The perfect match - Homes and Property

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Wednesday 5 August 2015
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Couple who fell for a flat — and each other
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The perfect match
4
WEDNESDAY 5 AUGUST 2015 EVENING STANDARD
Homes & Property Online
homesandproperty.co.uk with
This week: homesandproperty.co.uk
news: billionaire joins bid to
make Bayswater beautiful
New image:
pedestrianised
and tree-lined,
how the
transformation
of Queensway
is set to look
SHABBY Bayswater is about to clean up its act, with plans
for luxurious new apartment blocks and boutique hotels
in Queensway, the area’s high street.
Westminster council is aiming to turn the uninviting
road into a pedestrianised boulevard with new paving,
lights and trees to make the area more in keeping with its
smarter neighbours, such as Hyde Park and Notting Hill.
Meanwhile, an unnamed billionaire, who bought the
Whiteleys centre in Queensway in a £500 million deal in
2013, has announced plans for the historic former
department store. The Grade II-listed façade will be kept,
but the rest of the building will largely be demolished to
make way for shops, restaurants, a hotel and flats.
Property
search
Trophy
buy
of the
week
huge
helping
of wow
factor
in SW6
£3.4 million: as status symbols go,
this imposing, double-fronted,
five-bedroom house in Sands End,
SW6, takes some beating.
The large windows bring in plenty of
natural light and there’s an airy feel
about the tastefully decorated and
spacious reception rooms.
The bi-fold doors, internal glass
walls and double-height ceiling in
the kitchen and dining space serve a
big helping of wow factor, and the
house is topped by a skylit master
suite with a balcony.
Through Foxtons.
London buy of the week gorgeous
Georgian tops the list in Wandsworth
O Read Ruth Bloomfield’s full story, and see more exclusive
pictures, at homesandproperty.co.uk
£650,000: what’s not to love about
this gorgeous Georgian top-floor flat
in a leafy part of Wandsworth?
In a Grade II-listed building, it offers
views over St Ann’s conservation
area from two generous double
bedrooms, plus a modern kitchen
and a plush reception room,
hot homes: another Tube
strike? Take to the Thames
Sail through it:
Thames Clippers
services are
being doubled
from three to up
to six an hour
AS LONDON faces Tube strike chaos again, the city’s most
scenic commuting option is busily adding extra services.
During last month’s Underground walkout, Thames
Clippers river buses saw a 72 per cent jump in passenger
numbers. This time round, the number of services is
being doubled to cater for the rush.
O Join us as we find homes close to piers from Wandsworth
to Woolwich, offering easy access to a river commute —
see homesandproperty.co.uk/rivercommutes
Facebook:
£595,000: head to the pretty village of Otford in Kent and
indulge in some retail therapy with this rustic beauty in a
prime High Street spot, overlooking the duck pond.
A spacious fashion boutique and kitchen area are found at
ground level, while the upper floors have a kitchen, beamed
sitting room, a guest bedroom and a master bedroom
spanning the eaves, leading out to a roof terrace with views
to the Otford Hills. Through Hamptons International.
O homesandproperty.co.uk/lifechanger
ESHomesAndProperty • Twitter:
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showcasing a soothing palette of pale
grey walls. White shutters and double
doors lead out to a southwest-facing
balcony. Communal gardens and
off-street parking are further bonuses.
Through John D Wood.
O homesandproperty.co.uk/botw
Life changer run a fashion
boutique by the duck pond
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By
Faye
Greenslade
@HomesProperty • Pinterest:
Editor:
Janice
Morley
#$%#
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O homesandproperty.co.uk/trophy
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@HomesProperty
It’s Battersea Poor Station
First-timers banished to former industrial estate
THIS exclusive image reveals how
promised homes at Battersea Power
Station reserved for first-time buyers
and renters have been moved to a plot
half a mile away from the luxury
housing scheme.
More than 370 “affordable” homes,
which were to be mixed among the
multimillion-pound apartments next
to the Grade II*-listed power station,
are instead to be located on a former
industrial estate between busy
railway lines. Developers say the
change is needed to make way for a
giant sewer.
Wandsworth council is currently
considering the proposal to place the
cheaper homes in a collection of
mansion blocks ready to move into in
2019. However, with the homes being
positioned in Sleaford Street, at the
furthest reaches of the site, the
proposals are likely to reignite the
“poor door” debate — a reference to
Moved: cheaper flats will
now be half a mile away
developers’ practice of providing
segregated entrances for private and
affordable owners in upscale blocks.
Rob Tincknell, head of the Battersea
Power Station Development
Company, defended the change,
saying the affordable homes would be
finished sooner under the new plan.
O Read Ruth Bloomfield’s full story
at homesandproperty.co.uk
5
EVENING STANDARD WEDNESDAY 5 AUGUST 2015
News Homes & Property
REX
ALAMY
homesandproperty.co.uk with
Jason’s place
proves a nice
little earner
Old curiosity knocking shop
ÉTHE secret Covent
Garden retreat used by
Charles Dickens to escape
his wife and entertain the
actress Ellen Ternan can
now be rented on Airbnb.
The cosy one-bedroom
apartment sits above the
Charles Dickens Coffee
House and overlooks
cobbled Tavistock Street,
with the West End’s
theatres on its doorstep.
It costs £175 a night.
The 19th-century author
ran his publishing
company from the same
address, serialising many
of his novels, including
Great Expectations.
É HARD man actor Jason
Statham and model Rosie
Huntington-Whiteley, right, have
sold their Hollywood Hills home,
above, for £5.8 million.
The couple had put the house
— with six bedrooms, two dining
rooms and a cinema — on the
market for a lower price, but the
new owner was keen to secure
the deal.
The A-listers bought the
elegant estate, in half an acre
above Runyon Canyon Park,
from Night at the Museum
star Ben Stiller for a reported
£4.6 million in 2011. They have
upgraded to an £8.2 million
mansion in Beverly Hills.
By Amira Hashish
O For more celebrity gossip, visit
homesandproperty.co.uk/gossip
Got some gossip? Tweet @amiranews
£5m Bond mansion
licensed to thrill
ÉJAMES BOND smoothie Sir Roger
Moore, below, owned this glamorous
mansion in the Seventies when
starring in Live and Let Die, The Man
with the Golden Gun and The Spy
Who Loved Me.
Eight-bedroom Sherwood House, in
the sought-after village of Denham,
Buckinghamshire, was on the market
for £4.5 million last year and is now
listed again for £5 million.
Nestled in 11 acres, the sprawling
property, which last sold in 1997 for
£1,215,000, has stylish interiors, a
guest wing, a heated swimming pool
and manicured gardens. EastEnders
actor Shane Richie and magician Paul
Daniels live in the area.
O homesandproperty.co.uk/moore
TV presenter and model
Alexa Chung launched her
AG Jeans collection is on
sale for £19.75 million.
In the NEO Bankside
development, the stunning
duplex, right, which was
also used as a filming
location by singer Jessie J,
offers 360-degree views,
taking in London
landmarks including
St Paul’s Cathedral, the
Shard and the City.
It has four bedrooms,
double-height reception
rooms, four bathrooms
and two private roof
terraces.
Studio Reed, which has
worked on homes for
A-list stars including
David Bowie and Elle
Macpherson, designed
the interiors.
REX
ÉTHE penthouse where
NICK GUTTRIDGE
Penthouse with A-list views
6
WEDNESDAY 5 AUGUST 2015 EVENING STANDARD
Homes & Property New homes
DANIEL LYNCH
homesandproperty.co.uk with
Home advantage: property developer Tom Sherwood lives in SE1 and has big plans for the area’s future
Borough has a big
appetite for change
Foodie favourite Borough
Market will become a trophy
attraction when three more
acres of local heartland are
transformed. By David Spittles
High notes:
there are
55 modern
apartments at
The Music Box
in Union Street
T
HE journey from roughedged fringe to über-fashionable has taken Borough
no more than a blink of an
eye, or so it seems. This
transformation has not been restricted
to the foodie heaven of buzzing and
colourful Borough Market, either — it
includes a wider wedge of postcode
SE1, stretching between the Thames
and Elephant & Castle.
Now Borough is set to move up a
notch further, with a £300 million
project complementing its thriving
food and restaurant scene — a redevelopment of the very place that first
sparked the area’s renaissance 16 years
ago. The revamp will see dozens of
Covent Garden-style fashion boutiques,
an art house cinema, a private members club, loft offices and apartments
move into the area.
The three-acre site includes a shabby
car park but also a network of magnificent vaulted Victorian railway
arches now occupied by Vinopolis, the
specialist wine and whisky centre that
Ripe for progress: Borough Market is
set to become more popular still with
the arrival of new boutiques and homes
has been tempted out of the area and
will move to new central London
premises.
When Vinopolis opened in Borough
in 1999, it tripped a switch and lit up
this forgotten area, full of character
buildings and old warehouses.
The man behind the district’s next
chapter is Tom Sherwood, a small developer who cut his teeth on local schemes.
