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Homes&
Property
Wednesday 15 April 2015
Trends
Tassels and
trimmings
Page 22
TIME TO GO TO GREENWICH P4 COUNTRY COMMUTING P6 MAKE MALDIVES HOME P10 SPOTLIGHT ON MAIDENHEAD P34
Throw open
the doors
The amazing Seventies
house makeover: Page 26
2
WEDNESDAY 15 APRIL 2015 EVENING STANDARD
Homes & Property Online
homesandproperty.co.uk with
This week: homesandproperty.co.uk
news: £1 million only
works well out of London
£1 million idyll:
a nine-bedroom
detached house
in Sourton, near
Okehampton,
Devon. Through
Miller Town &
Country (01822
617243)
THE price gap between property in London and the
rest of the country has reached its widest point in history
— an average home in the capital now costs more than
two and a half times the price of a home elsewhere.
The record divide, revealed in data from the Land
Registry, shows that a typical London property now costs
£463,872 compared with £180,252 across England and
Wales. The phenomenon is explored in a new Channel 4
documentary, Million Pound Properties, tonight at 8pm.
Property
search
Trophy buy of the week
sky’s the limit in luxury flat
£10 million: if the price tag isn’t enough to take your breath
away, then the super-swish interior of this South Kensington
penthouse will. There’s no limit on luxury in this 3,065sq ft
home that’s made for entertaining, with its dual-aspect
reception room incorporating vast dining and relaxation
space. Polished floors continue to three lavish bedrooms,
each with a sleek en suite bathroom, and glass doors open
out on to a decked roof terrace. Through Foxtons.
O homesandproperty.co.uk/trophy
London buy of the week impress
your guests with fabulous roof terrace
O Read Ruth Bloomfield’s full story at homesandproperty.co.uk
£600,000: here’s a flat you can’t
afford to miss, not only for its W12
location, close to Westfield London,
but for its fabulous decked roof
terrace — perfect for summer parties.
Large windows and ample storage
space make for a light and spacious
interior that’s divided into a generous
reception/dining room in the middle,
wow factor: Britain’s most
appealing barn conversions
£2.9 million:
Oak House in
West Sussex is
set in 80 acres
and it has its own
bluebell wood
RURAL barn conversions are a summer favourite for
Londoners thinking of moving out for open countryside,
rural views and character homes with vaulted beam
ceilings, large windows and space. It’s especially
tempting when they have a winter cinema room and
summer swimming pool. See our pick of Britain’s best
barn conversions from Sussex to Aberdeenshire.
two double bedrooms at either end, a
separate fully fitted kitchen and a neat
bathroom with a power shower.
The nearest Tube station is
Goldhawk Road, while Shepherd’s
Bush Market is five minutes’ walk.
Through Faron Sutaria.
O homesandproperty.co.uk/botw
Life changer period home
offers countryside escape
£1.25 million: bolt holes don’t get much dreamier than
this rural idyll close to the market town of Stamford,
Lincolnshire. The Granary is a five-bedroom, Grade II-listed
home surrounded by riverside gardens. It has stables with
ample space for an equestrian business, a huge greenhouse,
a triple garage, an orangery and a gym — all the ingredients
for a country retreat. Through Murray Estate Agents.
O homesandproperty.co.uk/lifechanger
By
Faye
Greenslade
O Visit homesandproperty.co.uk/barns
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Janice
Morley
VISIT homesandproperty.co.
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Homes & Property, Northcliffe
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@HomesProperty
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O Visit homesandproperty.co.uk/luxeretreats
3
EVENING STANDARD WEDNESDAY 15 APRIL 2015
News Homes & Property
homesandproperty.co.uk with
Is Sam quitting the
Primrose Hill set?
Going Gaga for
a Manhattan flat
É AFTER stepping down from
the steamy Fifty Shades of Grey
sequels, it seems director Sam
Taylor-Johnson is also giving up
her Primrose Hill home.
The artist and film-maker, below,
with her Hollywood actor husband
Aaron, has decided to put the
six-bedroom house on the market
for £14 million.
The property, which the couple
share, has its own lift, a spacious
drawing room and a garden.
Celebrity neighbours include
Matthew Wright and Jamie Oliver.
Sam reportedly paid about
£11 million cash for the house in
2008, and rented it out for £5,750
a week last year.
É LADY GAGA is house
hunting in New York’s
Upper West Side neighbourhood. The Poker Face
hitmaker, left, and her
fiancé, actor Taylor
Kinney, are keen to live
close to Gaga’s parents in
Manhattan. It has been
reported that the 29-yearold pop star would
particularly like a
penthouse with
high ceilings and
outdoor space.
She has been
renting a duplex
apartment for
£14,770 a month for
the past few years
and is said to be
reluctant to part
with its terrace.
Gaga recently
splashed out
just over £16 million
on an estate in
Malibu, Los
Angeles, where it is
rumoured she and
Kinney plan
to marry.
Homes at The Ivy II on menu
REX
É THE IVY in Covent Garden has a loyal A-list following
that includes Tom Cruise, Jude Law and Kate Moss. For
his latest venture, owner Richard Caring has opened a
sister restaurant in King’s Road, Chelsea, which will no
doubt be frequented by celebrity regulars.
The Ivy Chelsea Garden, above, is housed in a
refurbished Grade II-listed building owned by Martin’s
Properties. Flats above the restaurant are available to
rent — there are five one-bedroom apartments from
about £675 per week and a studio that would make an
ideal luxury pied-à-terre. Call 020 7730 5092 or email
[email protected] to book a viewing.
By Amira Hashish
REX
Got some gossip?
Tweet @amiranews
Richard Rogers gives away his celebrated home
BBC ARCHIVE
É RENOWNED architect Richard Rogers
originally put the Grade II-listed Wimbledon
home he designed for his parents on the market
for £3.2 million in 2013 with specialist estate
agents The Modern House.
However, despite its status as one of the most
celebrated homes of the 20th century, it failed
to sell. Now he has generously donated the
four-bedroom house, below, to the Harvard
Graduate School of Design. Lord Rogers, left,
whose major achievements include Centre
Pompidou in Paris and the award-winning
Lloyd’s building in the City, worked on the
project with his then-wife Su in 1968. It has
always been kept in the family — his son
Ab moved in from 1998, further extending
the space.
The single-storey building has a yellowpainted steel frame and glazed façades, while
movable partitions inside allow residents to
reconfigure the structure. It will be an inspiring
resource for students of architecture.
4
WEDNESDAY 15 APRIL 2015 EVENING STANDARD
Homes & Property New homes
homesandproperty.co.uk with
Reach for the sky: Tom Dixon-designed high-rise apartments have launched at Greenwich Peninsula, a luxury development that will transform the area with an entertainment hub and high-spec homes
It’s Greenwich Peninsula’s
The launch of this
riverside district, with
15,000 new homes,
will be London’s
biggest regeneration
project, says
David Spittles
T
HE HISTORIC naval town
of Greenwich will be thrust
into the global spotlight
later this month when
runners in the Virgin
Money London Marathon set off
from Greenwich Park against a
marvellous backdrop of Christopher
Wren architecture, the bending
River Thames and the gleaming
skyscrapers of Canary Wharf.
On the way to Woolwich, the first
stage of the race, runners will skirt
past Greenwich Peninsula, a
seemingly uninviting tract of
waterfront land, recognisable as the
home of the O2 arena.
But how many people know this is
the site of London’s biggest single
regeneration project? A place
where a fresh master plan for a new
15,500-home neighbourhood has
been unveiled?
The vision for this area was
conceived when John Major was
prime minister and it was later
embraced by Tony Blair.
The former Labour leader endorsed
the building of the Millennium
Dome, a giant Big Top, as a symbol
of optimism in London’s future in
the spirit of the 1951 Festival of
Britain, calling it a “triumph of
confidence over cynicism, boldness
over blandness, excellence over
mediocrity”.
But the vision turned sour. The
Dome still exists as an entertainment
venue, but the plan lost its way,
making piecemeal progress with new
waterfront flats and not much else to
commend it except, of course, the
spectacular cable car link across the
Thames to Docklands.
But that vision is back, turning itself
into reality under the guidance of
Chinese developer Knight Dragon.
It bought the 150-acre site two
years ago and plans to join up the
fragmented hinterland and build five
“villages”, knitted together by civic
squares and landscaping displaying
public art and a 1.5-mile riverside
promenade.
ENTICING VISITORS
Leisure and recreation will be at
the heart of this 24-hour community
with bars, restaurants and visitor
attractions.
It will have London’s first major
new film studios, incorporating a
digital arts hub and a Japanese-style,
multi-storey golf driving range.
Luxury hotels, including an
InterContinental with a giant
ballroom for corporate entertainment,
will open later this year, while it is
hoped attractions will lure business
from the West End.
Unlike Canary Wharf at its
inception, Greenwich Peninsula will
be built for families. There will be
schools, crèches and a modern
village hall with landscaping and
river walks where the community
can enjoy this big-sky environment.
International famous architects are
working on the project, and British
artist Conrad Shawcross has been
Homely feel: a
custom-made
copper kitchen
designed by
Tom Dixon
exudes warmth
commissioned to design a beguiling
metallic sculpture as part of a new
low carbon energy centre.
Glass-clad skyscrapers are under
construction, available to buy offplan now. Prices start at £300,000
for a studio and rise to £1.95 million
for a penthouse. Call 020 3713 6153.
