing the throws from
£120 to £102 each.
To claim your discount or
to view other designs, visit
designvintage.co.uk and
use code SOFT15 before
March 19.
Bargain
B
Barg
arg
arg
gain new
g
news
ws
A secret garden to fool the eye Elegant and curvy Amelie
YOUR plot will
seem bigger with
a Looking Glass
Gate creating
the illusion of a
gateway to more
garden beyond.
Size 1,440mm x
500mm (£275) or
1,605mm x
700mm (£365),
with 10 per cent
off orders before
April 2. Call 020
8780 9514 or
visit lookingglass
gates.co.uk and
use code ES14.
UK delivery £55.
THE Amelie
hand-carved side
table from Alison
at Home, on sale
for £145, is made
from sustainably
sourced mango
wood, with gentle
curves, a roomy
drawer and a
metal tassel
handle. Visit
alisonathome.
com/amelie or
call 0800 472
5533 to order the
Amelie, which
measures H55 x
D45cm.
Top timber
windows
UPGRADE your home
with made-to-measure
timber windows from
Ayrton Bespoke, a
specialist in replica
period windows and
doors.
All products come with
double glazing and
sound insulating glass.
Options include sash
and casement windows,
bi-fold and French
doors, painted in your
chosen shade, with
insurance-backed locks
and 10-year guarantees.
Readers get 15 per cent
off all windows. Visit
ayrtonbespoke.com, call
020 8877 8920, email
enquiries@ayrton
bespoke.com or visit
the showroom at
406 Merton Road,
Wandsworth and use
code AYRESBN0503 to
claim before March 31.
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26
Homes & Property Interiors
homesandproperty
London
Design Week
From left:
Pleasure Gardens
Frost Flower,
width 137cm; Big
Smile Sky, 140cm,
both £70 per
metre, 100 per
cent printed
linen. Sofa,
Pleasure Gardens
Velvet, 133cm
wide, £140 a
metre. Cushions,
left to right, It’s
Complicated,
Beginning and
Passion, all £80
on printed linen,
50cm x 50cm.
Desire collection
by Jessica Zoob
for Romo
(romoblack.com)
Design Centre Chelsea Harbour launches the
spring interiors shows with exquisite prints,
painterly, Impressionistic wall candy and bold
blooms, discovers Barbara Chandler
F
ROM English pottery to French
gardens — with kimonos and
art on the side — fabrics for this
spring are divinely diverse.
Hate curtains? You will be a
convert after taking a trip to London
Design Week, where stunning styles and
creative colours are crammed into 100
décor showrooms at Design Centre
Chelsea Harbour, opening to the public
for three days from next Wednesday.
Max out on fabulous fabrics for
windows, walls, sofas, tiles, lights and
more in this free-admission patternfest.
This is the capital’s catwalk for interior
design, and everyone who is anyone in
global interiors will be there.
The programme includes launches,
lunches, celebrity talks, seminars,
demonstrations and free drinks, all in
the three glassy riverside domes that
make Design Centre Chelsea Harbour a
landmark.
PAINTERLY
One of the concepts explored by fabric
designers is Painterly — watercolours,
brush strokes, daubs and blobs are
trending in Chelsea for spring this
year.
The super-soft paintings of artist Jessica
Zoob are already wall candy for interior
designers, who are sure to love the fresh
look she has created for Romo’s new
upmarket Black Edition brand — these
are Impressionistic designs, elegant and
Prints charming
Left: Montsuki
cobalt
embroidered
linen, width
128cm, £135 per
metre, Designers
Guild (designers
guild.com)
light. A super-wide linen sheer can fill a
wall in one drop, so you can have a deep
pattern border along the bottom edge.
Extra-wide wallpaper repeats this clever
trick, with the prints so detailed they
really do look hand-done in layered
paint.
BOTANICALS
Right: Passion
Series cushions
from the Desire
range by Jessica
Zoob for Romo
Black Edition (as
before), £80 each.
Breathe digitally
printed
wallcovering,
horizontal repeat
across two 70cm
rolls, £295 for 12
metres (01623
756699)
At the Paris launches in January, British
“big botanicals” were a huge hit with
decorators from Europe and the US.
These designs have now come home to
Chelsea, with a flourish of flowerheads,
bursting buds, lush leaves and even
whole trees in exquisite detail.
See Woodville at Zoffany, for example,
with prints and embroideries. There’s
an eye-popping pink for peonies that
took three months to paint. Dreamier
are the soft magnolias printed on to a
linen “warp” of lengthwise threads
before a blurring “weft” is woven in.
Manuel Canovas is reliably tropical and
OTT, with trademark cerise and lime in
huge embroidered petals, offset by solid
blocks of colour. Creation Bauman does
big, digitally printed bouquets, and for
jungle-style prints at Sanderson, try its
Rainforest range.
PROVENANCE
“Provenance” is another buzzword.
Collections are based on archives, maps
and documents. Folie by Cole & Son
comes from 18th- and 19th-century
French gardens, buildings and stories.
Most charming is a confection of picturebook animals wandering in a formal
garden, inspired by the fables of Jean de
La Fontaine, in pink, chartreuse and
lime.
Toiles in Trianon by Canovas tell tales
of objets and grand landmarks, plus
patterns pastoral and maritime. Even
Darwin is here with Sanderson in a
Galapagos map.