He has secured a deal backed by Meyer
Bergman, an investment fund manage-
GRAHAM HUSSEY
SHERWOOD’S RISE TO THE BIG TIME
TOM SHERWOOD shifted into
property development 10 years ago.
After a career in advertising, he
changed direction supported by his
wife, Jules, an interior decorator. His
first project was a three-flat scheme
in Bermondsey, followed by a pub
conversion, both before the 2008
banking crash. He then moved on to
bigger projects, including a factory
redevelopment, and spent three
years assembling the constituent
plots for the Vinopolis deal.
He lives in SE1 during the week,
Get in at the start: the area around
Maltby Street Market, Bermondsey,
left, is a Sherwood tip for investment
which he says gives him an edge.
“Living here helps me understand
the area better than most,” he says.
However, at the weekends he
retreats to the family home, a
honey-coloured stone farmhouse in
the Cotswolds.
And his top tips for investment?
Sherwood has some property insider
advice for the future.
He says overspill markets that have
emerged at Maltby Street and Druid
Street in Bermondsey are fuelling
gentrification, making these still
rather gritty areas worth checking
out. He admits he is already on the
lookout for local development
opportunities.
ment firm whose trophy assets include
Burlington Arcade in Mayfair, Whiteleys
in Queensway and buildings along Bond
Street, as well as the Champs-Élysées in
Paris. Sherwood’s plan is to turn the
railway arches, warehouses and courtyards into shopping streets, with a
public square and new passageways.
The area’s original Elizabethan street
names — such as Dirty Lane and Soap
Yard — will be revived, although
Whore’s Nest is likely to be left in the
history books.
Some say Borough Market has been
losing its way, with higher rents pushing out long-standing, quirky stallholders in favour of more upscale traders.
But 44-year-old Sherwood insists his
project will be entirely in keeping with
the cobbled streets and artisan feel of
the area, and will dovetail with the
existing food market.
“For all its pulling power, Southwark
lacks fashion and needs a wider mix of
shops,” he explains. “We’re creating
as many as 50 new spaces and predict
a ripple effect that will continue
through the back streets of SE1.”
This is the Tate Modern/Globe/Shard
hinterland, a prime central address,
whether it is the City or the West End
that looms large in your life. Sitting
alongside upgraded London Bridge
station, the area has become a huge
business and tourist hub, attracting
some 50 million people a year.
Southwark council is set to approve
the project in the autumn.
7
EVENING STANDARD WEDNESDAY 5 AUGUST 2015
New homes Homes & Property
homesandproperty.co.uk with
In the market
for a high-rise
Gritty: Elizabethan street Dirty Lane will keeps its name, unlike nearby Whore’s Nest
From £760,000: flats at The
Music Box, above the London
Centre of Contemporary Music
Redeveloped: Brandon House
opposite Borough Tube will offer
100 apartments and townhouses
ALAMY
New neighbour: 28 homes with roof gardens at Snowsfields Yard near the Shard
CATCH THE SECOND WAVE
All this cements Borough’s rise as a
residential zone and comes at a time
when a second wave of new housing is
hitting the streets.
When Borough first “arrived” as a
residential area about a decade ago,
new homes were niche, mainly small
warehouse and office conversions, and
were bought by loft-loving locals who
knew the area.
Now, bigger-budget buyers from
posher parts of town are descending.
Yet despite its growing cachet, Borough
might still be considered good value
for money. Typically, new homes in the
area start at about £450,000 and range
from £800 and £1,200 a square foot,
lower than most other Zone 1 neighbourhoods.
Crest Nicholson has three new
schemes launching soon, including a
redevelopment of Brandon House, a
prominent corner building opposite
Borough Tube station that will contain
100 homes — both flats and townhouses.
Snowsfields Yard, a short stroll
from the Shard, has 28 flats plus
rooftop gardens. To register, call 0800
883 8014. The third development,
Two Fifty One, in Southwark Bridge
Road, has 335 high-rise flats in a
41-storey tower, completing in 2017.
The tower will have a wifi-enabled business and home-working lounge-cumcafé, alongside a private cinema club,
gym and other amenities. Views from
the upper floors are spectacular and
many apartments have glazed winter
gardens. Prices start at £450,000. Call
DTZ on 020 3468 9251.
Borough Place in Marshalsea Road
is a smaller scheme of two- and threebedroom apartments, including a
penthouse with a 430sq ft roof terrace.
Prices from £975,000. Call Greene &
Co on 020 7604 3200. Check out Great
Suffolk Street, which runs all the way
to Trinity Church Square — a splendid
Georgian conservation area popular
with Guy’s surgeons and barristers. For
many years, this patch was deemed the
wrong side of the tracks, but architects
and design companies are moving into
refurbished premises while small plots
are being redeveloped into flats.
The Music Box in Union Street,
beside Gordon Ramsay’s Union Street
Café, is a block of 55 apartments above
the new home for London Centre of
Contemporary Music and the National
Youth Jazz Orchestra. Prices from
£760,000. Call Taylor Wimpey on 020
7355 8150.
8
WEDNESDAY 5 AUGUST 2015 EVENING STANDARD
Homes & Property Olympic Park
HACKNEY
FIVE NEW DISTRICTS IN
THE OLYMPIC VILLAGE
Hockey
Venues
Hackney
Marsh
Tennis Centre
Velodrome
inspiration
Chobham
Manor
If you love sport, you’ll love it here. This
autumn, young Londoners begin moving
into the first of five fabulous new Olympic
Park villages, reports Ruth Bloomfield
CHOBHAM MANOR
Where: on the north side of the park
near Lee Valley VeloPark, formerly the
6,000-seat velodrome where Sir Chris
Hoy reigned supreme
Best for: families
THE first of the Olympic Park neighbourhoods is Chobham Manor, already
well under way, with 828 homes
planned by developer Taylor Wimpey
and housing association L&Q
(chobhammanor.co.uk).
The first phase of 259 homes sold out
fast off-plan after being put on sale last
summer, priced from £375,000 for a
one-bedroom flat to £985,000 for a
five-bedroom house. It will complete
in 2017 and the first residents to call the
park home will move in this autumn.
Preparation work on phase two —
another 207 houses, flats and maisonettes designed by architects PRP, Make
and Karakusevic Carson — starts this
summer. The homes will go on sale
early next year.
A planning application for the third
phase of the project, with another 350
to 400 properties, is expected by the
end of this year, in the hope of work
starting next year. Just under a third of
Thousands more homes
will follow as the park
becomes one of London’s
major house-building zones
the homes at Chobham Manor will be
affordable — a mix of rental properties
and homes being sold on a sharedownership basis.
A bit of forward planning here might
be worthwhile, because shared-ownership properties for sale in phase two
will be launched in January and priority will be given to those already living
or working in the following areas:
Waltham Forest, Redbridge, Havering,
Barking & Dagenham, Newham, Tower
Hamlets, Hackney, and the City.
Expressions of interest are already
being accepted at lqpricedin.co.uk.
Chobham Manor is being pitched as
a “traditional family neighbourhood”,
with terrace and mews houses inspired
by period homes in Islington. More
than three quarters of the homes have
three or more bedrooms.
The neighbourhood will also have
shops, restaurants, a health centre and
nurseries. An “all-through” school,
Chobham Academy, opened in 2013.
NEWHAM
Stratford
International
East Wick
Maryland
Hackney
Wick
Victoria
Park
Stratford
town
centre
Sweetwater
Main
stadium
Aquatics
Centre
Marshgate
Wharf
A12
T
HREE years ago this week,
Mo Farah and Jessica EnnisHill were tearing up the
Olympic Stadium and Chris
Hoy and co were dominating
at the velodrome. But the legacy of the
2012 Olympics will be far greater than
the record medal haul for Team GB.
This autumn, the first residents will
move into their newly built homes in
the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park and,
over the next few years, thousands
more homes — from flats to rent to family houses to buy — will launch in five
distinct new neighbourhoods.
The next opportunity to own a slice
of the new E20 postcode will be early
next year when more than 200 properties at Chobham Manor — including
shared-ownership homes aimed at
first-time buyers — go on sale.
Thousands more homes will follow as
the park becomes one of London’s
major house-building zones.
Here is our essential buyer’s guide to
the Olympic Park’s five new zones.
LEYTON RD
OLYMPIC
homesandproperty.co.uk with
TOWER
HAMLETS
0
Pudding
Mill
West
Ham
500 metres
Bow
In January this year, the academy was
given an “outstanding” report by
schools regulator Ofsted.
FIRST-TIME
BUYERS
Big-name
architects are
involved in
designing
Sweetwater
homes, below
BEST FOR
FAMILIES
Below left, the
first phase of
259 Chobham
Manor homes
sold out fast
off-plan last
summer
SWEETWATER
AND EAST WICK
Where: in the centre of the park,
north of the Olympic Stadium and
beside the Lee Navigation Canal
Best for: young entrepreneurs and
first-time buyers
A PLANNING application covering these
two areas, with 650 and 870 homes
respectively, will be submitted this
autumn. Expect something special
because the developers, Balfour Beatty
and Places for People, have recruited
an impressive team of architects to
design the individual buildings.