Waterman Tower, which has just
launched, has flats with corner
balconies providing dual-aspect
views, plus a communal roof garden
and residents’ club with a cinema,
while Aperture, the contemporary
design community building, has a
café and deli, nursery, event space,
prayer rooms and a two-storey gym.
Leading British designer Tom Dixon
has put his name to a “limited
edition” of flats and double-height,
loft-style apartments at Upper
Riverside, one of the five quarters.
These homes include penthouses
with up to 2,385sq ft of space and
2,350sq ft of terracing.
“We’ve tried to bring in some
warmth and realness, and make
the apartments less internationallooking and a bit more British,” says
Dixon, who has come up with
custom-made copper kitchens and
anodised rolled steel baths.
Residents will be able to use
London’s highest swimming pool,
part of a glass-walled spa with views
of Canary Wharf.
So who wants to live in this new
Eden? A surprising mix of people,
according to estate agent CBRE,
which is selling homes to young
professionals, families and middleaged downsizers from all over
London.
“With homes typically costing
£650 to £800 per square foot,
Greenwich Peninsula screams good
value compared with the western
5
EVENING STANDARD WEDNESDAY 15 APRIL 2015
New homes Homes & Property
Bold décor: a vibrant bedroom at the Waterman Tower
Great views: relax by the river at Barratt’s Enderby Wharf
Movers: the Nellicherry family are loving their new home
time to shine
Modern
masterpiece:
the Waterman
and Fulmar
towers at
Greenwich
Peninsula
side of London,” the estate agent say.
The axis with Canary Wharf on the
opposite bank of the Thames seems
unbreakable.
FAMILY APPEAL
Sanjeev and Sharmilee Nellicherry
lived in New York for 16 years before
coming to the UK to work for
multinationals at Canary Wharf.
They had been renting, unsure
where to put down roots, and after
visiting the plans for Greenwich
Peninsula, decided to buy a threebedroom duplex with views across
one of the new parks.
With two children, one at school in
Blackheath, the couple wanted to live
in a safe, clean neighbourhood
buzzing with activity — and with good
investment prospects.
“It’s a fresh and exciting place, with
lots of activities, and the riverfront
too, which is special, and a lot cheaper
than central London,” they say.
Matthew Ma, 33, is another fan of
this emerging district. He works for a
Canary Wharf bank and currently
lives in Shadwell, but was quick to
buy a two-bedroom flat on the 24th
floor of a new tower.
“The location, the quality of the
architecture and the landscaping and
all the restaurants and leisure places
are coming together nicely. I’m
convinced it’s a good area for a home
and an investment,” he says.
THE WEAKEST LINK
The local Jubilee line station provides
a quick and direct link with central
London and Canary Wharf.
But with 28,000 people expected to
live and work in the district, plus
thousands of visitors coming to
Greenwich every year, transport
connectivity may prove to be
Greenwich Peninsula’s weakness.
The Crossrail station coming to
Canary Wharf will help and there is a
plan to boost the River Bus service.
When approached by road, the
Peninsula looks dreary, while the
route to Blackwall Tunnel is busy and
noisy. Eyesores will take years to
disappear, but Trafalgar Road, the
main vehicle route out of Greenwich,
is smartening up, while a riverfront
strip will feature developments such
as Enderby Wharf, where Barratt is
building 770 homes priced from
£595,000. Call 0844 8114334.
The site was first developed in
the 18th century and was later used
to manufacture the first transatlantic
telecommunications cables and a
cross-Channel petrol pipeline to
support the D-Day invasion.
A cruise liner terminal is earmarked
here, which would be a game
changer for the neighbourhood.
6
WEDNESDAY 15 APRIL 2015 EVENING STANDARD
Homes & Property Commuting
homesandproperty.co.uk with
Banbury is tipped as the best
value area along the line, with a
spread of village homes to suit all
pockets. By Ruth Bloomfield
ALAMY
Explore the
Chilterns
on the
Marylebone
rail route
Television star: Aylesbury ducks cross the village green in Haddenham, which is so idyllic that Midsomer Murders has often been filmed there
M
ARYLEBONE station is
the gateway to some of
the loveliest countryside in the shires, from
the Cotswolds to the
Chilterns. Commuters on this line can
choose from picture-perfect villages,
affluent dormitory towns and retail
heavens, and all come with swifter
journey times to and from the capital
thanks to a recent upgrade in rail
services.
Exclusive research by Savills analysed
the property prices and relative merits
of the 11 station stops that lie beyond
the M25, but within an hour of
Marylebone station, to discover the
best price growth hotspots and affordable options in Buckinghamshire and
Oxfordshire.
GERRARDS CROSS
Affluent Gerrards Cross lies at the
entrance to the Chiltern Hills. It is not
the prettiest place, but has enjoyed the
strongest price growth over the past
year — an impressive 15.5 per cent —
bringing the average house price to
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£1 million: four-bedroom, detached Appletree Cottage in Beaconsfield, at the edge
of the Chiltern Hills, offers fast links to London (homesandproperty.co.uk/apple)
£790,480. When it comes to longerterm price growth since the market
high of 2007, Gerrards Cross is also the
strongest performer, with prices up
23.7 per cent.
The Buckinghamshire town has little
architectural appeal. It is essentially a
commuter town with an affluent
community living in huge houses.
Gerrards Cross Common provides
green space. There is a wide mix of
restaurants and shops, but a large and
ugly town-centre Tesco. A small twoscreen cinema has been there for decades. The town’s strong point is the
25-minute rail service to London. An
annual season ticket costs £2,484, but
factor in the extra cost for the station
car park.
Peter Scott, a director of estate agents
The Brampton Partnership, says the
town’s prices are continually boosted
by an exodus of Londoners from a
swathe of west London — Hammersmith, Ealing and Chiswick in particular — in search of a good choice of
private and state schools. Scott says:
“There is an outstanding church school
for juniors and the 11-plus system
means children can go on to the local
£585,000: 18th-century, five-bedroom semi in Wardington
village, near Banbury (homesandproperty.co.uk/ward)
grammar schools if they pass.” The
reputation of Gerrards Cross as a commuter town is fair — about three in five
of Scott’s buyers work in London — but
he says property is relatively good
value compared to Surrey towns within
a half-hour commute of the capital.
Despite being a commuter town, the
area has a bit of a daytime buzz. There
are clubs covering everything from
angling to horticulture, based at the
community centre opposite the
common.
BICESTER NORTH
Another strong performer is an entirely
different proposition. Prices of properties close to Bicester North have grown
by almost 21 per cent since 2007, on
the back of a strong development pipeline. The average house price is less
than half that found in Gerrards Cross,
at £264,565. However, Bicester North
is a 50-minute train journey from the
capital and the annual season ticket
costs £4,716.
Bicester’s claim to fame is its popular
designer shopping outlet. It is also only
a 15-minute hop from the centre of
Oxford for further retail therapy. Most
day-trip shoppers bypass Bicester
itself, which is technically a market
town but has been overwhelmed by
hundreds of new homes being built in
estates around the original centre.
Terry Steventon, a sales negotiator at
Barton Fleming estate agents, says the
town centre now has a Sainsbury’s and
a cinema, which has drawn people into
the high street but not improved its
looks. Culture is hard to find. Most
people head for Oxford.
What Bicester does have is sound
schools — The Cooper School is “highly
regarded” by Ofsted — and affordable
modern homes. Steventon suggests
budgeting from £325,000 for a fourbedroom detached house.
HADDENHAM & THAME
Buyers looking for a dreamy Buckinghamshire village should head for Haddenham & Thame Parkway station — a
38-minute hop to Marylebone, annual
season ticket £3,844 — where buyers
gravitate towards either Haddenham
itself or nearby Long Crendon.
This is true Midsomer Murders country, and indeed the show regularly films
in both villages. Haddenham is the
7
EVENING STANDARD WEDNESDAY 15 APRIL 2015
Commuting Homes & Property
homesandproperty.co.uk with
ALAMY
£650,000: a
Grade II-listed,
four-bedroom
cottage in
Cuddington,
Aylesbury, on the
market with Tim
Russ & Company
(01844 217722)
Best value: the market town of Banbury is an hour from London by train after a Chiltern Line upgrade
£950,000: this
part-thatched
home in the
heart of popular
Long Crendon
village is for sale
through Hamnett
Hayward. Call
01844 215371
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larger of the two and its popularity with
London buyers means it has a thriving
brasserie, Twist at the Green Dragon,
and a café, Little Italy Espresso Bar,
plus a rather dull parade of post-war
shops.
There is an eponymous junior school,
rated “good” by Ofsted, and seniors are
within the catchment area of Aylesbury’s grammar schools.
Haddenham’s entry price is about
£250,000 for a two-bedroom modern
flat on the outskirts, says Simon
Lazaruk, director of Hamnett Hayward
estate agents. A three-bedroom Victorian semi would be about £500,000,
while the village’s pretty four-bedroom
homes sell for up to £800,000.
LONG CRENDON
Close to Haddenham is the smaller
village of Long Crendon, with a pretty
and immaculate town centre.
Its square is lined with cafés and
shops and it has the AA-recommended
The Angel Restaurant, which is a draw
from around the area. Property styles
are similar to those in Haddenham, but
the village school is rated “outstanding” by Ofsted, which is perhaps why
prices here are a little higher — about
five per cent, says Lazaruk.
BANBURY
The best-value area in the study, with
average prices of £197,626 — up almost
eight per cent in the past year — is
Banbury.
