Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Tuesday Floor Plan Porn: Heath Hall

WHAT: Heath Hall
LOCATION: London, U.K.
PRICE: £65,000,000
SIZE: 2509.29 square meters, 15 bedrooms, 15 full and 2 half bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Listen, chickens, Your Mama has some personal matters that require our undivided attention. However, rather than leave the children completely high and dry in the (celebrity) real estate way we thought we'd quickly drop some hardcore floor plan porn on y'all in the form of Heath Hall, an historic, newly renovated and much expanded mega-mansion on The Bishop's Avenue, one the most (in)famously recherché residential enclaves in all of ludicrously expensive London.

Heath Hall has been on the market for a while now but recently had it's monstrous £100,000,000 asking price slashed to a still tumescent £65,000,000. A few quick flicks of the well-worn beads of Your Mama's bejeweled abacus shows that's an electrifying $151,068,000, at today's rates, reduced down to still stultifying $98,194,200.

The seller, according to previous reports, is a property magnate named Andreas Panayiotou who purchased Heath Hall in 2006 and spent—so the stories go—£40,000,000 on the recent overhaul and expansion.

Current listing details show the Edwardian era three story (plus partial basement) mansion, a stately red brick pastiche of Classical, Arts & Crafts and Scottish Baronial styles, was designed and built in 1910 for sugar baron William Lyle and, after its recent expansion, measures in at 2,509.29 square meters. That's just over 27,000 square feet for all us non-metric types.

Your Mama counted at least half a dozen or more public entertaining rooms that include a regal, 700-ish square foot center stair hall with a massive oak staircase and a banquet hall sized dining room; a gargantuan "Garden Room" with a (melo)dramatic glass ceiling and a glinty dandelion-like chandelier. A pair of nearly 30-foot long drawing rooms, both with fireplaces, flank a refreshingly intimate paneled library. All three of the latter rooms spill out to 60-foot long, glassed in veranda that overlook the estate's formal gardens.

The floor plan first provided to Your Mama by a U.K.-based aide-de-camp we'll call Flower Perfectbush and included with online marketing materials shows Heath Hall has not just one but two kitchens. At the northeast corner there's a somewhat isolated commercial catering kitchen with walk in larder. That's a pantry, American butter beans. A more central, expensively outfitted center island family kitchen has a direct view into the adjacent family room but a strangely circuitous route to the formal dining room. It seems a bit odd to Your Mama that there's not a butler's pantry or service kitchen between the kitchen and dining room. Unless there's a weird and ill-advised pass through we don't know about, plated food must be carried from the kitchen through a vestibule off the main reception hall in order to be served in the dining room.

Even though listing details say there are 14 bedrooms and 15 bathrooms Your Mama (repeatedly) counted a total of 15 bedrooms and 15 full or three-quarter bathrooms and two powder poopers on the main floor.

At least four of the bedrooms are located in a separate wing above the catering kitchen and laundry room making them suitable for habitation by live-in domestic staff. In addition to the five guest/family bedrooms and the master bedroom on the second floor there are three large if awkwardly shaped en suite bedrooms on the third floor plus two more smaller bedrooms that share a hall bathroom.

The second floor master suite is a roomy if surprisingly simple affair comprised of a 500-square foot bedroom/sitting area, an itty-bitty stud-nook, a pair of custom-fitted windowed dressing rooms and a single, spacious bathroom sheathed almost entirely in Milas Lilac marble. The high contrast marble in the master bathroom was certainly a bold choice and we imagine many of the children will poo-poo its use as conspicuous and vulgar. And it is, hunties. It is. Even still, Your Mama thinks it's insane. Rachel Zoe might say, "It's mayj!" The free-standing soaking tub carved from a huge hunk of the same marble is just icing on the crazy cake in that glorious high luxury meets high camp style to which Your Mama is inexplicably and somewhat embarrassingly drawn. We don't want that bathroom for our bathroom but we're sorta glad it exists in all its unapologetic über-splendor. Anyhoodles poodles...

Additional creature comforts at Heath Hall include: a cloak room/powder pooper larger than most people's bedrooms; a basement level wine cellar; a discreet and fully equipped panic room (not shown on the floor plan, natch) with toilet and separate telephone wires that can not be cut; a surprisingly compact but state-of-the-art home cinema lined with cream colored suede; an indoor swimming pool complex complete with spa and multi-colored fiber optic lighting situation that kinda gives Your Mama the decorative willies. The indoor fitness area also includes an adjoining gymnasium, steam room and dry sauna and two shower/changing rooms.