The team will be led by Sheppard
Robson with Studio Egret West, Piercy
& Company, Alison Brooks, ShedKM
and Astudio all contributing. The land-
scape will be designed by Fabrik. The
area should have something for everyone, because about 500 of these homes
will be affordable and aimed at cashstrapped first-time buyers. A third will
be sold on the open market, with the
remaining properties rented out.
Prices are not yet available, but an
average two-bedroom flat in the Stratford area currently sells for about
£350,000 and rents for about £1,600
a month.
The development will also cater for
families — more than half of its homes
will have three bedrooms or more and
there are plans to build two new primary schools on the site, plus nursery
schools, a library and a health centre.
In terms of open space, there will be
a park alongside the canal, and new
bridges will connect the site to Hackney
Wick and also to Fish Island, with its
great independent bars and restaurants. The neighbourhoods will also
have their own shops and restaurants,
On track: Queen
Elizabeth Olympic Park
is a firm favourite with
visitors and locals,
offering a wide
programme of events
9
EVENING STANDARD WEDNESDAY 5 AUGUST 2015
Olympic Park Homes & Property
ALAMY
homesandproperty.co.uk with
BEST FOR CULTURE LOVERS
Marshgate Wharf by the stadium, with the V&A and a new base for Sadler’s Wells
MARSHGATE WHARF
ALAMY
Where: beside the Olympic Stadium
Best for: culture vultures
OLYMPICS chiefs have inexplicably
nicknamed this site “Olympicopolis”
and see it as a world-class cultural and
educational district, with a branch of
the Victoria & Albert Museum, new
campuses for University College London and University of the Arts London,
a new base for Sadler’s Wells Theatre,
and a proposed UK offshoot of the
American Smithsonian Museum.
London Legacy Development Corporation said Olympicopolis would
include new homes “but the exact
number is still to be determined”.
Subject to planning, work will start in
2017/18 and the neighbourhood will be
complete in 2020/21.
SOMETHING FOR EVERYONE
East Wick, left, features up to 870
properties with a mix of housing
types, including homes for first-time
buyers and rented accommodation
ALAMY
while office space and workshops
will be aimed at attracting start-up
companies.
Work is due to start next summer, and
off-plan sales will follow, with the
first residents moving in by the end of
2017. Sweetwater and East Wick should
both be completed by the end of
2023.
PUDDING MILL
Where: the south end of the park,
around Pudding Mill Lane Docklands
Light Railway station, above
Best for: long-term planners, fans of
waterfront living, and City workers
THE final piece in the Olympic Park
jigsaw, work on Pudding Mill is currently not slated to start until 2026, but
it is believed that this timetable may be
speeded up to try to meet London’s
insatiable demand for new homes.
A projected 1,292 new homes will be
built on the 13-acre site as well as two
nurseries, office and studio space,
shops and restaurants.
A must for those who yearn for waterfront living, the site incorporates part
of the River Lea, Bow Back Rivers, and
Three Mills Wall River, and homes will
be built along their banks.
The scheme will also include redevelopment of the nearby Docklands Light
Railway station, which will provide
quick train links to the City and Canary
Wharf. Existing period warehouses will
be brought back into use as studios and
workshops.
2 MIN
2 MINS HOME
Brought to you by
10
WEDNESDAY 5 AUGUST 2015 EVENING STANDARD
Homes & Property Homes abroad
homesandproperty.co.uk with
These
hills are
alive...
IT’S MAGICAL A LONDONER
UNDER ZELL AM SEE’S SPELL
ANTONIA COOPER first
visited Zell am See in 2004
while studying for a year at
the University of Graz.
“I joined some friends on
a ski trip there and
immediately fell in love with
the town,” says Antonia, 31,
a teacher from Teddington.
“It’s beautiful, like a
fairytale come to life, with a
magical light from the lake
and mountains.”
The following year,
Antonia’s family decided to
use a small inheritance
from her father to buy a
place to enjoy together, and
she suggested Zell am See.
In 2006, together with her
mother and two brothers,
she bought a three-
Enjoy a summer
home and a winter
playground in the
Austrian Alps, says
Cathy Hawker
B
UYERS are quick to fall in love
with the magical light, the
lakes, the mountains and the
fairytale villages of the
Austrian Alps. The area has
a year-round appeal, with skiing the
obvious attraction, but visitor numbers
are growing fast as buyers look for a
summer home in a winter playground.
In the lakeside resort of Zell am See,
an hour from Salzburg airport, many
residents from the Middle East are keen
to swap the ferocious heat at home for
fresh Alpine air. Their arrival is not
without controversy — official leaflets
advise visitors on how to fit in with
traditional Austrian ways.
“After five years of new construction,
the council recently called a halt,” says
Giles Gale, of Mark Warner Property.
So, with little for sale in Zell, Gale
recommends the neighbouring villages
of Kaprun and Saalbach.
season resorts, and the Salzburg region
is much more summer-focused than
the Tyrol,” says Gale. “Hardcore skiers
will always head to resorts such as
Méribel in France or Verbier in
Switzerland, but what Austria sacrifices
in skiing miles it more than makes up
in charm and friendliness.”
NEW BUILD IN HINTERGLEMM
At the head of the Saalbach valley in
the exclusive village of Hinterglemm,
Residence Adler offers 40 new one- to
four-bedroom flats attached to the
Adler Hotel, beside the ski lift.
The same family has run this hotel for
35 years and will manage the new
apartments and arrange rentals, estimating average rental yields of between
four and seven per cent.
The flats have south-facing balconies
and come fully furnished. Prices start
from £286,300 for one-bedroom flats,
rising to £1 million for four-bedroom
penthouses. So far, 23 apartments have
been sold to buyers from Austria,
Breathtaking:
pretty Kaprun is
a cheaper
alternative to
sought-after
Zell am See.
Fine restaurants
and mountain
walks make it
popular with
active families
AFFORDABLE ALTERNATIVES
Kaprun and Saalbach are only 15 minutes from Zell and significantly better
value at about £360 a square foot for
prime homes, against £540 in Zell.
In winter, one ski pass covers all three
resorts. Saalbach can claim the largest
ski area, with 136 miles of slopes, while
Kaprun has a glacier, providing yearround skiing. Summer activities are
even more extensive, from hiking to
tennis, with Saalbach an especially
popular mountain biking venue.
“International buyers want dual-
Germany, Holland and Eastern Europe.
Through Mark Warner Property.
SUMMER’S FUN IN KAPRUN
“Kaprun offers more family-focused
activities in summer than it does in
winter, with its pretty church, restaurants and mountain views,” says Gale.
“It has a golf course and also one of the
largest, most modern spas in Austria,
with indoor and outdoor pools, steam
rooms, saunas and slides.”
Developers Alpin Rentals have two
projects for sale in Kaprun. Panorama
Suites is a development of 12 two- and
three-bedroom apartments due for
completion in spring next year. Prices
start from £251,000, with furniture
packages from £18,000.
Nearby Kitz Residence is a refurbishment of an attractive, typically Austrian
building into 14 apartments. The
final five units for sale start from
£200,000 for a two-bedroom apartment of 947sq ft, through Mark Warner
Property.
O Mark Warner Property:
markwarnerproperty.com
O All in One Apartments:
zellamsee-kaprun.co.at/en — for flats
and chalets in the Zell am See area
JUST FOUR CONTEMPORARY THREE BEDROOM
DETACHED HOUSES WITH PRIVATE GARDENS
FROM
£530,000 TO £550,000
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bedroom apartment and
the family have holidayed
there ever since. “We
bought it as a ski home, but
it is a year-round town and
now I am torn about which
season I enjoy the most,”
says Antonia.
“It is hugely bonding,
somewhere we can be
together. At Christmas, 11 of
us squish in. This year, my
brother’s three-year-old
daughter, Amy, will be on
skis for the first time.”
Antonia married Rob, left,
in Zell am See last August.
“He had been ski captain at
Southampton University
and he loves the town, too,”
she adds. “We take every
opportunity to visit.”
From £286,300: Residence Adler has
flats with south-facing balconies
From £251,000: Panorama Suites is
due to open in time for next summer
From £200,000: there are five flats
left at Kitz Residence in Kaprun
14
WEDNESDAY 5 AUGUST 2015 EVENING STANDARD
Homes & Property Design
homesandproperty.co.uk with
By Katie Law
M des
My
de
es
Abigail
Ahern
TASTEMAKER
D
GRAHAM ATKINS-HUGHES
ESIGNER, author and
retailer Abigail Ahern
has a reputation for her
uncompromising take on
interiors, which was first
spotted by the New York Times when
she worked in America. She opened
her first shop in London in 2003 and
recently launched her own-label
collection of ceramics, furniture,
lighting and fake plants.
Here, she reveals why her favourite
colours are inky and moody, why
she loves the Big Green Egg cooker
and where to find a cheap but showstopping Chesterfield sofa.