An upgrade of the Chiltern Line in
2011 has slashed journey times to the
capital by 20 per cent to exactly an
hour, and an annual season ticket is
£5,412. Not surprisingly, this has heightened interest in the market town.
“People have started to realise that
North Oxfordshire is very commutable,” says Tom Crump of Anker & Partners estate agents. “Plus you get much
better value here than in other
locations closer to London.”
Banbury’s location offers a sweep of
lovely countryside in the Cherwell Valley. With the Oxford Canal running
through the town it is hard to beat, but
the centre lacks character.
Some ugly post-war buildings mar its
traditional market town looks and, in
a beauty contest with other local
towns, it would not win the tiara.
Like its architecture, the quality of
Banbury’s schools is mixed, with some
lagging badly behind national standards. However, Ofsted does rate some
schools “good”, including Dashwood
Banbury Academy and St John’s Roman
Catholic Primary School.
Crump points out that as well as the
60 -minute journey to L ondon,
Banbury is an easy trip to either Oxford
or Stratford-upon-Avon and right on
the doorstep of the Cotswolds. Its
housing stock is excellent and its prices
will make any Londoner wince with
envy.
A two-bedroom Victorian or Edwardian cottage in the town centre would be
priced from about £175,000.
A four-bedroom modern house on the
outskirts would cost about £350,000,
while a detached four-bedroom period
house would cost between £450,000
and £500,000 — about the same as a
parking space in prime central
London.
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8
WEDNESDAY 15 APRIL 2015 EVENING STANDARD
Homes & Property Renting
homesandproperty.co.uk with
For cheaper rents, just head for the beach
Try-before-you-buy Londoners set their sights on Brighton — the city by the sea. By Ruth Bloomfield
T
interested in state education, Preston
Park is not quite as upmarket, but it does
have good schools. Balfour Primary
School and Dorothy Stringer High
School are both rated “good” by
Ofsted. Preston Park has its own train
station, and also has the advantage of
being close to the main Brighton station.
Expect to pay about £2,500 a month for
a four-bedroom detached house in Hove
Park and up to £2,250 for a similar place
in Preston Park.
Younger renters will want to be more
in the thick of things, enjoying the café
culture, bars, beach and The Lanes for
retail therapy. Next month also brings
BRIGHTON: THE FACTS
ALAMY
HE joy of renting is its
flexibility. And an everi n c re a s i n g nu m b e r o f
London renters, fed up with
the high prices and the
scrum of the market in the capital, are
heading out of town for the summer.
The south coast is a popular choice,
and Brighton is the favourite town for a
few months of commuting, with
cheaper places to rent covering the cost
of the more expensive train fares.
Home owners, also curious to
sample life away from London, are
recognising the strong rental market as
a good opportunity to rent out their
home in the capital for the summer and
take to the coast and country.
The Brighton rental market is still
considerably more affordable than
London’s. According to the Zoopla
property website, a typical two-bedroom flat in Brighton commands an
average rent of £1,266 per month, or
£15,192 per year. A four-bedroom house
rents at an average £1,801, or £21,612 a
year. To put that into perspective, the
average rent of a two-bedroom flat in
Brixton stands at £1,682 a month or
£20,184 a year, and a four-bedroom
house would typically rent at £2,867 per
month — £34,404 annually.
While these rent savings are substantial, the downside is that they will go on
your commuting fare. Brixtonites pay
£1,284 for a Zone 1 and 2 annual travelcard, while Brightonians’ annual season
ticket for travel into London is £4,068.
There is competition for rented
property in Brighton, where average
rent has increased 6.6 per cent in the
past year — with three people for every
available room — but it is not as frantic
as London, where rents have increased
by 11 per cent in the same period.
Paul Hawes, lettings manager at
Hamptons International, says about
68 per cent of his clients are moving to
Brighton from the capital. They are a
fairly equal mix of young singles and
couples fed up with the London rental
market, and families sampling the area
for a long-term move. “A lot come down
between May and August so they can
Left: this fourbedroom semi in
West Drive is
£3,950 a month.
Through
Hamptons
(01273 796063)
Commuting: direct trains to
Victoria or London Bridge take
about an hour. An annual season
ticket costs £4,068.
House prices: the average
property costs £341,938, up 13.2
per cent in the past year and almost
30 per cent since the 2007 peak.
An average house costs £454,156.
An average flat costs £234,644.
Education: local state schools are a
mixed bag. Top choices include
Carlton Hill Primary, Moulsecoomb
Primary and Patcham High, all rated
“good” by Ofsted.
Sources: Savills/Ofsted
Right: a fivebedroom house
in Guildford
Road, near
Brighton station,
is £2,600 a
month. Through
Home Leasing
(01273 767076)
get their children into schools for the
next academic year,” he says. “They
tend to rent for 18 months and then buy
a property — few of them return.”
For those looking for a summer
sojourn, the shortest assured shorthold
tenancy — which comes with legal
protection — is six months. Shorter
contracts are possible, although they
come without the full protection of the
Housing Act and should be treated with
caution. For families, Hawes recom-
mends two suburban locations — Hove
Park and Preston Park. The former is
one of the grandest neighbourhoods in
the area, with a quiet and affluent feel
and plenty of green space. It has excellent private schools. For parents more
the Brighton Fringe arts festival, with a
wealth of music, comedy and theatre.
The obvious location for many young
Londoners is Kemptown — the cosmopolitan and vibrant gay ‘capital’ of the
city, with period property and fantastic
bars, clubs, shops and restaurants.
Kerri Standing, lettings manager at
Bonett’s estate agents, says about a third
of her tenants have arrived from London to try out seaside living, and pay in
the region of £1,000 a month for a twobedroom flat. She says: “They like to be
close to the seafront and Kemptown is
a very bustling place to live. Plus, unlike
London, you can hear the sound of
waves crashing on the beach.”
10
WEDNESDAY 15 APRIL 2015 EVENING STANDARD
Homes & Property Homes abroad
Enjoying the high life: lush vegetation offers the chance to dine in the trees
homesandproperty.co.uk with
Beachside beauties: Soneva Fushi’s luxurious ocean-front villas have made the resort a celebrity favourite for 20 years
Live like a castaway,
luxuries with a villa in
Leave the city behind
and get sand between
your toes — Cathy
Hawker finds homes
by gin-clear lagoons
L
UXURY means different
things to different people,
but hotelier Sonu Shivdasani,
who has built a successful
business out of providing the
finer things in life to customers with
deep pockets, is in no doubt what it
means to him.
“People who live in cities seek a
holiday in harmony with nature, doing
something as simple as walking
barefoot on the beach,” he says.
Shivdasani calls his resorts “intelligent luxury”, a concept he has
perfected at Soneva Fushi, which
opened 20 years ago after the IndianBritish businessman and his Swedish
designer wife, Eva, took a 50-year lease
on a 40-acre island in the northern
Maldives in 1990.
Soneva Fushi features 55 villas and
appears to exert a gravitational pull on
guests — during my visit I met three
London couples who, between them,
had visited the resort 25 times.
It is also a popular bolt hole for celebrities, with Madonna and Paul
McCartney among the star names who
have checked in down the years to
enjoy a castaway-style holiday on an
island shaded by palm trees and
surrounded by crystal clear waters.
To reach Soneva Fushi from London,
guests take a direct 10-hour British
Airways flight to Malé International
airport, followed by a 30-minute hop
on a seaplane to the resort.
In 2011, after the Maldives govern-
ment allowed foreigners to own
property, Soneva Group became the
first company to offer homes in the
Maldives. It has sold 13 properties on
50-year leases at Soneva Fushi,
priced from £1,657,000. All are in the
hotel’s rental pool, with returns averaging four to five per cent.
MAKE DESERT ISLAND
DREAMS COME TRUE
These rustic homes are set in private,
densely planted gardens leading
directly to the beach. Building materials include bamboo and eucalyptus
with palm leaves on the roofs. Open-air
bathrooms are a feature, while paredback interiors feature chunky wooden
furniture.
Soneva has now secured a lease on a
new island, Soneva Jani, an hour by
speedboat from Soneva Fushi.
Currently home to only a handful of
farm labourers who tend the abundant
papaya and banana trees, Jani is a coral
reef-encircled island with a two-mile
lagoon of gin-clear waters lapping a
white sand beach. Due to open in
August next year, building started this
month on 54 villas — 24 over water and
30 on land — with one third for sale.
One- to three-bedroom homes similar
to those at Soneva Fushi are priced
from £1,989,000, including all furniture. Annual maintenance costs will be
two per cent of the purchase price.
“The Maldives has great access and
high tourist demand, so completed
hotels sell quickly,” says Shivdasani.
“Developing a resort, however, is complicated as you have to be both builder
and utility supplier and the government has a glut of available islands.
“We considered more than 40 before
we found Jani. The lagoon in front of
the i sland i s a perfec t marine
reserve.”
It is a rarity in the luxury hotel market
to be an owner and operator, but the
Shivdasanis’ expertise brings a charming quirkiness to their resorts. Former
Vogue model Eva sources sustainable
11
EVENING STANDARD WEDNESDAY 15 APRIL 2015
homesandproperty.co.uk with
Homes abroad Homes & Property
Get right away
from it all:
beautiful sandy
beaches and
crystal clear
waters make the
Maldives a
magnet for the
rich and famous
For more pictures,
visit our new online
luxury section
HomesAndProperty.co.uk/luxury
Ocean views: simply furnished bedrooms look directly out on to the beach
but hold on to
the Maldives
Left: Robinson
Crusoe-style
three-bedroom
villas at Soneva
Fushi start from
£1,657,000
Right: waterslide
fun at a house in
Soneva Jani
materials and thinks of alternative ways
around design problems. For example,
the vast, wooden reels that bring power
cables to the island are turned into bar
tables, while she was probably the first
designer to introduce freestanding
ladder towel rails. The inspiration
came when she walked past bamboo
scaffolding in Bangkok.