POTTERY
Ceramics maker Emma Bridgewater
brings 30 years of hand-decorated
pottery to its first wallpapers and fabrics
collection. The firm employs more than
200 people in Stoke. The “dresser”
trompe l’oeil wallpaper, painted by
founder Emma Bridgewater’s artist husband Matthew Rice, is a triumph and
three times wider than standard rolls.
PINKS
Fashion and interiors are loving pink,
with dreamy rose, dawn, blush, coral
and sorbet, all so flattering to rooms and
to the skin. Get the boudoir look in
Chelsea, and especially check out
Etamine at Zimmer+Rohde.
27
Interiors Homes & Property
y.co.uk with
Left: Sanderson
Voyage of
Discovery
collection —
Floreanna printed
on 100 per cent
cotton satin, £46
per metre, with
throw backing
and cushion
piping in Henna
weave, £51 per
metre, and Drop
Bead Fringe on
cushion on the
decking,
£47 per metre
(sandersonuk.com)
Right: Cole & Son
Folie, Versailles
Grand, £750 per
set of two rolls
(cole-and-son.
com)
Far left: Bonham
chair in magenta
Sofia, through
Whistler Leather.
(whistlerleather.
com).Fabrics, all
Manuel Canovas
at Colefax and
Fowler (colefax.
com). Framed
Tingshuset
wallpaper,
Sandberg at
Lizzo (020 7823
3456)
Left: Birdsong
wallpaper, £158 a
roll (osborneand
little.com)
FESTIVAL
FREEBIES
WIN
TICKETS
TO OUR
EXPERT’S
SEMINAR
PUBLIC days during London Design
Week at Design Centre Chelsea
Harbour run from next Wednesday to
Friday, Lots Road, SW10. Interiors
writer Judith Wilson will host an
afternoon Homes & Property seminar
on colour and pattern, for £10, or
£7.50 for our readers. The first five to
call will get free tickets and a copy of
Wilson’s new £25 book, Think Home.
Also speaking on that day will be
Sophie Conran. Homeware expert
Rory Dobner and interior designer
Daniel Hopwood speak on Thursday,
and on Friday, meet Emma
Bridgewater. For more details, see
dcch.co.uk. The booking line is 020
7352 1900 and all tickets are £10.
Festival freebies include sweets from
the Robert Allen candy bar, demos by
top florist Jean-Pierre Bonello,
champagne at Victoria + Albert Baths,
a full “sensory experience” with
manicures, fragrance, massage and
canapés at home technology specialist
Crestron, and Range Rover return trips
from the Sloane Square Hotel to the
harbour via King’s Road showrooms.
Right: Juniper
table, Holly Hunt
at Fox Linton.
Wallcovering in
frame, Parade
from Elitis at
Abbott & Boyd.
Selection of
cushions from
outlets including
Tissus d’Hélène.
All products
available at
Design Centre
Chelsea Harbour
28
Homes & Property Interiors
Echoes of Venice,
right: nets,
distressed
plaster walls and
wall lights bring
the feel of a
traditional
Venetian bar to
Soho at Russell
Norman’s latest
restaurant,
Polpetto
Photographs by:
Carol Sachs
that feeling of glorious decrepitude,
which is what takes my breath away
each time I go there,” he says.
WHAT NORMAN DID
INSPIRATION
“Venice was the starting point. It is a
city of outstanding beauty that is
crumbling. You can touch the buildings
and feel them falling to dust. I wanted
WHAT YOU CAN DO
Tulip Prismatic wall lamps come
in several shapes and the clear
pressed-glass shades have a
not–too-vintage feel. From £89
(thefrenchhouse.net).
WALLS
By
Katie
Law
Norman commissioned special
effects plasterers to create a series of
distressed finishes, including
layering scraps of lace into the
surface for a feminine touch and
buffing it to give it a sheen. They
added Farrow & Ball’s Pale Powder
into the mix, and finished up with
streaky rust marks under the lights to
look like watermark damage.
Brooklyn Tin Tiles wallpaper has
been designed specifically to mimic
traditional tin tiles, without the
hassle and the caustic soda. It comes
in eight designs, at £219 a roll.
(rockettstgeorge.co.uk).
Reclaimed flooring from West 7 in
Hanwell comes in a great selection
of widths and styles, and is cheaper
than the competition. From
approximately £24 a linear metre
(west7flooring.co.uk).
CEILING
Adding to the intimate atmosphere is
the low, pressed tin-tiled ceiling
based on tiles used in 19th-century
New York as fireproofing. It gives the
place a faint saloon bar atmosphere
and Norman, who buys them in the
US, gets them treated here by metal
worker Bela Pasztor, who dons a
rubber suit to dip them in caustic acid
to get that rusted, distressed finish.
CHARLIE FORGHAM-BAILEY
W
ALKING into
Polpetto, Russell
Norman’s latest Soho
eaterie, it’s hard to
imagine that just a
few months ago the space was a
soulless concrete box. Today, with its
genteel net curtains, duck egg blue
distressed plaster walls and scuffed
wooden floors, it looks and feels like
an authentic Venetian bàcaro — the
traditional type of bar that can be
found all over Venice serving small
plates of food with wine.
If you’ve been watching Norman’s
BBC2 series, The Restaurant Man,
where he advises amateurs how to set
up restaurants, you’ll know he’s as
passionate about getting the look right
as he is about serving good food. Since
he made hanging a row of bare light
bulbs a trend that is now ubiquitous,
he has had to move on, and he has
gone in a rather surprising direction.