MY HOME
I live in a Victorian townhouse in
Dalston. There’s me, my husband,
Graham, and our two dogs, Mungo
and Maud, otherwise known as
the two Ms. We’ve been here nearly
14 years. When we bought it, it was
utterly run down. We gutted the
whole place, extended and put in a
double-height glass wall at the back
looking out over the garden. It’s
taken ages, but I love everything
about it now.
Favourite thing: Ahern blew the
furniture budget on a concrete chair
by Willy Guhl, with no regrets
colour, the bathroom is a really
sophisticated olive green called
Wooster, and the bedroom is in
Crosby, which is a soothing soft
brown with rosy pink undertones.
Sense of style: Abigail Ahern is renowned for her uncompromising approach
My style is eclectic, moody and
glamorous but still incredibly laidback. I gravitate towards inky, moody
colour palettes. My house is painted
top to bottom in my own paint range
— I spent a year mixing and fiddling
around with the palette until I
achieved dark perfection.
My large open-plan downstairs
space is in Madison Grey, which is
the most perfect bottom-of-the-lake
grey-green hue. My home office
studio space is full-on noir in Hudson
Black, the hallways throughout are
Mulberry, a sort of bruised berry-red
I CAN’T LIVE WITHOUT
Secret shop: at Criterion Auctioneers
you might find a cheap Chesterfield or
a picture that looks like a Francis Bacon
Criterion Auctioneers in Essex Road,
N1. It’s dusty and can be hit and miss,
but I’ve found the most incredible
pieces there, including a huge oil
painting that looks like a Francis
Bacon, beautiful tribal-looking rugs
for less than £100 and Chesterfield
sofas, which they regularly have.
MY FAVOURITE THING
My favourite piece is a sculptural
Willy Guhl concrete chair that I
bought 13 years ago — today they sell
at auction for about £230.
My husband was furious. We were
renovating the house at the time and
we had nowhere to sit. We needed to
buy something comfy, but instead I
blew the whole budget on this one
concrete chair.
We had nothing else to sit on for a
year. I don’t think he’ll ever let me
forget it. But I love it.
MY STYLE
MY SECRET SHOP
IN LONDON
My daily cup of coffee, which I drink
sitting in the morning sun out of sweet
little Vietnamese hand-thrown cups
that I picked up from Columbia Road.
MOST TALENTED
NEW DESIGNER
I’m always on the lookout for new
talent. I love Hannah Lawrence, who
makes wood-fired pottery. Hannah
takes influence from and is inspired
by the Japanese concept of wabi sabi
(imperfection) and all her pieces are
amazing.
SECRET ESCAPE
Pinch at 51a Greenwood Road, E8.
It’s Hackney’s smallest wine bar and
my secret escape (020 7249 9909;
pinchhackney.co.uk). It sells the
most incredible natural wines and
the owner, Venus, is lovely. It’s
somewhere I always potter out to
when I need to recalibrate.
15
EVENING STANDARD WEDNESDAY 5 AUGUST 2015
Design Homes & Property
homesandproperty.co.uk with
REBECCA REID
Favourite
restaurant: the
Street Feast
food market in
Dalston, founded
by Dominic
Cools-Lartigue,
inset, is “a
magical place”
Talented designer: Hannah Lawrence’s wood-fired pottery
Secret escape: Ahern goes to tiny wine bar, Pinch, in Hackney
FAVOURITE RESTAURANT
AL DE PEREZ
Street Feast is my favourite haunt. It’s
a night market in Dalston that runs
through summer. The food and drink
is wonderful, from amazing Korean
burritos and crispy fried chicken to a
gin store and a Tequila Treehouse.
Even though it’s super urban in the
heart of Dalston, as the light fades and
the fires get lit, it turns magical. And I
can take the two Ms.
MONEY NO OBJECT?
If I could splurge, it would definitely
be a Hermit’s Cabin designed by
Swedish architect Mats Theselius so I
could get away from it all (arvesund.
com/en/eremitens_koja_en/). They’re
constructed from reclaimed barn
timbers and come fully furnished.
They’re tiny, with only room for one.
Maybe that’s the appeal?
LAZY LONDON SUNDAY
I’m an early riser, so even for a lazy
Sunday I’ll be up at 6.30am for an
outdoor swim at my local lido. Then
maybe a stroll with the dogs along
Regent’s Canal, and breakfast at the
Towpath Café (36 De Beauvoir
Crescent, Hackney; 020 7254 7606).
My route back takes me via
Columbia Road for fresh flowers.
Then a late lunch that I’ll cook on
the Big Green Egg cooker in our
garden kitchen. Simple, but I love it.
Money no object:
a Hermit’s Cabin
by Swedish
architect Mats
Theselius has
just enough
room for one
Lazy Sunday: an outside lunch using
a Big Green Egg cooker, from £399
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16
WEDNESDAY 5 AUGUST 2015 EVENING STANDARD
Homes & Property Design
homesandproperty.co.uk with
HABITAT FOLIE ►
These modern fairy lights are great for
draping over bushes in the garden as
well as decorating a room. The Folie
design (£30) by Habitat features
40 low-energy LED lights, each
encased in a jewel-toned acrylic cone,
and a 30ft 2in (9.2m) cable. The range
also includes Bridget (£35), featuring
50 colourful beads. Visit habitat.co.uk
LOTUS GRILL ◄
The portable Lotus Grill (£129) is
perfect for cooking outdoors, with its
battery-powered fan to speed things
up. Load the container with charcoal,
switch on, then light, and you can be
ready to barbecue in three minutes.
The switch at the front also acts as an
adjustable heat control — the more air
you draw through the coals, the hotter
it cooks. Available in white, plum, red,
grey, green and yellow, as well as the
orange shown. Visit cuckooland.com
Desi
Design
Desig
es
esig
ign t
ig
By Caramel Quin
UUNI 2 ▲
Serve up wood-fired pizzas in your
garden with the stunning Uuni 2 oven
(£189). Its brushed stainless steel body
— about 19in long — is self-assembly,
but this only takes about 10 minutes.
It’s quick to light, too, burning wood
pellets. Then you can rustle up pizzas at
high speed — cooking takes two
minutes and the oven comes with a
pizza peel to make it easy to insert,
turn and remove pizzas. Fast food has
never tasted so good. Visit uuni.net
garden gadgets
!/,',-,*'/3,
ROBERTS BLUPAD ▲
Roberts, famous for its classic portable
radios, now offers a range of stylish
digital radios and streaming speakers.
The BluPad (£130) is handy around the
house, in the garden and even for
picnics and holidays. Stream music
wirelessly from any smartphone or
tablet. It has Bluetooth with aptX for
superb sound quality, a rechargeable
battery with 16 hours of play time, and
an elegant leather carry case. Visit
robertsradio.co.uk
17
EVENING STANDARD WEDNESDAY 5 AUGUST 2015
Design Homes & Property
homesandproperty.co.uk with
GARDEN PODS ▲
')+'-'/,'-
,
If you want to get away from it all,
these garden escape pods, priced from
£7,999, are out of this world. John Lewis
reports sales of these eye-catching
summer houses are up 59 per cent
compared with last year. The sphere
rotates, so you can follow the sun.
Choose a “lounger” model and you can
lower the table in the middle to the
same height as the seats, so it converts
to a comfortable circular bed with
luxurious three-inch-thick (75mm)
cushion pads. Visit johnlewis.com
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BOWERS & WILKINS AM-1 ▲
Equally at home on a patio, poolside
olside
or a yacht, the all-weather AM-1
Architectural Monitor (£450 a pair)
offers great flexibility. The AM-1 is a
wired speaker, so you’ll need to run
a cable from your sound system
indoors. But it’s also a speaker that
delivers all the stunning sound
quality you’d expect from the highly
respected British company whose
speakers are found in Abbey Road
Studios. Visit bowers-wilkins.co.uk
20
WEDNESDAY 5 AUGUST 2015 EVENING STANDARD
Homes & Property Our home
homesandproperty
Pride and joy:
Dan and wife
Nina relax with
baby daughter
Isla in the garden
LOVE AT
FIRST SITE
Dan Rowland convinced Nina Constantin he was the one
by asking her to look at his radical plans for a run-down
basement flat in Ladbroke Grove. By Philippa Stockley
Y
Photographs: :
#HabitatVoyeur
OU don’t only need your
finances in place when you
plan to buy a property at
auction — you need a fully
functioning imagination
because places that go under the hammer rarely have natural good looks. You
have to see beyond superficial problems
and, on the viewing day, take with you
an architect or a friend who has some
design experience.
That’s the advice of architect Dan
Rowland, 38, who bought the garden flat
he now shares with his wife, designer
Nina Constantin, 36, and their sixmonth-old daughter, Isla, back in 2011,
when it was so different it would now be
unrecognisable.
What followed the purchase is a
remarkable story of love, death and
underpinning.