HONEYMOON HAVEN
Elsewhere in the Maldives, building has
started at The Ocean Flower, a joint
venture between Dutch Docklands and
the Maldives government. Fifteen
minutes by boat from Malé airport, it
will have 185 fully furnished two- to
four-bedroom floating villas and townhouses priced from £635,000, with no
maintenance charges if placed in the
rental pool.
The much-photographed 1,192 coral
islands of the Maldives set in the vividblue Indian Ocean are holiday and
honeymoon gold. Fewer than 200 are
inhabited and there are 126 resorts — the
government has a policy of one resort
per island — which attract an annual
1.2 million visitors. At Soneva Fushi,
most guests come from the UK, followed by Germany, Switzerland, Scandinavia and Russia, but the Chinese
market is booming and now accounts
for 40 per cent of all arrivals.
“In the 20 years since we opened,
tourism has changed dramatically,”
adds Sonu Shivdasani. “It used to be all
couples, but we have had a huge
growth in families coming for multigenerational holidays.”
The Maldives is an Islamic republic.
Last month the Foreign and Commonwealth Office advised visitors to avoid
large gatherings after street protests
were held in Malé following the arrest
of former president Mohamed Nasheed
under anti-terrorism laws.
O Soneva Fushi: soneva.com;
00 66 (0) 2631 9625
O Christies International Real Estate:
christiesrealestate.com
16
WEDNESDAY 15 APRIL 2015 EVENING STANDARD
Homes & Property Interiors
homesandproperty.co.uk with
New London
hotel with
smouldering
good looks
Two self-confessed ‘daft old gits’ with a
taste for romantic history launch Batty
Langley’s, their latest epic in Spitalfields
this week. By Philippa Stockley
P
OLDARK — what other name
conjures up such seething
emotions? But the chemistry
between Ross and Demelza
in the latest BBC1 adaptation
of the Cornish saga would be unremarkable without the setting of the two
Poldark houses, Nampara and Trenwith, with their candlelit 17th- and
18th-century panelling, old oak furniture, four-poster beds, gold-framed
portraits and vibrant silk curtains.
Who wouldn’t want to live in the sort
of rooms where Aidan Turner as leading man Ross is bound to come striding
in at any moment? Now, with Sunday’s
opening of new east London hotel
Batty Langley’s, you can — at least for
a night or two.
“Atmosphere,” declaims Douglas
Blain, descending a dramatic staircase
that sweeps through the five-storey
Spitalfields building which he and his
business partner, Peter McKay, have
just finished turning into London’s
newest romantic hotel. “Atmosphere
— that’s the most important thing.”
The staircase is based on the one in
Goldsmiths’ Hall in the City. Like all
new hotel stairs, it had to be made of
steel to comply with fire regulations,
just as every panelled wall — and every
single wall at Batty Langley’s is panelled — must have a fireproof core.
However, a carpenter then encased the
steel posts and treads in wood. “And
then we built in squeaks,” says Blain.
How? “It’s a secret.”
Indeed, atmosphere is what Blain and
McKay have created in spades here.
Batty Langley’s joins their previous
ventures, Hazlitt’s in Soho and The
Rookery in Clerkenwell. Batty Langley’s is special, with its best suite, the
Earl of Bolingbroke, featuring four
rooms across two floors and a terrace
with sweeping London views, costing
£1,200 a night.
The hotel’s namesake was a garden
and architectural designer who made
globally published pattern books for
early 18th-century architects and joiners. George Washington’s house at
Mount Vernon in the United States used
them, as did many English houses.
Blain and McKay, who wryly refer to
Red devilment: the parlour, with bespoke buttoned sofa, roaring fire and crimson panelling offers a cocoon of seduction
themselves as “two daft old gits” — “I
must be nearly a hundred, and Peter
can’t be far behind,” Blain jokes — have
been creating exclusive hotels since
1983, when they transformed a defunct
Soho hostel, almost on a whim — and
their course was set.
In the early Seventies, McKay ran a
travel company called Intertrek, going
all over Afghanistan and Africa, but his
wife and small children complained.
Having moved to London in 1962, Blain
was a journalist and antiques dealer
who also restored old houses. “I think
in 3D. I built my first real house when
I was 12, in Tasmania, where I was
brought up,” he says. “I’m the ideas
man, Peter is the furniture man and
fusspot.”
“I drive the staff round the bend,”
McKay adds cheerfully. “But it’s all
about detail. You can’t compromise
on that.” In 1977, Blain and McKay
were also founding members of the
Spitalfields Trust, which saves and
restores old houses. And in 1983 the
Trust had heard of some 18th-century
buildings for sale in Frith Street, Soho,
that it couldn’t take on, but Blain and
McKay were looking for a venture.
“So we went to the bank, said we
needed £500,000 and, astonishingly,
they loaned it to us,” says McKay. After
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17
EVENING STANDARD WEDNESDAY 15 APRIL 2015
Interiors Homes & Property
homesandproperty.co.uk with
sarcophagus, which was flown in from
Tuscany and installed by crane when
the roof was off.
McKay reckons he has driven 30,000
miles scouring the country for period
pictures and furniture that his craftsmen adapt to his design. The superb
mahogany Carlton House desks in several rooms, with secret drawers and
compartments, are pirated from square
pianos, with all the compartments made
bespoke, then French polished.
All the thick mahogany loo seats are
bespoke, too. In some bathrooms the
plumbing, made by their boffin engineer enjoying a Heath Robinson
moment, has cranks and decorative
levers. Everywhere you look there are
things to enjoy — swan head bath taps,
a little brass hand to flush the loo and
shutters with sweet trefoil cut-outs. But
this is the key to the hotel’s charm, for
there is nowhere else like it.
“It’s because we’re bonkers,” says
McKay. “Both of us have quite big egos,
but the thing is, you need to be proud
of what you do in life. It doesn’t matter
what you do, as long as you’re proud
of it. And even though you’d have to be
batty to do this — we’re proud of it.”
Blue Swoon: the Earl of Bolingbroke suite, above. A bath with bespoke copper shower surround, right
O Batty Langley’s hotel (battylangleys.
com; 020 7336 0931) opens on Sunday.
Rooms from £234 per night.
A fine romance:
a decorative
dolphin bath
spigot (far left);
Blain and McKay
in the parlour,
left, and TV’s
Ross Poldark and
Demelza in
search of a
room, right
GET THE LOOK
toying with the idea of creating an
upmarket brothel, they hit on a hotel.
“We had enormous self-confidence,”
says McKay, “but no idea at all about
hotels.” Nevertheless, they “slapped
on a coat of paint, put in some rudimentary plumbing and a Helena Bonham Carter lookalike on reception, and
opened the door. And Nigella Lawson
reviewed us. We’ve hardly had an
empty room since,” says McKay. “It’s
full of household names, but people
hardly know it’s there.”
Hazlitt’s set the pattern that The Rookery, and now Batty Langley’s, would
follow. The front door is locked unless
you are staying, making it a cross
between a private house and a members
club. It doesn’t say “hotel” outside, so
no one walks in off the street, and
there’s no restaurant. “A restaurant is
hell to run and a trap for the unwary,”
Blain says crisply. “We offer breakfast
in bed.”
It has taken more than 20 years to put
everything together at Batty Langley’s
— and cost millions of pounds — but it
all started with converting an empty
Eighties office building, plus a car park
and two adjacent houses, into a representation of an 18th-century inn. Having
built the structure, over the past five
years the pair have gone to extraordi-
BBC
Portrait
photograph by:
David Butler
nary lengths to get the depth of detail
right, including pure wool carpets, the
finest bed linen and 17th- or 18th-century beds as standard.
But you will also find, along with wi-fi,
things such as TV sets concealed in
folding mirrors designed within a Batty
Langley architrave — “I hate to see a
television and have never watched it,”
says Blain. Or, in the best suite, an
immense marble bath the size of a
O Tapestry cloth in the tapestry
room from Hines of Oxford at
hinesofoxford.com
O Silks for bed covers and curtains
from sources such as Warwick Fabrics
at warwick.co.uk
O Paintings and furniture from
various auction houses — try the-saleroom.com
O Bed linen by the Fine Bedding
Company at finebedding.co.uk
O Furniture restoration by Charles
Jarvis at charlesjarvisltd.co.uk
O P a i n t s b y Fa r r o w & B a l l a t
farrow-ball.com
O Mature olive trees and other
plants by Evergreen Exterior Services
at evergreenext.co.uk
O Faux lead planters by Capital Garden Products at capital-garden.com
O Antique baths re-enamelled by
specialist Hytech Enamelling at
hytechenamellers.co.uk
O Some antique baths and fittings
from central source salvo.co.uk
22
WEDNESDAY 15 APRIL 2015 EVENING STANDARD
Homes & Property Interiors
homesandproperty.co.uk with
Design
Desig
ign trends
ig
tre
re
end
nds
s
“It dripped off wall hangings,
adorned beds and hung over doors.
Arch exponents were the decorators
for Napoleon and the Prince Regent —
the Green Drawing Room at Windsor
Palace is a supreme example.”