Volga Linen sells similar napkins for
£16 that include red hem-stitch
detailing. Simply cut a hole
and sew edges neatly to turn them
into lampshade covers (volgalinen.
co.uk).
Steal
S
Ste
tea
tea
eal
e
all tthe
a
he style
he
style
sty
st
ylle
y
e
If you want to achieve the same
distressed plaster wall finish, DKT
Artworks will do the job. Visit their
showroom in Balham (dkt.co.uk).
Russell Norman’s Polpetto
O Polpetto is at 11 Berwick Street, W1
(020 7439 8627; polpetto.co.uk).
NET CURTAINS
LIGHTING
Could net curtains like the ones
Granny used to twitch be about to
trend? If Norman is using them, the
answer is probably yes.
“I’m continuing the feminine,
tongue-in-cheek theme and I don’t
think net curtains are used enough.
There are some really nice patterns
out there and I’m not ashamed to say I
got these at Rolls & Rems in
Lewisham, where you have to fight
the OAPS for the best pieces,” he says.
Norman fixed shaded wall lights all
the way down the walls for uniform,
clear light. For softer, more romantic
lighting above the bar, he draped
white linen napkins over simple coolie
shades. In the basement, he put up
enamel shades but wanted them to
look vintage so took a hammer and
lightly bashed them first.
Romantic glow:
Norman draped
white linen
napkins over
simple coolie
shades, below,
for subtle
lighting behind
the bar
VELVET DOOR CURTAINS
Dramatic yet practical, hanging heavy
velvet curtains round the front door
creates a theatrical entrance and
keeps out the draught. “I love the
drama of it and it’s often used in Paris
and New York but never in London —
I don’t know why,” he says.
FLOORING
The flooring, the sides of the bar and
some of the table tops are all made
from little maple planks that have
been reclaimed from Chelsea
Barracks. Norman bought them from
DDS Demolition, a timber yard near
Monkton in Margate.
Look up: tin ceiling tiles, right, £19 each
from a range at rockettstgeorge.co.uk
Gare Montparnasse wall lamp: £89
plus p&p from thefrenchhouse.net
29
Outdoors Homes & Property
Stay indoors — and enjoy the outdoors
Indoor gardening’s the latest buzz for urbanites with no outside space. Isabelle Palmer’s guide shows how it’s done
B
a shop window. She turned her
Victorian fireplace into a Victorian
fernery — and laid a carpet of velvety
mosses, interspersed with driftwood,
on the hearth.
Containers are as important as the
plants. Palmer stocks up on regulation
terracotta pots and paints them dark
slate so they chime with contemporary
interiors, and enlivens simple zinc pots
with a band of cerise craft paint around
their rims, thus jazzing up the simplest
foliage.
In the kitchen, a French wine crate
makes the perfect package for provençal herb plants; in the office, a Kentia
palm looks dynamic set off by an industrial-style metal container.
If you don’t have floor or table space,
be inventive and create a hanging garden, says Palmer. Where you might
expect to see two lamps hanging above
a dining table, she has suspended two
slatted wooden boxes, holding trails of
ivy and flower-scattered periwinkle. A
trio of green-glass wine bottles, their
cavities filled with compost and moss,
hang along the kitchen window, foliage
cascading from their sliced-off bases,
while beyond the kitchen doors, small
raspberry and kiwi bushes hang outside, right side up, their roots bound
Japanese-style with sheet moss and
garden twine — the hanging fruit
gardens of Hampstead.
URY those dusty houseplants
— indoor gardening is the
cool way to bring flowers and
foliage into the urban home.
While looking out on her two
tiny, plant-packed balconies in West
Hampstead, Isabelle Palmer thought:
What if you wanted that little bit of
green, but didn’t have any outside
space at all?
This thought prompted Palmer, who
founded The Balcony Gardener, the
online merchandise shop for small
outdoor spaces, to dream up imaginative ways of bringing the outside
indoors, so that you both enhance your
home and connect with nature.
“Glass vessels allow you to watch, as
well as house, living worlds,” says
Pattie
Barron
Palmer, and her search for glass containers led her to antique terrariums,
the protective glass-panelled cases that
were used to house an entire smallscale garden.
Easier to source are several wine and
brandy goblets, each given a growing
medium of moist moss that is topped
with rosettes of succulents. For a spectacular centrepiece, Palmer favours a
long-stemmed giant cocktail glass
displaying the tall, plum-and-green
funnels of pitcher plants, set off by
plum-coloured violas, growing in
soilless compost that is mulched with
bark chips.
Using a cylindrical glass bowl as you
would a layered dessert, with moss and
stones, planted with barrel cactus and
topped with pebbles and fake ammonites, allows you to view the landscape’s strata as well as the surface. A
glass hurricane lamp has a sandy base
from which a blackbean sprouts, like
a palm tree on a beach. To show off a
single stem of, say, a lilac or rose
bloom, Palmer had a light bulb
moment, and used old light bulbs of
different sizes, upending them, filling
each with a little water and propping
them at an angle on a plumbing ring,
glued to the base, for stability.