Constantin, who trained in furniture
and product design in Leeds, runs two
successful design businesses — one that
does shop fit-outs and window displays
for big retailers such as Ted Baker and
Selfridges, as well as a prop-making business originally started by her parents.
Four years ago, Constantin was living
in a shared flat in Notting Hill and,
recently single, decided to go on the
Match.com dating website. She knew she
wanted to meet someone with a strong
design background. Her first date with
Rowland was at Gordon’s Wine Bar at
the Embankment. “He brought out the
plans for this flat,” Constantin says, “and
asked me, ‘Can you read plans?’”
Not your usual chat-up line, but it
worked for Constantin.
Rowland had already done up a couple
of properties while training as an architect. He was living in Dulwich and scouring auction catalogues when the
one-bedroom, one-bathroom basement
flat in Ladbroke Grove came up through
Savills. It was being sold off by a housing
association after the tenant had died.
When Rowland went to the viewing,
the place smelled terrible.
“It was rancid,” he says.
The back garden was piled so high
with earth and rubbish that you couldn’t
tell its size. As well as the living room at
the front, there was an old coal chute
and coal cellar, both full of rubble. A
bedroom and poky kitchen, in a small
dog-leg, were at the back.
At the auction, Rowland overheard his
main competitor say they didn’t think
the flat could be converted into two
bedrooms. “But the minute I saw it, I
knew I would take walls out and make
a three-bedroom flat,” says Rowland.
So, by the time he whipped out those
plans in the wine bar, he had got planning
permission to extend at the back and
drop the depth about 2ft 8in to allow for
a double bedroom at the front, where
there had been the coal cellar (there is
even a window, now), put the master
bedroom at the front, with a terrific bay
that gets so much light it doesn’t feel like
a basement, and a big living-kitchen at
the back. He installed full-height sliding
doors and a French door, so that the back
Light touch:
left, a triple
pendant light is
a striking feature
of the kitchen,
designed by
Rowland
21
EVENING STANDARD WEDNESDAY 5 AUGUST 2015
Our home Homes & Property
y.co.uk with
Natural look:
the light-filled
kitchen has a
bare-brick
feature wall,
while Rowland
made the kitchen
table himself
WHAT IT COST
Flat at auction in 2011: £419,000
Money spent (excluding fees):
about £250,000
Value now: £1.6 million
ROWLAND’S TOP BUYING TIPS
O Take an architect with you. Look at
the big picture, don’t be put off by
superficial things that can be fixed, but
do take advice.
O Check down the street and see what
neighbours have done. Ours had
extended at the back, which set a
precedent that helped convince the
planners.
O Look on Google Earth — you can see
what people in the street have done.
O The difference between a good
architect and a builder is that an
architect is trained to see
opportunities that a builder won’t.
CONSTANTIN’S TOP DESIGN TIP
Lighting is so important, it affects your
mood and sense of wellbeing, as well
as being transformative. I feel anxious
in a badly lit space.
GET THE LOOK
Architecture and kitchen design:
Dan Rowland at studio1architects.
co.uk
Additional design: Nina Constantin at
formroom.com
Appliances: duravit.co.uk
Ceramic tiles in bathrooms from CDS
Tiles, in W11, at cdstiles.com
Steel dimmer switches and other
hardware from Nuline at nu-line.net
Floor-to-ceiling sliding windows by
Sky-frame at sky-frame.net/en
Hand-blown triple lights in kitchen
from Rothschild & Bickers at
rothschildbickers.com
Teal Paintbox rug in third bedroom
from Bluebell Gray at bluebellgray.
com
Constantin sources furniture from
places such as Rockett St George at
rockettstgeorge.co.uk, Not on the
High Street at notonthehighstreet.
com, and etsy.com
Buxus balls in front garden are from
Sangwyn Landscapes, which also built
the garden, at sangwyn.co.uk
O For more on #HabitatVoyeur go to
habitat.co.uk/habitatvoyeur
Opening doors:
centre, Rowland
got planning
permission to
extend at the
back, making
space for the
large kitchen
Stepping it up:
left, the garden
is laid out on
four levels, all
surrounded by
raised planters
wall is almost entirely glass, looking on
to the stylish garden. Here, plenty of earth
was removed and a corkscrew willow tree
was moved to a central spot. With all the
excavating, there was a lot of underpinning and a lot of steel required.
Naturally, Rowland and Constantin’s
second date happened on site. “He’d
taken all the walls out and you could see
right through to the back garden,”
Constantin laughs.
“But that’s when I knew he was the one,
because he talked with such vision and
passion. We see things the same way.”
Rowland was at the house every day
working alongside the builders, and
designing and making things, too — such
as nifty cantilevered steps down to the
third bedroom, and a kitchen table and
bench made of steel and oak.
The three en suite bathrooms, which
use the same palette of ceramic tiles,
sprayed MDF and poured resin floors,
have computer-generated Corian sinks
designed by Rowland.
The kitchen was built on site, bar its
Corian worktop. “That way, it only cost
£7,000,” Constantin says. It also has a
10ft-long glass splashback, which the
builders didn’t think could be done. All
the floors here are polished concrete,
while an exposed brick wall actually uses
surface-mounted, sliced reclaimed
bricks to striking effect. But the first
thing you notice is a triple pendant light
that Rowland watched being blown.
“Lighting is the most important thing,”
Constantin says. “As this was Dan’s flat,
I didn’t have input at the start, but we
worked together on details, and the
interiors and colour schemes. I lightened
it and added subtle tones — pistachio in
the small bedroom, eau de nil in the
master, and yellow and turquoise in the
third bedroom.”
T
HE job ran over time. “By
then, we were desperate to
move in, so we set a date for
a party, regardless,” Constantin says. “Dan and I were literally laying the last bit of terrace as our
first guests arrived.”
It’s hard to believe this spacious, light,
stylish flat — used for the trendy, upcoming #HabitatVoyeur project, the Habitat
home brand’s online “sneaky peek” into
the way creative people live — came from
such an unpromising start.
24
WEDNESDAY 5 AUGUST 2015 EVENING STANDARD
Homes & Property Design
homesandproperty.co.uk with
Crate Britain
T
HEY have always been used
as makeshift furnishings,
but today, crates are part of
that fashionable industrial
look, according to Sophie
Bush, editor of Warehouse Home
(mywarehousehome.com). “There’s a
real feel for freight in London homes,
from upcycled pallets and packing
cases to cargo-inspired cabinets for
storage,” she says.
Crate furnishing is perfect for renters,
adds Joanna Thornhill, author of Home
for Now (Cico, £16.99). “Crates are
strong, hard-wearing and versatile, with
a certain no-frills charm and, when you
move, just shove in your stuff and go.”
This sort of furnishing has a design
pedigree. In 1934, the Dutch modernist
designer Gerrit Rietveld, a leading
member of the De Stijl art movement,
made perhaps the first furniture from
“crate wood”. Today, you can buy a
numbered edition of his chair from
London-based Iconic Dutch — but at
£795, it’s not a normal crate price.
More recently, London minimalist
Jasper Morrison had wine crates in
mind for his pieces for Established &
Sons, which include storage and a chair
(establishedandsons.com). Authentic
old crates are getting pricey. They sell
for £25 to £35 from salvage hunters such
as Chloe Beattie and Dale Broome of
Raspberry Mash in Manchester (raspberrymash.co.uk). Veteran of crates is
Mark Bailey, who has been popularising their use for 20 years and has featured them in his book Imperfect Home
(Ryland Peters & Small, £25), written
with his wife, Sally. The Baileys used to
buy crates from English apple-growers,
but supplies have run dry, and now
they bring in lorry-loads from rural
France (baileyshome.com).
The nicest “new crates” are made by
hand from reclaimed wood, and may
be as expensive as “real” furniture.
A new London company, Reason
Season Time, run by entrepreneur
1
Rupin Rughani, is fashioning pieces
from discarded materials, including
wine barrels in the US and old timber in
India. Particularly striking are the
robust and chunky metal cabinets made
from old metal shipping crates, in
canary yellow — perfect for that London
loft (reasonseasontime.co.uk).
1
A WALL of immaculately assembled
crates in a café in LA was the
inspiration for Swedish studio Rebel
Walls. They got it photographed and
turned it into wallpaper, which costs £33
a square metre from rebelwalls.co.uk
2
2
LOAF’S King Crate Mate shelves are
handmade from reclaimed fir with a
bleached finish. Just over 5ft 4in high,
they are priced at £495. See them at
2 Exmoor Street, W10, and watch out
for a new Loaf store coming soon to
Battersea (loaf.com; 0845 459 9937).
frame. Priced at £827, it is available
from artisanti.com (0345 259 1410).
5
THIS is Kare Design’s Ipanema chair,
using a patchwork of old woods,
decorated with water-based paint and
then wax, £125 from amazon.co.uk
3
A WOODEN apple crate with two
shelves costs £39.95 from
plantabox.co.uk (01392 829977).