Today, trimmings are no longer the
sole property of the elite — the major
fabric houses sell them in spades.
Brands to watch are Osborne & Little,
Colefax and Fowler, Zoffany and
Designers Guild.
Samuel & Sons hail from New York,
with a chic modern style. At Nada
Designs (nadadesignsltd.com),
products are individually made
using the finest yarns of Egyptian
cotton and silk.
London duo Robbie Spina and
Joe Zito, of boutique brand Spina
Design (spinadesign.co.uk), create
fringing, tassels and tiebacks that
add a contemporary edge to
traditional trimmings, using
crystal and precious stones, rivets,
feathers, exotic woods, suede, dip
dye and more.
Wendy Cushing (trimminginteriors.
com) sparked a trimming revival
when she set up shop in 1984.
She is the go-to restoration expert
for prestigious bodies such as the
National Trust, and she designs for
many exclusive furnishing brands.
“Trimmings are like jewellery,” she
says. “But don’t be timid. Trimmings
can make a plain cloth look fabulous.”
By Barbara Chandler
Grand design:
giant tieback with
huge “skirt” of
ostrich feathers,
£1,285 from
spinadesign.co.uk
F
RINGES, tassels and ruching
— fashion has fallen in love
with trimmings. They were
paraded lavishly on the
spring/summer catwalks,
and trumpeting the trend for interiors
is next week’s Decorative Antiques &
Textiles Fair at Battersea Park.
Exhibitors there will show a veritable
panoply of vintage passementerie —
that’s the posh word for trimmings in
the interior design lexicon.
Passementerie comes from the
French for a maker of ornate work,
and traditionally it took apprentices
— called passementiers — seven years
to become a master. They made
tassels, fringes, cords, rosettes,
pom-poms and more by hand.
At the fair, decorators will snap
up boxes of vintage trimmings,
along with one-off lampshades and
trimmed upholstery.
Pimlico art dealer Charles Plante is
fashioning a Regency room setting,
inspired by drawings and paintings of
interiors. “Passementerie was once
the mark of elite interiors,” he says.
Bright and beautiful: Cambridge collection cords, cushions
and braids at Samuel & Sons, (samuelandsons.com)
Blue is the colour: this ribbon ruche is ideal for trimming a
lampshade. It costs £22 a metre at osborneandlittle.com
O Decorative Antiques & Textiles Fair,
Battersea Park, from April 21-26;
decorativefair.com (020 7616 9327).
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23
EVENING STANDARD WEDNESDAY 15 APRIL 2015
Exhibition Homes & Property
homesandproperty.co.uk with
Discovering a doyenne of Art Deco design
Sonia Delaunay’s
use of colour and
pattern is celebrated
at Tate Modern.
By Corinne Julius
Visit our online luxury site
HomesAndProperty.
co.uk/luxury
C
A bold approach:
left, Simultaneous
Dresses (The
Three Women) at
Tate Modern;
above, Textile
(1967), £12,438 at
1stdibs.com from
Galerie Hadjer;
right, Sonia
Delaunay at
work in 1965
“The fact that she worked across all
media is one of her strengths.”
Delaunay, like her work, was no
shrinking violet. Born in Odessa in
1885, at the age of seven she was sent
to live with an uncle in St Petersburg.
She attended art school in Germany,
and entered into a marriage of convenience with a gay art critic in order to
stay abroad. She travelled to Paris in
1906 to join the emerging avant-garde
and wed the artist Robert Delaunay.
Together they developed Simultaneism
— abstract compositions of dynamic
-+
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ONCENTRIC circles, fractured squares, misaligned
rectangles and blocks of
every imaginable hue as
long as they were bright and
bold, such were the patterns and colours that made up the textiles, furniture, mosaics, fashion and paintings of
Sonia Delaunay.
Her designs came to epitomise the
Art Deco movement and subsequently
changed the use of colour and pattern
in interiors. A new exhibition at Tate
Modern, the first comprehensive
British retrospective of her work, is set
to re-energise the use of colour in
interior design.
Delaunay’s experimentation in the
decorative arts allowed her to escape
the purely academic approach and
stemmed in part from her East European background, in which the applied
arts were considered no less important
than painting and sculpture. “She
brought art into everyday life,” says
Juliet Bingham, the show’s lead curator.
contrasting colours and shape. In 1913,
she produced and wore her first dress
of bright patchwork colours. In the
same year she and her husband showed
at the famous Der Sturm gallery in
Berlin. Her work expressed the energy
of modern urban life, celebrating the
birth of electric street lighting and the
excitement of contemporary ballets.
Iconic examples of these works at Tate
Modern include Bal Bullier (1913) and
Electric Prisms (1914).
In 1926, she set up her own business
with the couturier Jacques Heim, creating clothes, rugs and furnishing fabrics.
Her Atelier Simultané in Paris produced
radical designs for scarves, umbrellas,
hats and shoes. Clients included
Hollywood star Gloria Swanson, architect Ernö Goldfinger and department
stores, including Liberty and Metz & Co
in the Netherlands. She went on designing for Metz until the Sixties.
After her husband’s death in 1941,
Delaunay’s work became more geometric. Her painting career continued until
her death in 1979 and her influence can
be seen today particularly in a profusion of modern designs for rugs.
O The EY Exhibition: Sonia Delaunay
is at Tate Modern from April 15 to
August 9. Open daily from 10am to
6pm (until 10pm on Friday and
Saturday), tate.org.uk
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26
WEDNESDAY 15 APRIL 2015 EVENING STANDARD
Homes & Property Our home
homesandproperty
Clever storage: bedroom space is put to practical use, while doors in bold teal make a style statement
Perfectly
matched
for the job
A couple who met online turned a Seventies
home into a vibrant showpiece, right down to
the exotic fish. By Philippa Stockley
The den: friends
thought the
couple were
“mad” to have a
16ft basement
carved out of the
garden but it
created space
for a gym for Viki
and Mike and a
playroom, left, for
their son, Leo
A
TTENTION to detail and
clever use of colour have
helped Viki and Mike
Lander turn their house,
in Wandsworth’s exclusive
Spencer Park, into something rather
special.
It’s unusual to walk into a London
home and come face to face with a
sparkling aquarium wall full of
glistening exotic fish. But it’s even
more amazing that the fish match the
bespoke, lacquered TV surround
visible through the tank. “It’s not
amazing really,” says Viki, “because I
chose the fish to go with it.”
Vicki, 42, and her 50-year-old
husband have completely remodelled
the property, adding half as much
space again.
“People use so much white because
they’re afraid of going wrong,” says
Viki, “but a home needs colour.”
As if to demonstrate that fact, sharp
lime green Ligne Roset Pop chairs in
the sitting area seem to match the
spring grass outside.
You could say that Viki and Mike
matched themselves, too. In 2006,
Viki, who was running her own
graphic design agency while doing up
her home as a sideline, was bored with
being single. So her brother said that if
she would roast a chicken, over supper
he would post online dating profiles
for Viki as well as himself.
Not long after that, Viki arranged to
meet Mike. “We were inseparable from
that moment. My friends all said, ‘He’s
Exotic: even the tropical fish were chosen to match the fixtures and fittings
the one’,” she says. The new couple
owned their flats in Chiswick and
Clapham, but a year after getting
married in 2007, they bought a house
in Clapham Common that had been
hacked into five bedsits, and set about
turning it back into a single home.
Mike, who had a consultancy
business, loved doing this as much as
Viki. The couple had already
completed six refurbishments
between them, so they hatched the
idea of turning their passion into a
joint career. Viki would handle design
and Mike, with his project
management background, the
process. But when should they make
the leap? Life is always about timing,
and their son Leo’s birth at the end of
2012 was the turning point.
They wanted a property to turn into
a family home, with a generous garden
as a priority. In early summer 2013
they saw a plain-looking Seventies
townhouse advertised by Knight Frank.
“Within 72 hours we bought it,” says
27
EVENING STANDARD WEDNESDAY 15 APRIL 2015
Our home Homes & Property
homesandproperty.co.uk/luxury
y.co.uk with
Visit our
online
luxury
section
Photographs by:
Adrian Lourie
and
Darren Chung
Viki. “I’d already designed a basement
while we were viewing.” Desirable
Spencer Park is surrounded by a big
loop of grand Victorian houses. In
1972, a speculator demolished one
mansion and replaced it with a terrace
of four modern houses, one of which
the Landers bought.
“It was hideous,” says Viki. “There
was a tired white kitchen, nonsensical
room divisions, a stupid staircase
stuck in the middle and a plastic
extension on the back, complete with
plastic windows, that the neighbours
called the Taj Mahal.
“The garden was a thicket of
overgrown climbers and rotten
decking.”
S
INCE the house was set on a
deep concrete slab, Viki
had the bold idea of carving
out a 16ft-deep basement
under the garden to make a
playroom for Leo and a top-of-the
range gym for her and Mike.
“Everyone said that was mad,”
she says.
They sailed through planning
without a hitch, broke ground in
March last year, and finished just nine
months later, moving in two days
before Christmas.
That sort of excavation comes at a
price, of course — not to mention 250
skips full of rock and subsoil that
thundered relentlessly out of the front
door on a conveyor belt. The family
sensibly decamped to a rented flat. On
the ground floor the house has been
opened up and the staircase shifted to
one side, making a huge, bright living
space, with the former garage turned
into an office for the couple’s new
design business.
This sleek space flows through to the
garden, which has an impressive
light oak deck that turns out to be a
modern composite — no splinters for
tiny feet — and three big Portuguese
pom pom laurels.