Pull containers together for impact,
O Isabelle Palmer’s new book, the
House Gardener (CICO Books) costs
£25, but Homes & Property readers can
buy it for £18 incl p&p by calling 01256
302699 and quoting code GLR 9OA.
is Palmer’s mantra. Instead of the tired
display of three white orchids all in a
row, she suggests creating a tropical
forest by grouping together four phalaenopsis orchids, each a different
vibrant colour, unified by the same
grey ceramic pots.
She uses glass milk bottles to hold
sprays of wildflowers and crams them
into an aged milk crate as a summer
table centrepiece, while several pots
of garden plants — phlox, saxifrage,
osteospermum — make a country
garden bouquet more special than any
florist’s offering.
If you have an unused fireplace, bring
it to life, suggests Palmer, who was
inspired by a woodland scene set up in
Tropical forest,
above: group
orchids in bright
jungle colours
together to
create an exotic
tableau
Herb garden,
right: a French
wine crate
makes a perfect
display case for
provençal herbs
Woodland
dell, far left: a
disused fireplace
becomes a green
corner with
mosses and ferns
Balcony
gardener, left:
Isabelle Palmer’s
limited living
space inspires
her to push the
boundaries
Flirty cocktail,
right: a longstemmed outsize
glass is wittily
planted with
pitcher plants
See it buy it
See it: Camellia Festival
SPRING arrives in full
bloom in the magnificent
19th-century glasshouse
at Chiswick House, right,
with the fourth annual
Camellia Festival, which
runs until March 30.
The collection of
camellias, permanently
housed in the
conservatory, is believed to
be the oldest under glass in
the Western world, and
includes rare and
historically important
cultivars in an array of
pink, red, white and striped
colours. Camellia plants
will be on sale and the
Chiswick House Café will
serve a seasonal menu.
Admission daily, 10.30am
to 4pm, closed Mondays.
Tickets are £8 and include
a show guide. For more
details, see chgt.org.uk.
O SEE 10 small gardens, all
in 3D printed miniature, by
leading designers such as
Andy Sturgeon, Sarah
Eberle and John Brookes at
The Strand Gallery, 32 John
Adam Street, WC2. The
miNiaTURE exhibition runs
until Saturday, 11am-7pm.
Buy it: dahlias to bring in
the bees and butterflies
THE single flowerheads of
dahlias, a cottage-garden
favourite, provide a longlasting display, as well as
attracting pollinating
insects. Blooming from
midsummer until autumn,
they also make great cut
flowers.
The RHS offers three of
each of the following for
£9.99, supplied as tubers:
Dahlia Happy Single Wink,
with plum-based pink
flowers and deep purplebronze foliage, good in a
patio pot, grows to 60cm;
Dahlia Sunshine, which
has orange-based yellow
flowers and bronzeflushed foliage, grows to
45cm, and Dahlia Bishop
of Leicester, with lavenderand-white flowers and
plum-green foliage, grows
to 90cm.
You can buy all three
collections for £19.98,
saving £9.99, but Homes &
Property readers can
save a further 15 per cent
by entering code 310314
at the checkout at
rhsplants.co.uk. Offer
closes midnight April 1
Dahlias that attract
pollinating insects,
from top: Bishop of
Leicester, Happy Single
Wink and Sunshine
30
Homes & Property Property searching
O
Elegance: the attractive homes of Formosa Street, Little Venice, are handy for Warwick Avenue Tube
Spotlight
Maida Vale
VERHUNG with trees and
lined with houseboats,
Little Venice, one of the
prettiest places on the
London canal network, is
where the poet Robert Browning came
to live on his return from Italy after the
death of his wife, Elizabeth Barrett
Browning, in Florence in 1861.
His house in Warwick Crescent — now
a block of flats — was around the corner
from his sister-in-law Arabella’s home
in Delamere Terrace. He visited her
there every evening.
The tranquil stretch of water where
the Grand Union Canal meets the
Regent’s Canal and veers off to Paddington Basin is known as Browning’s
Pool. The island in the middle was
reputedly planted with trees on the
poet’s orders. However, there is some
dispute as to whether he or Lord Byron
coined the name Little Venice.
With its white stucco mansions and
canal views, Little Venice is Maida Vale’s
most desirable enclave and is much
loved by celebrities. Houses overlooking
the canal or one of the communal gardens start at £6 million.
The most expensive house currently
for sale in Little Venice is a five-bedroom, semi-detached, white stucco
property backing on to a communal
garden with tennis courts and a
Moor in Little Venice and
unleash your inner poet
The canalside enclave
Browning called home
is loved today by stars
and yummy mummies
for its stucco elegance
and secret gardens,
says Anthea Masey
Flowers and food: a gardening mecca,
Clifton Nurseries in Clifton Villas has
its own popular café, The Quince Tree
children’s playground in Randolph
Road. For sale at £10 million, or about
£2,500 a square foot (homesand
property.co.uk/randolph).
The name Maida Vale was adopted
from The Hero of Maida, a pub in
Edgware Road that opened in 1810 four
years after British General Sir John
Stuart defeated Napoleon’s forces at
the battle of Maida in southern Italy.
Waterside white
stucco: homes in
the picturesque
enclave of Little
Venice are
among the most
desirable in
London and
favoured by
celebrities
WHAT THERE IS TO BUY
Maida Vale is a place of great contrasts
with prices ranging from £800 per
square foot to over £2,500 within a
half-mile radius of Warwick Avenue
Tube station.