6
4
7
THE Peterfield oak storage bench
has four crate drawers, made from
unfinished oak, with a solid wood
A VINTAGE-STYLE Coca-Cola crate
wall shelf (about 2ft high) costs £79
from vincentandbarn.co.uk
BUY a piece of crate history with
Gerrit Rietveld’s chair. Made from
untreated Louro Gamela wood, each
chair contains a chip, is numbered and
comes with a certificate of authenticity
from Rietveld Originals. It costs £795
and is available from iconicdutch.com
8
3
A VINTAGE Schweppes crate costs
£35 from raspberrymash.co.uk
By Barbara Chandler
4
5
6
7
8
26
WEDNESDAY 5 AUGUST 2015 EVENING STANDARD
Homes & Property Outdoors
homesandproperty.co.uk with
Prairie pizzazz
special of effects. Monarda Squaw, for
instance, has the showiest of tufted,
bright scarlet flowers, a bit like a
cockatoo, and makes a great foil for the
flat flowerheads of rusty-orange
Terracotta, which has the bonus of very
pretty fern-like foliage.
Like many prairie perennials, both of
these plants form attractive seedheads,
so don’t cut them back until early
spring.
If you’ve never grown grasses, add a
Stipa tenussima into the mix and you
will see what all the fuss is about —
silken, fluffy plumes that billow in the
wind and shimmer with golden glints
in the late-summer sun. All you need
do is cut it right back in early spring.
Kniphofia Royal Standard is the
classic red-hot poker in shades of red
and yellow, but you could also plant a
subtler-coloured, shorter kniphofia,
such as Tetbury Torch, tinted a luscious
apricot yellow. Both of these would
O For outdoor events this month, visit
homesandproperty.co.uk/events
Some like it hot:
Achillea
Terracotta’s flat
flowerheads
keep on coming
until early
autumn
Gardening
problems?
Email our RHS
expert at: expert
gardeningadvice
@gmail.com
GAP PHOTOS/RICHARD BLOOM
Pattie
Barron
complement the daisy-like flowers of
velvety red Helenium Moerheim
Beauty or my favourite, pure yellow
Helenium Butterpat, with raised,
golden-brown centres.
Prairie perennials will attract masses
of bees and butterflies, but you could
add to the busy buzzing by planting
Sanguisorba officinalis Red Thunder,
because the deep red, bobbly flowers
atop the tall, slim stems resemble permanently hovering insects.
You could also cool things down with
a late-blooming border — or group of
containers — that sing the blues in high
style. This covetable quartet of buddleia, salvia, phlox and verbena will
also pull in the butterflies and bees,
which are attracted to blue more than
any other colour. If you have the space,
mildew-resistant Aster frikartii Monch,
with the familiar lavender-blue daisy
flowers, could be included.
Buddleia is renowned as one of the
finest nectar plants, but if you don’t
have space for one, bring in a Buzz.
Bred by Thompson & Morgan to stay
compact, the four-strong Buzz collection boasts plants half the usual size
— a total height and spread of about
four feet — but with full-size flowers.
My own Buzz Sky Blue is currently
blooming on stems just 1ft 7in long,
content in a container. Verbena bonariensis, with those tall, wiry stems
topped with clusters of mauve flowers,
is indispensable for creating a veil at
the front of a border, but offspring
Lollipop is a smaller version at just two
feet instead of six feet-plus.
Salvias are usefully drought-tolerant
and famously long flowering, and
Amistad, a glamorous newcomer, will
produce its pinky-violet tubular flowers
on long black stems until October, then
start all over again next May.
Blue Paradise is the apt name for a
Phlox paniculata with large trusses of
fragrant lavender-blue flowers suitable
for cutting, so that you can bring a little
of the late summer border indoors.
GAP PHOTOS/DAVE ZUBRASKI
A
T THIS time of year, prairie
perennials, planted in
drifts, are what make a late
summer border look sensational, taking it through
to autumn with plenty of pizzazz.
It’s not hard to emulate the prairie look
if you have a large garden, but if your
patch is small, restrict yourself to just a
few plant varieties, or the prairie look
will become the dolly mixture look.
One of the great features of this kind
of planting — long-stemmed flowering
perennials in rich, fiery shades teamed
with swishy ornamental grasses — is
the varied shapes and textures of the
flowers themselves, such as the bobbly
heads of sanguisorba, the large, flat
discs of achillea and the fuzzy spikes
of red-hot pokers.
Plant these contrasting silhouettes
cheek by jowl and you get the most
GAP PHOTOS/ELKE BORKOWSKI - MID CENTURY MODERN, DESIGN ADELE FOTD & SUSAN WILLMOTT
Perennials perfect for late-blooming borders
Fuzzy flowers: the bottle-brush heads of
Sanguisorba Menziesii crowd the slim stems
Harmonious trio: Kniphofia Tawny King, Phlox
Franz Schubert and Helenium Waltraut
28
WEDNESDAY 5 AUGUST 2015 EVENING STANDARD
Homes & Property Property searching
homesandproperty.co.uk with
Spotlight
Streatham
Little bit
of Payne
but there
is plenty
to be
gained
Family-friendly: spacious properties in Gleneldon Road
) " ((
$& "&$!&$(%+ &.%,
-&%- *& $'$ #%,
Happy days: children enjoy
the sandpit at Benson’s Funfair
on Streatham Common
Getting better: Streatham High Road has seen improvements
It went from posh to
poor with Britain’s
worst high street. Now
Streatham heads for
middle-class heaven,
says Anthea Masey
T
HE owners of the Pratts &
Payne pub in Streatham,
south London, clearly have
a sense of humour. The
“Payne” refers to Cynthia
P ay n e , S t r e a t h a m’s n o t o r i o u s
“Madam Cyn”.
Her sex parties at 32 Ambleside
Avenue, reputedly attended by lawyers, doctors and vicars, came to the
attention of police, who raided the
house in 1978 and again in 1986. Her
subsequent trials attracted huge media
interest.
After the first, she spent four months
in Holloway prison for running a
brothel. At the second trial she was
acquitted of controlling prostitutes.
Still going strong but no longer hosting
parties, Payne, 82, is a popular afterdinner speaker.
For those with long memories, Pratts
was a John Lewis store that closed its
doors 25 years ago. Eventually knocked
Hidden
treasures: the
secret garden at
19 Pop-Up Bar in
Leigham Hall
Parade, SW16
Photographs::
Daniel Lynch
down and replaced by branches of Lidl,
Argos and Peacocks, Pratts is muchmourned and locals blame its closure
for the later decline in the fortunes of
the town centre.
Streatham is five miles from central
London and is bisected by the busy
A23, which runs along Streatham High
Road, named Britain’s worst high street
more than a decade ago.
Since then, millions of pounds have
been spent on regeneration schemes,
reducing many old buildings to rubble.
Caesars nightclub, famous for its
enormous four-horse Roman chariot
sculpture above the entrance, has been
demolished, along with all but the
façade of the old Megabowl building.
After years of delay, the joint venture
between Tesco and the local council,
known as the Streatham Hub, delivered
a Tesco superstore, more than 200 new
homes and a replacement swimming
pool and skating rink close to
Streatham Common. Meanwhile, smart
developer London Square has planning
permission for 243 flats, shops and a
120-seat theatre.
There has also been gentrification as
the middle classes priced out of Clapham and Balham — and in more recent
years, Brixton — migrate to Streatham
in search of big family homes.
WHAT THERE IS TO BUY
Streatham has a mix of Victorian,
Edwardian and later interwar houses,
detached, semi-detached and terraces.
There are also large blocks of Thirties
flats in the Streatham Hill area, mainly
along the High Road. Pullman Court is
a landmark modernist block, designed
in 1936 by Sir Frederick Gibberd.
The area attracts: Gabriel Cunningham, of Foxtons estate agents, says
buyers are coming from the firm’s
sister offices in Battersea, Clapham,
Fulham and Putney and from central
WHAT’S ON THE MARKET?
£500,000
£820,000
£1,675,000
A PENTHOUSE in a listed building in
Copgate Path, with two bedrooms and
great views over parkland (Hamptons).
O homesandproperty.co.uk/copgate
THIS three-bedroom house in Christian Fields,
an exclusive residential road, features a
manicured 100ft rear garden (Streets Ahead).
O homesandproperty.co.uk/christianfields
A SIX-BEDROOM property in quiet Mortimer Close,
Streatham Hill, has been remodelled to create an
excellent entertaining space (Foxtons).