Right down to the coffee maker,
everything in this home has been
considered, particularly for colour.
Against the grey wool carpet and soft
Little Greene Limestone paint that
runs throughout, Viki has used strong,
contemporary colours, but these are
softened by the luxurious, heavy, shot
silk curtains in the bedrooms, and
interesting bespoke feature
wallpapers.
In the third bedroom, for example,
the wall the bed sits against is covered
in a photographic paper of vivid birds
perching on the boughs of trees.
In the couple’s own large en suite
bathroom, the floor is patinated block
parquet — a surprise against the
imitation marble ceramic tiles, but it
works well, and adds a hint of
Versailles ballroom to the overall
boutique look.
What is particularly nice about this
house is that this Seventies building,
which once seemed a fish out of water
in such a historic area, now has the
right interior to help it stand out.
Pops of colour: Viki, Mike and son, Leo,
main picture, enjoy the light, bright
living space, where lime green chairs
echo the spring grass in the generous
garden, above left. A hand-painted
Winnie-the-Pooh mural is a charming
bathroom addition, above. Strong
colours make the perfect foil for soft
neutrals, left
WHAT IT COST
O House in 2013: £2.05 million
O Money spent (if all fees had been
included): £1.49 million
O Value now: £4 million (estimate)
GET THE LOOK
O Design and interior architecture
by ensoul.co.uk
O Builder: Marcin Grz yb at Eco
Home Constructions (ecohomeconstructions.com)
O Dinosaur wallpaper in basement
by Sian Zeng (sianzeng.com)
O Kitchen by TM Italia from Hub
Kitchens (hubkitchens.com)
O L amps over kitchen table:
Heracleum II by Bertjan Pot for Moooi
(moooi.com)
O Ligne Roset Pop chairs now collectable, try ebay.co.uk etc; for Ligne Roset
current range see ligne-roset.co.uk
O Oven, fridge, dishwasher from
Miele (miele.co.uk)
O Square Edge 12 bath in master
bedroom by Villeroy & Boch (villeroyboch.co.uk)
O Porcelain Carrara-style tiles in
master bathroom from Style! (styleideas.co.uk)
O Gare Du Nord Vintage Oak Parquet
from Broadleaf Timber (broadleaftimber.com)
O Pattern Jay wallpaper with birds by
Photowall (photowall.co.uk)
O Limestone paint by Little Greene
(littlegreene.com)
O Hand-painted Pooh Bear mural by
Carren Lu at artistic-touch.co.uk
30
WEDNESDAY 15 APRIL 2015 EVENING STANDARD
Homes & Property Outdoors
homesandproperty.co.uk with
Allow a little chaos
to blossom in your
own piece of Eden
Take inspiration from Kate Winslet’s new film
and add a dash of wild charm à la Versailles
T
is commissioned to create an outdoor
ballroom within the royal gardens at
Versailles by King Louis XIV’s landscape
architect, André Le Nôtre (Matthias
Schoenaerts), who was, as we know, the
master of symmetry.
However, when he visits De Barra to
check out her own tiny garden in a converted stable, completely charmed, he
proclaims: “This abundance of chaos...
is your Eden?” and, of course, De Barra
gets the gig.
That glimpse we have of her Eden — of
foxgloves growing cheek-by-jowl with
arum lilies, of hanging lanterns and a
shell-clad wall fountain — is enchanting,
and makes a great case for introducing
a little chaos, a little individuality, into
our own gardens.
You might, for instance, soften the
lines of container topiary — a lasting
legacy of Versailles — by planting bacopa
around its feet to add a fresh, lacy,
green-and-white ruffle that will last
through summer and beyond. London
clay is not ideal for French lavender, so
like De Barra, grow it in generous
terracotta pots, and keep them by the
garden bench so you can run your
fingers through the aromatic foliage.
A little chaos is charming, but a lot is
not, so rout out the dockweed and introduce a few choicer weeds, allowing
them to spread themselves, giving the
garden an organic feel. Main contenders
to bring in are the small pink-and-white
daisy Erigeron karvinskianus, which
frequents all the grand English gardens,
yellow Welsh poppy and the dusky
MARIANNE MAJERUS/DESIGN: INGER LAAN
Pattie
Barron
HIS Friday is the first ever
National Open Gardens
Day, in which gardens all
over the country, including
RHS Wisley and Hyde Hall,
open their gates for free to encourage
us all to get gardening.
It is also the day when A Little Chaos,
the official movie of this week’s National
Gardening Week, opens in cinemas.
Kate Winslet plays fictitious unknown
garden designer Sabine de Barra, who
Sitting pretty:
create an
intimate corner
by surrounding a
seat with flowers
A lighter touch:
Kate Winslet
plays ingénue
garden designer
Sabine de Barra
Fragrant
flowers: soften
a bare wall by
planting a
rambling rose,
such as Seagull
) " #
((
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,&%, *& $'$ #%+
MARIANNE MAJERUS/DESIGN: LYNETTE HEMMANT
purple hanging flowers of Cerinthe
major Purpurascens. Replace brambles
with a small, thornless blackberry, such
as Lowberry Little Black Prince (lubera.
co.uk), and in shady spots, plant Vinca
minor so weeds don’t have a chance to
grow between the trails of dainty green
leaves and lilac periwinkle flowers.
Clothe a bare wall with foliage, but
there’s no need to smother it. Instead,
create a delicate green tracery by pinning ivy stems on wire in gentle swirling
patterns. Or let a Clematis Étoile Violette, with flowers a rich shade of violet,
scramble through pink climbing rose
New Dawn. All you need do is cut the
clematis right back in early spring.
Let the grass grow a little and give your
lawn a labyrinth by mowing in a spiral,
and create a mini meadow by planting
bulbs of wild daffodil Narcissus pseudonarcissus in autumn. Bring a little
disorder into the borders by growing
antique roses over hoops or bamboo
U-canes. The starring rose in A Little
Chaos is the silvery pink Quatre Saisons,
a highly perfumed Damask rose that,
unusually, blooms again in late summer
(davidaustinroses.co.uk). Mix fruit with
flowers, adding “maypole” apple, pear
or plum trees that offer springtime blossom (kenmuir.co.uk).
Go one better than De Barra’s woodland pink foxgloves and seek out the
ravishing hybrid apricot foxglove, Suttons Apricot. This is the moment, too,
to buy young sweet pea plants to train
up rustic poles or an arch, for bunches
of fragrant flowers all summer long.
At the start of the film, the Sun King
(Alan Rickman) proclaims of the gardens at Versailles: “Heaven shall be
here!” — which is also something to
aspire to in your garden, creating your
own personal heaven, with a glorious
abundance of chaos.
O For outdoor events this month, visit
homesandproperty.co.uk/events
O Garden queries? Email our RHS
expert at expertgardeningadvice@
gmail.com
34
WEDNESDAY 15 APRIL 2015 EVENING STANDARD
Homes & Property Property searching
WHAT’S ON
OFFER
homesandproperty.co.uk with
Spotlight
Maidenhead
A BRIGHT and stylishly presented
first-floor one-bedroom
apartment in the sought-after
river area off Ray Park Avenue.
Through Kirkwood.
O homesandproperty.co.uk/flint
Crossrail will boost the fortunes of a town that
lost its good looks thanks to the planners, but
is now in for a facelift, says Anthea Masey
£650,000
THIS three-bedroom detached
house has had a sympathetically
designed extension and offers
spacious and flexible living.
Through Hamptons.
O homesandproperty.co.uk/harr
£1.95 MILLION
AN IMMACULATELY presented
five-bedroom detached house,
featuring a soundproofed
cinema room, in sought-after
River Gardens in Bray. Through
Hamptons.
O homesandproperty.co.uk/bray
A
T THE heart of Britain’s
Silicon Valley in Berkshire,
the Thameside town of
Maidenhead has pulled in
big pharmaceutical and
telecommunications employers including GlaxoSmithKline and Adobe.
The planners have done their best to
turn a pretty town — which lies 30
miles west of central London — into a
concrete confusion over the years, to
the detriment of its community which
deserves a better environmental
experience. However, the natural
beauty of the riverside walks, nearby
villages and countryside means there
is still much to enjoy for the many London families who move to Maidenhead
for better schools and bigger homes.
The town has experienced two eras
of growth, both of which followed
improvements to its transpor t
infrastructure. The first was after 1280
when a bridge was built across the
Thames and Maidenhead became a
coaching centre on the London to Bath
road. The second came after 1839 when
Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s Great
Western Railway arrived.
Now, with Crossrail on the horizon,
Maidenhead is primed for its third great
transport revolution. From 2019 there
will be four Crossrail trains an hour
with journey times of 26 minutes to
Heathrow, 41 minutes to Bond Street
and 55 minutes to Canary Wharf.
WHAT THERE IS TO BUY
Maidenhead’s finest homes are along
the river. Elsewhere there is a mix of
period and more modern houses, as
well as new-build flats. The surrounding villages offer period houses and
cottages. Estate agent David Redman
from Hamptons International says onebedroom flats sell for up to £250,000,
ALAMY
£175,000
Change is in
the air down
by the riverside
Water world: a canal boat at Boulter’s Lock on the Thames, east of the town
cottages from £400,000 and large
detached houses from £800,000. The
price per square foot is between £400
and £500.