The white stucco houses and terraces
in Little Venice, many with communal
“secret” gardens to rival those of Notting
Hill, are among the most desirable in
the capital. Danny Daggers of the local
Photographs::
Graham
Hussey
branch of estate agent Knight Frank says
there is an “exceptional appetite” for
homes here. “We have queues of house
hunters and it is beginning to attract
international buyers who appreciate
the ease with which they can get to Heathrow airport on the Heathrow Express
from nearby Paddington.”
North of Little Venice, in Maida Vale
proper, there are period conversions,
wide roads lined with spacious twoand three-bedroom mansion flats and
large blocks of Thirties flats along
Maida Vale itself, which is part of the
A5. The flats are about £1,000 a square
foot. A two-bedroom 757sq ft mansion
flat is for sale at £770,000, a little over
the £1,000 mark (homesandproperty.
co.uk/wymering).
The wide range of valuations between
flats in most-favoured Little Venice to
the more mixed area south of Shirland
To find a home in Maida Vale, visit:
homesandproperty.co.uk/maidavale
£2,725,000
£945,000
£650,000
£575,000
TUCKED away in Elgin Mews South, a quiet
cobbled street, this four-bedroom house is set
over three floors. Through Goldschmidt & Howland.
O Visit homesandproperty.co.uk/mews
A LOWER ground-floor flat with three bedrooms, a
big reception room and patio in Lauderdale Road,
near the shops in Maida Vale. Through Foxtons.
O Visit homesandproperty.co.uk/laud
ELEGANT two-bedroom first-floor flat in a period
conversion in Elgin Avenue, with smart kitchen
and high ceilings. Through Marsh & Parsons.
O Visit homesandproperty.co.uk/elgin
THIS one-bedroom flat with an open-plan
reception area is on the top floor of a period
house in Randolph Ave. Through Pembertons.
O Visit homesandproperty.co.uk/rand
31
Property searching Homes & Property
CHECK THE STATS
■WHAT HOMES COST
BUYING IN MAIDA VALE
(Average prices)
One-bedroom flat £512,000
Two-bedroom flat £844,000
Two-bedroom house £1.2 million
Three-bedroom house £1.56 million
Four-bedroom house £3.42 million
Five-bedroom house £4.2 million
Source: Zoopla
RENTING IN MAIDA VALE
(Average rates)
One-bedroom flat £1,723 a month
Two-bedroom flat £2,796 a month
Three-bedroom flat £3,534 a month
Two-bedroom house £2,860 a month
Three-bedroom house £5,334 a month
Four-bedroom house £9,780 a month
Postcard-pretty: a Maida Vale snapshot from Westbourne Terrace Road bridge
Source: Zoopla
GO ONLINE FOR MORE
O The best schools
O The best shops and restaurants
O The latest housing developments
O How this area compares with the
rest of the UK on property prices
O Smart maps to plot your property
search
For all this and more, visit
homesand
property.co.uk/
spotlightmaidavale
Quality shopping: smart Clifton Road is lined with top-notch cafés and delis
Road is evident from a snapshot of the
market. Knight Frank (020 7586 2777)
is selling a three-bedroom conversion
basement and raised ground-floor flat
in a semi-detached white stucco house
in Randolph Road for £2.75 million, at
a price per square foot of nearly £1,800.
Contrast this with a two- to three-bedroom basement flat in Bravington Road
that estate agent Dendrow is selling for
£715,000, or less than £800 a square
foot (homesandproperty.co.uk/brav).
The area attracts: wealthy media and
music industry families have long been
attracted to Little Venice, while international buyers — particularly Europeans
— are discovering the area. There is a
good choice of well-rated schools, both
state and private. Flats here are popular
with young professional couples and
families, and there is a strong community, with many young mothers
swapping information about the area
on their own local version of mumsnet
— maidavalemums.com — which has
more than 2,500 members.
Staying power: a Little Venice house
is such a trophy acquisition that many
TEST YOUR KNOWLEDGE
Whose heart got broken at a Maida
Vale Tube station? The picture is a big
clue — find the answer at homesand
property.co.uk/spotlightmaidavale
families hold on to them for generations. The population in the flats is
more transient — although the asset of
a communal garden tends to keep
growing families in the area.
Best roads: these are in the Little
Venice area and will have either canal
views or communal gardens. Many
aspire to live in Clifton Villas, then
there is Randolph Road, Randolph
Crescent, Blomfield Road, Warwick
Avenue, Warrington Crescent and
Maida Avenue.
Open space: there are canalside walks
and cycle rides. Paddington Recreation
Ground is a 27-acre park with tennis
courts, and Regent’s Park is close by.
LEISURE AND THE ARTS
The Puppet Theatre Barge is moored
in Little Venice from October to July.
The Canal Café Theatre is a lively centre
of comedy and new writing, above The
Bridge House pub in Westbourne
Terrace Road, also overlooking Little
Venice.
Travel: Maida Vale and Warwick
Avenue Tube stations are on the Bakerloo line with direct trains to Oxford
Circus. Westbourne Park and Royal
Oak stations are on the Circle and
Hammersmith & City lines with direct
trains to Moorgate and Liverpool
Street. Paddington station has the
Heathrow Express fast rail link to
Heathrow airport. All stations are in
Zone 2 and an annual travelcard to
Zone 1 costs £1,256.
Access to Westway (A40) is close by
offering a quick road link to the west.
The London Waterbus links Little
Venice via the canal network with
Regent’s Park, London Zoo and
Camden Lock.