O homesandproperty.co.uk/mortimerclose
To find a home in Streatham, visit homesandproperty.co.uk/streatham
For more about Streatham, visit homesandproperty.co.uk/spotlightstreatham
F
29
EVENING STANDARD WEDNESDAY 5 AUGUST 2015
Property searching Homes & Property
homesandproperty.co.uk with
CHECK THE STATS
■WHAT HOMES COST
BUYING IN STREATHAM
(Average prices)
One-bedroom flat £299,000
Two-bedroom flat £403,000
Two-bedroom house £451,000
Three-bedroom house £558,000
Four-bedroom house £756,000
Source: Zoopla
Welcome sign: new Tesco superstore in Streatham High Road
RENTING IN STREATHAM
(Average rates)
One-bedroom flat £1,180 a month
Two-bedroom flat £1,450 a month
Two-bedroom house £1,509 a month
Three-bedroom house £1,848 a month
Four-bedroom house £2,316 a month
Source: Zoopla
GO ONLINE FOR MORE
O The best schools in and around
Streatham
O All the latest housing
developments in the area
O The lowdown on the local
rental scene
O What the standard of shopping
is like and where to find
Streatham’s best restaurants
O Find out which are the best
streets in Streatham and which
are the most expensive
(not always the same)
O Smart maps to help with your
property search
Out and about: Streatham Common is popular with locals
and east London. There are even
investment buyers from the Far East.
Staying power: people can afford to
upsize locally from flats to houses,
although some families swap Streatham
life for the home counties.
Open space: those living at the northern end of Streatham head to Tooting
Bec Common and the lido, England’s
biggest freshwater swimming pool.
Those at the southern end head for
Streatham Common and The Rookery,
a landscaped park with a café and
views to the Surrey countryside.
Leisure and the arts: Streatham Festival, an annual arts event in July featur-
HAVE
YOUR
SAY
@CJ_Burrows best pub (for
practically everything) is
@TheRailwaySW16 next to
Streatham Common station
STREATHAM
@MsStreatham78 top places
@manorarms @HoodStreatham
@prattsandpayne @BullStreatham
@BrightonWay_LDN
@HomesProperty
ing dance, theatre, music and comedy,
goes from strength to strength, and
there is a June food festival. The Odeon
is the local multiplex cinema. A new
swimming pool, gym, exercise studios
and ice rink have been built on one site
in Streatham High Road. The Hideaway
is a leading London jazz venue.
@daveivermee got to be
London’s best pizza from
@BraviRagazziPiz — if there’s a
queue wait round the corner in
@prattsandpayne #Streatham
@gregburke @BoyceDaRoca for
coffee, @ElephantBakes for
bread, @ililiStreatham for
Lebanese & @RiceRepublic_st for
Chinese food
@rwscissors2010 great
diversity#the bull#the rookery
#hillsidegardens
@joeas_ loads of great places to
eat and drink @BoyceDaRoca @
themanorarms @FerrersLandlord
Travel: the busy A23 London to
Brighton Road runs through Streatham.
There is no Tube station. The railway
stops are Streatham Hill, with trains to
Victoria in about 18 minutes; Streatham,
with Thameslink trains to St Pancras
and services to London Bridge taking
about half an hour, and Streatham Common, with services to Victoria in about
18 minutes. All stations are in Zone 3 and
an annual travelcard costs £1,508.
Fourteen bus routes run through
central Streatham, including the 159 to
Westminster, Oxford Circus and Marble
Arch; the 133 to London Bridge and
Liverpool Street, and the 57 to Kingston
upon Thames.
Council: Lambeth council is Labour
controlled and Band D council tax for
this year is £1,238.70.
TEST YOUR KNOWLEDGE
How did Streatham make British
retail history? Find the answer at
homesandproperty.co.uk/spotlightstreatham
LUMIRE
A development of suites, one, two and
three bedroom apartments.
To be presented at Lumire Marketing
Suite, Barking Road, Canning Town, E16 1EQ
By appointment only between 2pm - 7pm
020 7476 2198
www.lumire-london.co.uk
Computer Generated Image for illustrative purposes only
Computer Generated Image for illustrative purposes only
32
WEDNESDAY 5 AUGUST 2015 EVENING STANDARD
Homes & Property Ask the expert
homesandproperty.co.uk with
Is this private road going to cost me dear?
Fiona
McNulty
WHAT’S
YOUR
PROBLEM?
OUR LAWYER ANSWERS
YOUR QUESTIONS
Q
MY WIFE and I want to
buy a house in a private
road, and the deeds say
we would have “free and
unlimited access” along the road.
The house has stables and we
would like to change the use to
create a livery business — which
will create extra trade, including
horseboxes. The present owners
make a “voluntary contribution”
to maintaining the road of a few
hundred pounds a year. Could
the owner of the road — from a
neighbouring property — sting us
for a much bigger contribution?
A
IRRESPECTIVE of the
wording of your “free and
unlimited access”, this right
will normally be restricted by
the physical capacity of the road.
Where there is an express right of
way like this, I would expect there to
be an obligation to contribute to the
costs of repairing and maintaining
the road. The normal rule is that you
cannot enjoy the benefit of a right
without taking on the obligations that
go with it. You need to look at the title
deeds carefully to see if there is, in
fact, such an obligation.
Is there free and unlimited access
for pedestrians and vehicles? Is the
use of the private road connected to
private usage of the property, or can
the property be used for business
purposes and commercial vehicles?
It is interesting to note that the
current owner has contributed
voluntarily towards the maintenance
costs of the private road. More
information should be obtained in
this regard, particularly as the owner
of the road may have a different
view about whether there was a
binding obligation to pay this money,
rather than it being a voluntary
contribution from your seller.
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 legal
director in the
real estate
team of Foot
Anstey LLP
(footanstey.com)
More legal
Q&As
Visit: homesand
property.co.uk
Q
A
I HAVE a house in Spain that I have used for
holidays for quite a few years, and I would
now like to gift it to my nephew. If I do this,
will I have to pay capital gains tax? This could
make it a bit difficult for me.
THERE is quite a lot for you to consider here
before you make this generous gift to your
nephew, if you don’t want to get yourself into
trouble. UK capital gains tax at up to 28 per cent
could very well be payable on the gift, because a gift
counts as a disposal for purposes of the tax.
The gain is calculated by comparing the sterling
equivalent of the purchase price using the exchange rate
at the time of purchase with the sterling equivalent of
the sale price at the date of sale.
Of course, there may well be no gain, given the state
of the Spanish property market and the exchange
rates recently.
Do note, however, that capital gains tax might not be
payable if you happen to be non-UK domiciled and are
claiming the remittance basis of taxation.
Another consideration is that, in addition to British
capital gains tax, there may be UK inheritance tax
consequences for your estate, should you fail to survive
the gift by at least seven years.
Also, do not forget the Spanish taxes. Spain has capital
gains tax at 21 per cent, with a credit against the UK
liability for any Spanish duty. Spain also has gift taxes,
which can be high — especially for gifts to non-lineal
descendants, which is how your nephew is classified.
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.
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*Travel times approximate only. Prices
and information correct at time of print.
34
WEDNESDAY 5 AUGUST 2015 EVENING STANDARD
Homes & Property Inside story
Diary of an estate agent
Last-gasp deal is
a roaring success
MONDAY
First phone call of the day comes when
I am still in the gym. It’s from a search
agent desperate for a rental property
for an important client.
I have the perfect apartment in mind,
but it’s on sale for a cool £30 million,
so I call the vendor on the off-chance
they will rent it out.
Frustratingly, they’ve already agreed
terms to rent to another party. However, that deal is looking shaky, so we
have until close of play to better it.
We show the flat to the client, who
agrees to meet the asking price of
£20,000 per week. The offer is
accepted — provided the deposit is in
by 6pm. But it has to be wired from
Switzerland and there is a chance it
won’t clear in time.
The race is on. It’s 5pm and our prospective tenant is at London Zoo. I
dispatch my colleague, Murdi, and —
with minutes to spare — the agreement
is signed by the lion’s den.
TUESDAY
A long-standing Russian client is with
us for a meeting today. A man of few
words, he is here to invest £10 million
to add to his portfolio. We have organised a tour of what will become some
of London’s finest addresses, but are,
for now, expensive holes in the ground.
We have already identified the best
development for him. Happy with our
recommendation, he chooses two
apartments and then offers £15 million
for something else we show him, just
as a pied-à-terre.
At 5pm, another client calls to say she
is on her way to Washington airport
and will arrive in London first thing
tomorrow for a full day of house-hunting. We frantically work to organise a
tour. After numerous calls and a lot of
luck, we manage it. Let’s hope she
turns up. Meanwhile, it is time for me
to rush home to collect my bags — I am
off to Hong Kong.
WEDNESDAY
By late afternoon, I land in Hong Kong
and take a breather before meeting a
client for a catch-up over some authentic Chinese cuisine.
Meanwhile, back in London, “Miss
USA” has arrived, so Murdi meets her at
Claridge’s, ready for a punishing tour of
nine houses before lunch, followed by
homesandproperty.co.uk with
another five. Perseverance pays off — as
hopes fade, the last couple of properties
turn out to be gems and Murdi puts
forward an offer. Then it’s back to the
hotel to introduce our friend to some
interior designers.
THURSDAY
Still in Hong Kong, I meet a lady who
recently bought a fabulous house in
London and needs someone to let and
manage it. We’ve met before, but now
is my chance to persuade her we’re the
best firm for the job. I understand her
preference for a low-key approach and
explain that most of our business is
done off-market. It helps that we have
several shared connections who can
attest to how we work, and I leave with
the instruction. Job done, I head for the
airport and line up some viewings.