The most expensive house within a
three-mile radius of Maidenhead is
Medmenham Abbey, a Grade II-listed
riverside property with a cinema and
a gym, plus a swimming pool out in the
landscaped garden. Between Henleyon-Thames and Marlow, it’s on the
market for £10 million. Call Knight
Frank on 020 7861 1078.
The area attracts: Redman says at
least 35 per cent of his buyers are
families moving from London in search
of a larger house in an area with good
commuter links to the capital.
Staying power: once children are
settled into schools, families tend to stay
in the area.
Postcodes: the best postcodes are SL6
for the River Thames area of Maiden-
head, Cookham, Bray and the Fisheries, and SL1 for Burnham Beeches and
the surrounding area.
Best roads: Fishery Road in Bray;
Berries Road and Terry’s Lane in
Cookham; Dean Lane, Islet Road and
Court Road in the riverside area, and
Green Lane, Poyle Lane and Dropmore
Road in Burnham.
SHOPPING AND EATING
For an area with such a large influx of
workers to sustain the daytime economy, Maidenhead’s town centre has a
downtrodden appearance.
However, the local council is attempting improvements with action promised in eight key development areas.
Nicholsons, the town’s main shopping
centre, has branches of Argos, Clarks,
Dorothy Perkins, Iceland, Next, Superdrug, Topshop and Tesco.
The riverside village of Bray is a
To find a home in Maidenhead, visit homesandproperty.co.uk/maidenhead
For more about Maidenhead, visit homesandproperty.co.uk/spotlightmaidenhead
35
EVENING STANDARD WEDNESDAY 15 APRIL 2015
Property searching Homes & Property
homesandproperty.co.uk with
CHECK THE STATS
■WHAT HOMES COST
BUYING IN MAIDENHEAD
(Average prices)
One-bedroom flat £224,000
Two-bedroom flat £368,000
Two-bedroom house £382,000
Three-bedroom house £504,000
Four-bedroom house £772,000
Source: Zoopla
RENTING IN MAIDENHEAD
(Average rates)
One-bedroom flat £909 month
Two-bedroom flat £1,286 a month
Two-bedroom house
£1,273 a month
Three-bedroom house
£1,388 a month
Four-bedroom house
£2,180 a month
Source: Zoopla
ALAMY
GO ONLINE FOR MORE
DANIEL LYNCH
Retail therapy:
Maidenhead High
Street, above;
cruising on the
Thames, right
Plenty of
big-name chains:
Nicholsons
shopping centre
in town
TEST YOUR KNOWLEDGE
Why did an overweight waterfowl
fly Down Under?
NEXT WEEK: Barnes. Do you
live there? Tell us what you
think @HomesProperty
Find the answer at
homesandproperty.co.uk/spotmaid
REX
LEISURE AND THE ARTS
Norden Farm Centre for the Arts in
Altwood Road is a theatre that puts on
a busy programme of comedy, films,
plays and children’s shows. The 20th-
century painter Sir Stanley Spencer
spent most of his life in Cookham and
the Stanley Spencer Gallery in the
village, dedicated to his life and works,
has more than 100 paintings and drawings, including many of his finest.
There is an Odeon multiplex cinema
in King Street. The Magnet Leisure
Centre in Holmanleaze is the councilowned swimming pool with a 25-metre
pool and a leisure pool. There is a
20-metre pool at the David Lloyd gym
in Grenfell Place.
Golf is very popular locally and players are well catered for at Maidenhead
Golf Club in Shoppenhangers Lane,
Temple in Hurley, Burnham Beeches
and Winter Hill — owned by the John
Lewis Partnership, in Cookham.
Travel: Maidenhead is close to junctions 8 and 9 of the M4. There’s easy
access to the M25, M40 and A404. Fast
trains to Paddington from Maidenhead
station take about 25 minutes and an
annual travelcard costs £2,908.
Council: the Royal Borough of
Windsor and Maidenhead is Conservative-controlled and Band D council tax
is £1,160.57.
DANIEL LYNCH
gastronomic paradise. Celebrity chef
Heston Blumenthal’s The Fat Duck is
closed for refurbishment until later this
year, but the Roux family’s three Michelin-star The Waterside Inn is also in the
village, along with Blumenthal’s two
gastropubs — The Crown and The Hinds
Head; the latter has one Michelin star.
Also in Bray is Caldesi in Campagna,
an Italian restaurant specialising in
food from Tuscany.
Open space: worth discovering is
Maidenhead Thicket, a wild area
between Maidenhead and Marlow.
Once the haunt of highwaymen, it is
now owned by the National Trust. The
Cliveden estate in Taplow is also owned
by the National Trust. Set high above
the Thames, there are formal gardens
and woodland walks.
Burnham Beeches is 540 acres of
ancient woodland famous for its beech
and oak pollard.
O The best schools
O All the latest housing
developments in Maidenhead
O How this area compares with the
rest of the UK on house prices
O Smart maps to plot your
property search
36
WEDNESDAY 15 APRIL 2015 EVENING STANDARD
Homes & Property Ask the expert
homesandproperty.co.uk with
Pushy buyers have no right to early access
Fiona
McNulty
WHAT’S
YOUR
PROBLEM?
OUR LAWYER ANSWERS
YOUR QUESTIONS
Q
MY SISTER and I have
power of attorney for our
mother and are moving
her into a residential care
home and selling her house to pay
the fees. The property is our old
family home and is quite large, but
run-down. The buyers know that
the house is going to be empty
soon and have started hassling us
about having access to it for them
and their workmen. We have not
even exchanged contracts and my
sister and I are finding their pushy
attitude quite upsetting. We
cannot afford to put off the buyers,
but do not want them having
access at this stage. What options
do we have?
A
IT IS entirely up to you
whether you allow the buyers
access into the property
prior to completion. If you
have selling agents, ask them to
explain your situation to the buyers.
Some sellers, particularly if a
property is unoccupied, allow buyers
into it between exchange of contracts
and completion to get estimates for
works to be done, and to measure
up for carpets and curtains and
the like.
If this is something you may be
prepared to entertain, discuss it with
your solicitor so that such access can
be on a formal basis.
Your solicitor can find out from the
buyers’ solicitors why access is
needed between exchange and
completion and can prepare a key
undertaking. The buyers would have
to sign that and it would confirm the
basis upon which they are allowed
into the property and the purpose
for which access is being granted.
It would also deal with such matters
as insurance and for the return of the
key at the end of each day.
There could also be a clause in
the contract dealing with access
arrangements between exchange
and completion.
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
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2
Q
MY HOME is in Norfolk and I own two flats in
London, which I bought as investments. I
have had one of the flats for 10 years, and my
mother lives in it. The other, which I have had
for six years, has been let out to various tenants but is
now occupied by my brother, who has recently
divorced. He will be moving out soon to get his own
place, so I am considering gifting or selling that flat to
one of my daughters, who is moving to London.
Would capital gains tax be payable?
A
CAPITAL gains tax may be payable if you dispose
of a property, unless relief is available to you.
Accordingly, if you dispose of the flat by gifting or
selling it to your daughter, the tax may be payable.
On a gift between spouses or civil partners who live
together, the recipient takes on the base cost of the donor
so no capital gains tax is payable, but this does not apply
to gifts to children.
Capital gains tax is payable on the profit or gain you
make when you dispose of a property. If the flat had been
your home, then principal private residence relief might
have been available in certain circumstances.
The gain is usually the difference between what you
paid for a property and the amount you sell it for. If you
gift the flat, its market value at that time would be used to
calculate the gain.
Do remember that some costs can be deducted to
reduce the gain, such as estate agents and solicitors’ fees
plus outlay for improvements, but not usual maintenance
costs, such as redecorating.
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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37
EVENING STANDARD WEDNESDAY 15 APRIL 2015
Letting on Homes & Property
homesandproperty.co.uk with
A
NYONE who’s thinking
of taking advantage of
the new pension reforms
to invest in rental
property might want to
reconsider after reading about the
weekend I’ve just had.
It started on Friday evening with
my head under a toilet trying to fit a
new seat after the old one fell apart,
and finished with me frogmarching a
guy out of a shared rental flat after I
discovered he had moved in without
my permission.
In between, I fitted a new shower
screen, wasted Saturday afternoon
trying to buy a replacement
cupboard door in Ikea, arranged
repairs to a boiler, a radiator and a
tap, and spent two hours preparing
a new tenancy agreement, creditchecking tenants and their guarantors
and protecting their deposit.
By Sunday evening I was knackered,
and I’m not that old. I can’t imagine
my nan getting down on her arthritic
knees to replace a loo seat and I’m
not sure how she would have
confronted a six-foot, 19-year-old lad
found living illegally in her flat.
Given that these are the sorts of
shenanigans landlords get up to, I’m
not convinced that rental property is
the right investment for pensioners.
Of course, you can invest in a
buy-to-let without being a hands-on
landlord if you hire a management
agent, but it will be harder to make a
profit from the rental income if you
do. Leaving aside the periods of
immense stress, a buy-to-let might not
Perils await the
‘silver wave’ of
new landlords
Victoria Whitlock details a weekend from
hell as she cautions pensioners aiming to
plough their pot into buy-to-let property
The
accidental
landlord
make financial sense for those who
have already reached retirement.
For a start, if you withdraw your
entire pension pot, you’ll lose a
chunk of it in tax as you can only take
out 25 per cent tax-free, which makes
me think that these new pension
freedoms are just a cunning wheeze
by the Government to claw back the
tax relief on pension contributions.
Also, the average pension pot for
Londoners is less than £100,000,
which wouldn’t even buy a small flat
in an unfashionable borough, so
unless you buy with a partner, you’ll
have to take out a mortgage.