Council: Westminster council is Tory
controlled and Band D council tax
stands at £680.74.
HAVE YOUR SAY
MAIDA VALE
@W9Badlands #maidahill is where
it’s at. Reasonably priced houses/
decent people/markets/restaurants/
diversity
@Lord Elgin @w9maidavale Top tips
for Lord Elgin’s manor: @
CliftonLondon @CliftonGreens @
TheTruscottArms @the_elgin.
Downside: worst @Tesco in London.
@domusnovalondon one of our
favourite interiors stores is Akin &
Suri @handmadeint — beautiful
pieces for the home #maidavale
@relolondon hidden away is
Paddington Sports Club on Castellain
Rd. Tennis, squash and gym. Excellent
tennis coaching
@WestwaysLondon The Art of
Coffee @MaidaHillPlace serves the
best coffee around and @dAY_
TRUEw9 has some inspiring interior
ideas #MaidaVale
@LaraJBarton @raoulslondon @
MollysW9 @the_elgin for brunch, Red
Pepper for pizza, Kateh for Persian,
Maguro for sushi #maidavaletips
@CliftonLondon best thing about
Maida Vale are the Jam Sables in our
cafe just ask @Arganic_UK
@Arganic_UK @CliftonLondon It’s
true, and epic scones in the perfect
pretty setting, not easy to find good
scones these days.
JohnMcArdle4 there’s a feudal duty
to put a drink behind the bar for the
Lord of the Manor when you cross the
door of a pub
Here to help: outdoor plant and shop manager Sarah Glenny at Clifton Nurseries
NEXT WEEK: Bow. Do you live
there? Tell us what you think
@HomesProperty
One-stop: Formosa Street boasts cafés, décor shops, boutiques and a gastropub
34
Homes & Property Ask the expert
Can I stop tree hugger stealing my light?
Q
A
Q
Fiona
McNulty
WHAT’S
YOUR
PROBLEM?
OUR LAWYER ANSWERS
YOUR QUESTIONS
I LIVE in a terrace house
and all the gardens have
trees at the bottom which
have been pollarded or
replaced over the years. However,
one neighbour refuses to touch his
original 100-year-old plane tree.
Despite writing to plead with him
and offering to share the cost of
having it cut back, about six houses
surrounding him get no sunlight in
their gardens in the afternoons. Is
there anything we can do?
A
THIS is a common problem
that can be difficult to
resolve. The first thing to do
is to contact your neighbour,
which you have already done with no
success.
It is not possible to acquire an
easement in the form of a right to
light to a garden — although it is
possible to acquire a right to light to a
defined aperture, such as a window.
Your complaint seems to be a lack of
light to your garden generally rather
than to a specific window or
windows. There is sometimes
confusion about whether the local
council can help in these matters.
If a high hedge is blocking out light to
a house or garden, a complaint can
be dealt with by the local authority
under the Antisocial Behaviour Act
2003. However, the high hedge has to
consist of two or more evergreen or
semi-evergreen trees or shrubs
in a line, so this doesn’t apply in
your case.
If the tree was unsafe and the
neighbour refused to do anything
about it, the local council could
tackle the problem and could bill the
neighbour for its costs.
There is little more you can do
apart from considering moving
if the lack of light really affects your
wellbeing.
Neighbour disputes, even if they
are eventually resolved, can be very
draining and upsetting and should be
avoided wherever possible.
IF YOU have a
question for
Fiona McNulty,
please email
legalsolutions@
standard.co.uk
or write to Legal
Solutions, Homes
& Property,
London Evening
Standard, 2 Derry
Street, W8 5EE.
We regret that
questions cannot
be answered
individually but
we will try to
feature them
here. Fiona
McNulty is a
partner in the
residential
property, farms
and estates team
at Withy King LLP
(withyking.co.uk).
More legal
Q&As
Visit: homesand
property.co.uk
WE HAVE just purchased a ground-floor flat
and we wish to extend into the rear garden,
either by building a conservatory or a
single-storey extension. Do we need written
permission from the freeholder? The flat is leasehold.
I would hope that during conveyancing you
discussed your plans for extending with your
solicitor and were given appropriate advice.
However, the terms of your lease will list
restrictions, stipulations and covenants relating to the flat.
You need to ensure the garden is part of your property
and that you do not just have an exclusive right to use it.
There is likely to be a covenant stating you must not make
any structural alterations to the flat without the prior
written consent of the freeholder, and look out for any
covenant stating the garden must only be used as a
private garden, and not for any other purpose, including
building on it.
If the garden does belong to you and the written consent
of the freeholder is required, you should contact them and
establish their requirements for granting consent. Even if
you own a share of the freehold, this should be done
formally. It is likely you will have to agree to meet the
freeholder’s costs associated with granting consent, such
as legal and surveyor’s fees. Plans must be drawn and you
must apply for any necessary planning, listed building and
building regulation consent. A deed of variation, which
varies the terms of your lease, may be needed depending
on the size of the extension. It would be very unwise to
proceed without the freeholder’s written consent.
O These answers can only be a very brief commentary on
the issues raised and should not be relied on as legal advice.
No liability is accepted for such reliance. If you have similar
issues, you should obtain advice from a solicitor.
35
Inside story Homes & Property
House hunting’s
like a fascinating
tour of London
through the ages
MONDAY
We have some fantastic new instructions on our books which I can start to
show this week.