FRIDAY
I land with a bump. Flash floods overnight have damaged one of our managed properties and the basement is
submerged. While I head over to the
house, Murdi makes calls to get drain
specialists and some good old-fashioned
muscle to help with the clean-up. On a
positive note, we have three viewings
lined up for our new instruction.
And there’s time for one last surprise.
An ex-Wimbledon champion has sent
me tournament tickets to thank me for
work done earlier this year — a nice
serve to round off the week.
O Mark Tunstall is managing director
of Tunstall Property in Knightsbridge
(020 3011 1775; tunstallproperty.co.uk).
36
WEDNESDAY 5 AUGUST 2015 EVENING STANDARD
Homes & Property Letting on
homesandproperty.co.uk with
Watch out, sparky’s about
W
Victoria Whitlock wants her tenants to be
safe — even the pesky ones. But she blows a
fuse over an estimate for routine electrical work
HEN an electrician
I had hired to carry
out a routine
inspection of the
wiring in my fourbedroom rental flat gave me the
estimate for repairs, I nearly fell
through the floor: £5,500.
He said it was necessary to rewire
the whole flat, which would also
mean redecorating, adding another
£2,000 — £3,000 to the bill. As the
work would be seriously messy, I’d
have to ask the current tenants to
leave for at least a month, during
which I wouldn’t receive any rent.
Together, the work would cost me
about £10,000, which was roughly
10 times more than I’d anticipated.
I was gobsmacked, especially as
there were none of the telltale signs
that anything was wrong with the
wiring in the first place. It all seemed
quite modern to me and the tenants
hadn’t reported any problems.
Of course, I wouldn’t want to risk
giving my tenants an electric shock —
not even the most annoying of them
— but no one spends 10 grand
without giving it some thought, so I
thought I would take a close look at
the electrician’s report.
I became suspicious when I saw
that he had classed a faulty kitchen
light as “potentially dangerous”. It is
not dangerous, the dopey tenants are
around the tenants, there would be
no need for them to vacate the
property and no need to redecorate,
so I would save more than £8,500.
My brother, who carries out
property renovations, told me of a
client of his who had a similar
problem. She was presented with an
estimate for several thousand
pounds by an electrician hired by her
letting agent to carry out an
“electrical installations condition
report”, which isn’t a legal
requirement for owners of small
rental properties, but it is a good idea
to have one every five years or so.
Since the electrician deemed the
wiring unsafe, the letting agent
refused to allow a new tenant to
move in until this woman had at least
arranged a date for the electrician to
carry out the repairs.
My brother arranged for another
electrician to take a look. He said
only half the work was necessary,
which he did for half the original
quote, and produced a report for the
agent to show that the wiring in the
property was totally safe. Obviously
The
accidental
landlord
just too lazy to change the bulb.
There were a lot of other items he
had classed as equally dangerous,
such as a couple of loose plug
sockets, which only needed
tightening with a screwdriver.
I started to wonder if this
electrician had gone totally over the
top, either because he wanted to milk
a landlord or, more charitably,
because he was super-cautious.
I asked another electrician for a
second opinion, and — much to my
relief — he guffawed when he read
the first electrician’s report. He
agreed with my layperson’s opinion
that a complete rewire was
unnecessary and suggested he carry
out only the essential repairs, at a
total cost of £1,500. As he could work
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£460 a week: this two-double-bedroom flat with wooden floors, just off
Baker Street in the W1 postcode, is available to rent immediately through
Dorchester Properties London. Visit homesandproperty.co.uk/alrent
O Victoria Whitlock lets three
properties in south London.
To contact Victoria with your ideas
and views, tweet @vicwhitlock
Find many more homes to rent at
homesandproperty.co.uk/lettings
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do so as the risk in most rental
properties is negligible.
Are agents just finding more
ingenious ways to top up their
commission, or are they actually
protecting their landlords and
tenants?
it is vital that landlords make sure
their properties are safe, but they are
expensive enough to maintain
without us being hoodwinked into
paying for unnecessary work.
I have also heard that now some
letting agents are insisting landlords
pay for professional risk assessments
for legionella, a bacteria sometimes
found in water systems that can
cause severe pneumonia, even
though they are not legally obliged to
arantee
(1+1))/2601
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38
WEDNESDAY 5 AUGUST 2015 EVENING STANDARD
Homes & Property New homes
homesandproperty.co.uk with
Grand £2m flats
in soccer trophy
home territory
SMART and prosperous Hadley
Wood in Hertfordshire is a hinge
between town and country.
The north London “super-suburb”
in Zone 6 is on the edge of the green
belt, offering the requisite tennis
club and a respected golf course with
a Georgian clubhouse set on a hill
surrounded by parkland.
Large, detached, early 20th-century
houses and grand Edwardian villas
are popular with celebrities and
Premier League footballers — Arsenal
has a training ground there — who
value the quick commute to central
London. Renaissance, a new
From £170,000: Hanover House in
Reading is popular with commuters
Sm
Sm
By
David
Spittles
From £2 million:
the gated
Renaissance
scheme offers a
country lifestyle
with the city
just a speedy
commute away
development of grand apartments,
is slotting nicely into this area, with
2,743sq ft of SWR heating, air
conditioning and top-notch home
entertainment systems.
Set behind gates, there is basement
parking, CCTV security and
concierge. Prices from £2 million.
Call Statons on 020 8441 9555.
Make the commute this easy
The strike busters
LONDON workers living in
Reading already benefit
from efficient rail links to
Paddington, but it’s not
long now until they can also
take advantage of Crossrail.
According to the local
council, about 24,000 of
the 150,000 residents
travel to and from London
daily. The station, which is
undergoing a £425 million
COMMUTERS “waste” nearly two
million hours each month due to
industrial action, security alerts
and broken-down or unavailable
trains, according to the Greater
London Authority.
And, with another Tube strike
looming, there has never been a
better reason to invest in a city-centre
crash pad. Walking to work from
Square Mile homes can be the
upgrade, has a huge
catchment of commuters
from villages and towns
in Berkshire and South
Oxfordshire.
Small wonder that
Hanover House, a town
centre apartment scheme
in King’s Road, is proving
a hit. Prices start at
£170,000. Call Haslams
on 0118 960 1010.
COMING
SOON
A selection of modern 1, 2 & 3 bedroom
apartments and 4 bed town houses
built around a landscaped courtyard
at 500 Chiswick High Road W4.
Register now for more information
about our exclusive launch event at
www.500chiswickhighroad.co.uk
LIVE A MORE CONNECTED LIFE
solution to getting around strikes.
At St Mary At Hill, tucked away
in an EC3 conservation area between
Monument and the Bank of England,
10 flats have been carved from a
listed maritime insurance building.
The prestigious scheme comes with
a marbled entrance foyer, and flats
feature either terrace or courtyard
space. Prices from £850,000. Call
Galliard on 020 7620 1500.
39
EVENING STANDARD WEDNESDAY 5 AUGUST 2015
New homes Homes & Property
homesandproperty.co.uk with
From £950,000: Chapter Street backs on to green space
From £150,000 to £500,000: Angel’s Courtyard flats in historic Colchester
From £850,000:
apartments at
St Mary At Hill,
above and above
right, come with
open space —
either a terrace
or courtyard
SECRET’S OUT MILLBANK
HOMES ARE ON THE MAP
New apartments are a blessing in Essex
For more pictures,
visit our online
luxury section
HomesAndProperty.co.uk/luxury
ESSEX commuter towns are on a roll.
Despite its Thames Estuary industrial
legacy, 70 per cent of Essex is
countryside, with many delightful
villages and some of the UK’s best
state and private schools.
Regeneration is spreading from
east London and Docklands and
beginning to impact on coastal
areas, such as Southend and
Harwich, as well as Colchester,
Britain’s first Roman city.
Seven Grade II-listed buildings,
including former council offices,
in Colchester’s historic High Street
have been restored and transformed
into apartments.
Called Angel’s Courtyard,
apartments overlook a landscaped
medieval rear courtyard. A show
home opens in September. Prices
range from £150,000 to £500,000.
Call developer City & Country on
01279 817 882.
The stylish Hawkins Wharf
overlooks the River Colne on
the fringe of the city centre.
Developer Weston Homes is selling
apartments priced from £121,000.
Call 01206 796 950.
MILLBANK, best known for
Tate Britain art gallery, is
something of a residential
secret. It has a well-kept
mix of private, council
and charitable housing
and a growing number
of new apartment
schemes, mainly office-toresidential conversions.
Chapter Street, one of
the latter, has 31 flats in
the Art Deco style of the
original building. The block
backs on to Vincent
Square, a splendid
13-acre green space with
playing fields owned by
Westminster School. Prices
from £950,000. Call
Barratt on 0844 8114321.
Launching soon is Abell
& Cleland, in John Islip
Street, a redevelopment
of two former ministry
buildings, with a leisure
complex and concierge.
Call 020 7720 4000.
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