The good news is that you can get a
buy-to-let mortgage up to the age of
75, and maybe even older, assuming
the rent will easily cover the interest
repayments.
The bad news is that rental yields in
London are so low you’re unlikely to
have anything left to live on.
Yields are better in some other
cities, but latest research from the
National Landlords Association found
that almost one third of landlords
who own only one property don’t
£650 a week: a third-floor flat, with lift, in Onslow Gardens, South Kensington,
has a large reception room, fitted kitchen, shower with limestone tiles and
bedroom with built-in storage (homesandproperty.co.uk/onsrent)
make any profit at all. Most people
buy property for capital growth
rather than rental yield, but you
need to hang on to it for at least
five years to realise any significant
gain, so even if you’re only in your
mid-fifties now, you could be into
your sixties by the time you can sell
at a reasonable profit.
If you don’t sell it, but leave it to
anyone other than your spouse or
civil partner in your will, they could
lose up to 40 per cent of its value in
inheritance tax if your estate is worth
more than £325,000. This is different
to pensions that are, broadly
speaking, no longer subject to
inheritance tax.
No doubt some pensioners will
become successful landlords thanks
to the new freedoms, but it is best to
get independent advice, preferably
before you dive in.
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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40
WEDNESDAY 15 APRIL 2015 EVENING STANDARD
Homes & Property Inside story
homesandproperty.co.uk with
Apartment visit turns into the great escape
Diary of
an estate
agent
MONDAY
My week kicks off with a 7.30am
valuation of a three-bedroom flat in
Chelsea’s Cadogan Gardens, where
the owners are away skiing in
Zermatt, Switzerland. Many of our
clients are City types who leave early
for work and get home late, and go
on holiday to far-flung locations.
Recently a vendor was husky
sledding in Iceland when I called
him. It amazed me that he could take
the call.
I realise how many of the properties
I see are starting to look the same
around here. Many former estate
agents are now property developers
who share a similar view of what sells
— lamps from OKA, ground-floor
windows and shower screens that
turn misty when you want privacy.
They’re selling a lifestyle and it
surprises me that buyers will often
pay over the odds for the space and
the address, then totally refurbish
the place when they move in.
TUESDAY
The pre-election slowdown means
that much of our time is spent
trawling a database of potential
sellers and phoning people to drum
up valuations.
We’ve just had our office completely
refurbished, so my attention is
occasionally distracted by the local
characters who have no interest in
selling, but who regularly have their
faces pressed against the window.
Today it’s the “mad cat lady”.
It feels like everyone is waiting in
the lead-up to the May 7 election
and there’s trepidation over Labour’s
proposed mansion tax. The
speculation is driving owners mad.
They probably wouldn’t even mind
paying more tax — they just want to
know. All the estate agents will
probably be out on the streets
canvassing for the Tories to get in
again. The champagne corks will
be popping throughout Chelsea if
they do.
THURSDAY
There is a real feeling of spring in the
air, and lots of happy clients today.
We sell a one-bedroom flat for
£650,000, which is well over the
asking price after sealed bids, so
there’s one happy vendor.
I then return from a valuation to
find a case of champagne from a
delighted client after a successful
sale. It bodes well for my next
valuation — a five-bedroom house in
Markham Square. Properties like that
will always sell easily.
FRIDAY
WEDNESDAY
Lots of agents around here have
started taking their dogs to valuations.
It’s a good talking point with clients
and all the local residents know the
office dogs. I’m thinking of taking a
horse. There’s a full working stable
in Elvaston Mews, so that would be
handy. It would make me stand out.
That is the trouble when the market
slows down — it gives us too much
time to think.
I find myself having to exit a flat via a
drainpipe — not my finest hour. I go
to South Kensington to value an
apartment in a period building that
has been converted into flats. The
porter lets me in, then locks the door
and vanishes.
He doesn’t answer his mobile
phone, so I descend the drainpipe on
to the portico balcony and jump off.
Fortunately it’s only a first-floor flat
and, as I’m wearing a suit, I assume
I won’t arouse too much suspicion.
While out and about on valuations,
O Christian de Wolff is manager of
Cluttons Chelsea and Belgravia
(020 7584 1771).
EXCEL LONDON 17–18 APRIL 2015
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44
WEDNESDAY 15 APRIL 2015 EVENING STANDARD
Homes & Property New homes
By David Spittles
FRESH START REVIVAL
IN GRITTY WALWORTH
WALWORTH in postcode SE17 is so close to the West End
that it gets into the large print pages of the A-Z.
Remarkably, it has been an unloved district, mainly
because of the area’s gritty council estates. But there
are some period gems such as Sutherland Square,
which has Victorian houses, and perceptions of the area
are beginning to change as streets smarten up on the
back of regeneration at nearby Elephant & Castle.
Park View on Brandon Street is a boutique scheme of
nine apartments. Prices from £400,000 to £999,950.
Call Caddington Blue on 020 7407 6033.
Another reason to invest here is the redevelopment of
the giant Aylesbury Estate, which is yielding new homes
for sale. Harvard Gardens, the next phase, launches
next month. Call L&Q on 0844 406 9800.
Smart move
e
No glass ceiling
for high-rises
From £400,000: Park View
Cosy barns in the cool Cotswolds
From £775,000: The Paddocks
homesandproperty.co.uk with
THE gently rolling hills and picture-postcard villages of
the Cotswolds seem a million miles away from the busy
M4 west of London.
But the motorway provides a quick escape route from
the capital, putting the Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire
countryside within a two-hour drive. As such, the area is
popular with commuters and those who want a reachable
second home for weekend getaways.
Buyers looking for “country cool” are forsaking honeycolour stone cottages in need of renovation and opting for
brand new contemporary-design houses, according to
estate agent Butler Sherborn. The Paddocks, in the
village of Marcham, is a scheme of four barn-style modern
houses. Interiors have double-height, open-plan living
spaces, underfloor heating and manageable gardens.
Prices from £775,000 to £1.49 million. Call 01865 510000.
P
ENTHOUSES are not just
for bachelor bankers —
many Londoners are living
in the sky as a new wave of
residential towers and midheight apartment blocks with winter
gardens rise above the streets.
You do not have to earn millions to
own a penthouse. Fresh architectural
thinking is bringing down prices of
rooftop flats, with outside space
designed for year-round use.
Duplex penthouses at New
Festival Quarter in Poplar cost from
£645,995. The development is close
to Canary Wharf and Westfield
Stratford City. Call Bellway on 0845
459 5020. Affordable penthouses are
also for sale at Pembury Circus,
Hackney, priced from £739,995.
Call 0845 257 6064.
Six in 10 new apartments have
some type of outside space, three
times the level of a decade ago.
Developers are having to “design in”
balconies and terraces and
incorporate communal outside
space. Often, apartments are built
around water gardens, landscaped
courtyards and squares, where
residents can enjoy the sunshine
and socialise.
Hurlingham Walk in Fulham
is a modern mansion block
development.
Stylish and functional apartments
have full-height windows and doors
opening on to large balconies with
cast iron balustrading. Penthouses
with vaulted ceilings and large
terraces cost from £1.45 million.
Call St James on 020 8246 4199.
From £645,995:
3 Inspired 2
Apartments
& 1 house right in the of
Kentish Town
We are delighted to offer for sale the second phase of this exceptional new boutique development of one house
and three loft-style apartments, the apartments arranged over two levels of a landmark Victorian industrial
building, set behind security gates in the heart of vibrant Kentish Town Completion scheduled for May 2015.
www.thebrinsmead.co.uk
Contact us to find out more or book a viewing:
Salter Rex
020 7482 4488
www.salter-rex.co.uk
45
EVENING STANDARD WEDNESDAY 15 APRIL 2015
New homes Homes & Property
homesandproperty.co.uk with
Read more: visit
our new online
luxury section
HomesAndProperty.co.uk/luxury
From £262,500: Silver Works, based on a former RAF depot site, will feature 191 properties
Metroland on track for change
New Festival Quarter offers the chance to live in the skies
COLINDALE, on the north-west fringe of the
capital close to the M1, is where suburban
Metroland begins.
It’s an area of playing fields, country parks
and leafy avenues lined with tidy inter-war
semis that are popular with middle-class
families whose breadwinner commutes to
the City or West End.
Recently designated a housing growth
zone by Mayor Boris Johnson, this
unspectacular suburb is changing. Being
on the Northern line, in Zone 4, Colindale is
an obvious location for young Londoners
priced out of the centre. Silver Works, with
191 homes priced from £262,500, is being
built on the site of a former RAF depot
that served historic Hendon Aerodrome,
where Britain’s first loop-the-loop and
parachute descent took place. Call Galliard
on 020 3770 6274.
Grahame Park Estate, built on the old
aerodrome, is getting a facelift, with new
apartment blocks and a mix of housing
tenures, including shared ownership.
Vision, the latest phase, has one-bedroom
apartments priced from £235,000. Call
Genesis on 0800 954 0196. Frigidaire, a
pioneering fridge manufacturer, was one of
the companies that moved to the area with
the advent of the railway. These sites are
now being unlocked for housing.
Pulse is another Colindale new-build, a
vast scheme of 1,087 apartments next to the
Tube station. Two-bedroom flats cost from
£340,000. Call Fairview on 0808 2716161.
And coming soon is a redevelopment of
Hendon Police College, a former training
centre, where Redrow is creating a new
neighbourhood with 1,650 homes.
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