The absolute pick of the bunch is a
Grade II-listed studio house in Holland
Park. Rare to the market, and with
enormous ceiling heights of 24 feet, an
open-plan reception room and feature
floor-to-ceiling windows allowing
plenty of bright, north-facing light to
flood in, this lovely property would
make the perfect pad for an artist— or
for anyone with a bohemian streak.
Kensington is a great place to work,
with the richness of its architecture and
the diversity of its demographic. In just
one street such as Bedford Gardens you
can see Regency, Edwardian, late-Victorian and Sixties architecture sitting
side by side — a wonderful snapshot of
London through the ages.
TUESDAY
I spend the day arranging back-to-back
viewings for an “off-market” family
Diary of
an estate
agent
home in Kensington. This means we
don’t publicly advertise the property
on our website or portals, so that
everything is kept as private as possible.
This is a service we provide for our
high-profile, wealthy clients selling
central London homes with very high
price tags.
get to do what I love most… viewings.
It’s my favourite part of the job.
WEDNESDAY
The rear tyre on my moped blows on
the way to work. I manage not to fall
off and after a swift visit to the nearest
garage and a speedy tyre repair, I’m at
my desk. Soon I’m taking a call from
the solicitor who tells me that a pretty
little mews house we’ve been marketing has just exchanged. Then I finally
THURSDAY
The market is moving very swiftly at
the moment . We are due to exchange
on a charming three-bedroom house
this morning. A flurry of emails is
exchanged and we all hold our breath
while we wait for the contracts to be
signed and the deposit monies to go
through. It’s always a nervous moment,
no matter how many deals you have
under your belt, but everything goes
to plan and I use my lunch break to
grab some euros and an anniversary
present for my wife as we are off to
Rome for the weekend.
a few phone calls . The first two are the
type to bring a smile to any estate
agent’s face. Two of the prospective
buyers who I showed houses to on
Wednesday have bid. On the way to the
airport another one comes through.
Great week!
FRIDAY
O Tom Wilton is a sales negotiator
with Strutt & Parker, based at the
Kensington office (020 7938 3666).
I’m taking a half-day off for our Italian
trip so I get into the office early to take
40
Homes & Property Letting on
I could get my fingers burnt on this deal
Victoria Whitlock goes cold on a keenly
priced buy-to-let flat after she tots up the
cost of the necessary fire safety measures
T
£600 A WEEK
IN A period stucco building in Gloucester Terrace, Paddington,
W2, John D Wood has this first-floor, two-bedroom furnished flat
with a large reception room with a bay window available to rent.
O Visit homesandproperty.co.uk/rentgloucester
!
!$$!%$!
"!
!
&&&
&& "
!!"!!!!$
!#
!"
HE saying that if
something looks too good
to be true, it probably is
too good to be true is
definitely one to bear in
mind when looking at buy-to-let
properties.
I went to view a four-bedroom
duplex apartment that looked on
paper like an ideal rental investment.
It was already let to four sharers
whose rent was easily enough to
cover the mortgage, but I had a
hunch there must be something
wrong with it because it had been on
the market for months.
When we got inside it was obvious
the place was originally designed as a
three-bedroom flat but the present
owner had played around with the
layout to squeeze in a fourth. Now,
I’m all for finding ingenious ways to
increase a property’s rental income,
but what concerned me was that the
extra bedroom was off the kitchen, at
the rear of the flat.
I was concerned that this layout was
risky. What if a fire broke out in the
kitchen while someone was asleep in
the rear bedroom? As this was a firstfloor flat with only one exit door at
the front, their only escape route
would be through the fire.
Back home I started to search for
advice on fire safety to find out if this
arrangement was acceptable, or if
alterations would have to be made to
make sure the property was safe to
let. Frustratingly for landlords, there
are no hard and fast rules about what
fire safety measures must be installed
in rental properties, because each
one will present different risks
according to its size, the layout and
even the type of tenant.
For example, if a property is let to
physically or mentally disabled
tenants, or to tenants with drug or
alcohol addictions, or to elderly
people, more precautions than usual
will be necessary.
This means that every landlord
must carry out a fire risk assessment
of their property, or pay a
professional to carry out the
assessment for them — this costs from
£200 to £400 — and then put the
appropriate safety measures in
The
accidental
landlord
place. In other words, the onus is on
us to protect our tenants.
Unless your property is a House of
Multiple Occupancy that requires a
licence to let, it’s unlikely anyone will
come knocking on your door for proof
you’ve carried out regular fire risk
assessments. But if your rental
property goes up in smoke and you
can’t prove you took all the
recommended fire safety precautions,
you could be in a lot of trouble.
If you’re looking for advice on what
steps you might need to take, a good
place to start is lacors.gov.uk. It gives
examples of properties of different
sizes let to various types of tenant
and lists the recommended fire
safety measures for each.
I ploughed through the guidance
and came to the conclusion that
although it’s not ideal to have a
bedroom tucked behind a kitchen
with no alternative escape route, it
might be acceptable if the property
had interlinked mains-operated fire
alarms, fire doors, a fire blanket, a
fire extinguisher and possibly a
sprinkler system.
Interlinked mains-operated smoke
alarms, which cost about £60 each to
install, and fire doors, which cost
about £80, are recommended for any
rental property with two storeys or
more. You can buy fire blankets and
fire extinguishers for about £25 each.
A
LL these I could manage.
However, sprinkler
systems cost from £750 to
£2,500 to install and
require quite a bit of
upheaval to fit. I decided that, for me,
this property really was too good to be
true and left it for someone else.
O Victoria Whitlock lets three
properties in south London. To contact
Victoria with your ideas and views,
tweet @vicwhitlock
£1,350 A
WEEK
THIS handsome
five-bedroom
house in
Dundonald
Road, NW10, is
available to rent
through
Queens Park
Partnership.
O Visit homes
andproperty.
co.uk/
rentdundonald
Find many more homes to rent at
homesandproperty.co.uk/lettings
46
Homes & Property New homes
Smart
Sma
art mo
mov
moves
ov
By David Spittles
Join the legal eagles
Coming round to Oval?
FAMILY flats in Zone 2
priced from £435,000 will
strike a chord with young
couples with kids who are
keen to stay in the capital
rather than head for the
affordable suburbs — and a
long commute.
Oval Quarter, in SW9,
above, brings a muchneeded housing scheme of
scale and style. A
Seventies council estate —
30-acre Myatts Field North
— has been bulldozed to
make way for 808 new
homes and one of the
largest new parks in
London. There will also be
allotments and a
showpiece community
centre with café, crèche
and IT suite built “under”
the park but with a sloping
glass roof to maximise solar
gain (homesandproperty.
co.uk/ovalquarter).
For such a close-in
location, Oval stands out
as good value at about
£600 a square foot, with a
promising future. The
Northern line spur to
Battersea Power Station
will make Oval a more
strategic transport point
and the area is benefiting
from Nine Elms and
Vauxhall regeneration.
Shared-ownership
options make the
properties even more
affordable, with the
minimum 25 per cent
stake starting at £108,750
for three-bedroom flats.
Call Notting Hill Housing
on 020 8357 4444.
N
EAR the Royal Courts of
Justice, Inner and Middle
Temple, right, form
London’s oldest live-work
estate. For centuries,
barristers and lawyers have lived over
the shop in chambers, but with the
arrival of global law and accountancy
firms, the wider Holborn legal district
is changing and modern apartments
are being built for the area’s highearning career professionals.
Many are niche developments of
boutique flats, in keeping with the
area’s individuality, but bigger
projects are under way, including
St Dunstan’s Court, right, in Fetter
Lane. This is a redevelopment of an
outdated office block and provides 76
flats, a residents club and access to
private gardens. Homes have a view
of listed Maughan Library, part of
King’s College, and its cloistered
courtyard. Prices start from
£1,325,000 (homesandproperty.
co.uk/fetter).
At Star Yard, tucked away between
Lincoln’s Inn Fields and Chancery
Lane, a 19th-century warehouse has
been transformed into a 3,000sq ft
townhouse. The price is £4.4 million.
Coming soon to Breams
Buildings, meanwhile, another
medieval lane, is a conversion of a
handsome period building into nine
apartments. Call Jackson-Stops &
Staff on 020 7664 6649.
47
New homes Homes & Property
Olympia homes worth showing off
A SPRING crop of new Kensington
apartment schemes is boosting the
attraction of the posh royal borough,
just when doubters said it was in
danger of losing its central London
primacy to Mayfair and Marylebone.
Kensington High Street is the focus of
most activity, and a huge apartment
complex at the western end, near
Olympia, is bringing a sense of place to
a prominent corner once dominated by
ugly office buildings.
The joint venture between house
builder Berkeley and insurance giant
Prudential is creating more than 1,000
new homes across seven buildings set
around landscaped courtyards and
formal garden squares. It is an “open”
development with public spaces, while
an on-site primary school is due to
open in 2016. Wolfe House the first
completed phase, includes duplexes
and penthouses with large terraces and
panoramic views. Classy interiors have
high ceilings, oversize doors, bespoke
joinery, custom-made contemporary
staircases and marble-walled
bathrooms.
Residents get what the developer calls
a “lifestyle support system” — spa,
business suites, private cinema and a
Harrods-run concierge service. From
£930,000. Kensington Row, the next
phase, will launch later this year. Call
020 7118 0375. Other Kensington High
Street homes projects in the pipeline
include the listed Odeon cinema and
Commonwealth Institute sites.
ALAMY
Eco-friendly flats
are pick of the crop
in Clerkenwell
BOUTIQUE apartment schemes
are a Clerkenwell favourite, and the
latest is a resourceful redevelopment,
left, of a formerly nondescript
commercial building in Pear Tree
Street. Comice House comprises
eight eco-friendly homes, including
two triple-glazed penthouses, partpowered by solar energy and with a
“living grass” roof. Prices from
£735,000. Call estate agent Stirling
Ackroyd on 020 7749 3810.
VOTE WITH YOUR FEET
WESTMINSTER VILLAGE
WESTMINSTER regeneration means
Division Bell homes close to the
Houses of Parliament appeal to
more than politicians. Estate agents
report that buyers are favouring the
area above pricier central districts
such as Chelsea and Belgravia, while
the bistros and speciality shops now
joining the chain stores on Victoria
Street may herald a “Westminster
village” beyond that occupied by our
political rulers.
Behind the Home Office, a scheme
of 22 contemporary-design
apartments in Great Peter Street,
some with views of Big Ben, has
prices from £1.44 million. Call Taylor
Wimpey on 020 3053 0745.

The vision: Beautiful Euston

Transcription

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