Every square foot of the walled, gated and high maintenance 2.5 acre estate is landscaped to include a motor court with central water feature at the front of the house and a rear motor court for easy access to the five car detached garage. There are formal gardens, a serpentine pathway winds in and out through the sylvan edges of the estate, a hard surface tennis court and a rectangular swimming pool overlooked by a slightly elevated glassed-in gazebo.

listing photos and floor plan: Knight Frank

43 comments:

WrteStufLA said...

Huh -- no elevator. Not being picky here, but usually these $100-mill+ London rehabs include one. I can't see an Arab sheikh or Russian oligarch writing the check without one.

Anonymous said...

Was there a sale on that carpet? It looks like the same carpet was used throughout the whole damn house!

I'm all for the marble in the master bathroom. That mirrored piece over the arch in front of the tub is much more vulgar and upsetting than a bathroom sheathed in slabs of marble with a custom carved tub.

Brandon @ Southgate said...

I must assume that all the windowless "plant rooms" are what we might call mechanical spaces this sign of the pond. Otherwise, the new owners of Heath Hall are well set for growing some...errr...herbal remedies.

WrteStufLA said...

I much prefer another Knight Frank mega-listing (link below). Much better location in Kensington, within an easy walk to both Holland Park and Notting Hill. Check out the floor plan and brochure on the listing:

http://search.knightfrank.com/ken100161

FalseProfit said...

Heath Hall has been on the market for a loooong time now. There are some stunning arial views on Bing Maps (Bishops Lane, Hampstead, London).

The Campden Hill home WrteStufLA shared is my ultimate London home. The location/lot cannot be beat. You could offer me Heath Hall and the (fmr) Saudi King's uber-huge manse and I'd still go for the Campden Hill house. It already has approved plans to build a huge underground structure, to boot.

Anonymous said...

It is Persian Palace meets (Deceased) Leona Helmsleys CT home. Awful.

Anonymous said...

Properties on the Bishops Av are created for a very specific buyer in mind. I'd be surprised if any British, Western European or American actually lives on the entire street.

Anonymous said...

"Huh -- no elevator. Not being picky here, but usually these $100-mill+ London rehabs include one"

It's pretty rare for homes in the UK to have elevators. Most prime property today was built in an era where servants were abundant. Even after full scale remodels it's rare to find elevators.

It's well know amongst UK realtors (mainly the big London firms) about Americans need for "lateral living". For most other nationalities it doesn't seem to be that big an issue.

lil' gay boy said...

Not very well staged, but anyone buying in this neighborhood can well afford to undo any of the sins present -- the marble in the master bath is a little too Frank Stella for me, but like Mama I find it oddly appealing (although I wouldn't attempt a bath with eyes open without a seatbelt).

The runner on the main stair was just an outright mistake.

The curious blend of old world craftsmanship with oddly modern updates and weird lighting reminds me of some of the high end hotels in the Emirates -- that curious East-meets-West blend that passes for luxury.

Anonymous said...

MANSION TAX, MANSION TAX. WHEN will the UK enact a mansion tax?

Ranvijay Thakur said...
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Anonymous said...

I've been reading how very wealthy people in London (note I'm not saying Londoners) are digging ab buuilding complexes below their mansions. Not just sub-basements but sub-sub basements. It absolutely gives me the creeps.

Just me, but I also hate indoor swimming pools. Hate them. Stinks the place of chlorine, and thank god for chlorine to prevent your underground pool becoming a cesspit of mold. I just find it gross, join a club where you can swim, or wait til summer. Indoor pools are really nast, they're not worth the troubles, especially deep in some London sub-sub basement. Shudders. The mole people seem active over there, but I'll submit maybe people aren't meant to be 60 feet underground, unless you've got some sick sh*t going on. I suspect that might be the case for some of these foreign billionaires in London now. Shady.

Anonymous said...

Sorry, that was meant to say, "absolute building complexes" beneath.. don't know why I screwed that up.

Unknown said...
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Anonymous said...

That carpet HAS TO GO!
Do you think they picked it to match the marble, or vice versa?
The marble HAS TO GO TOO!

Indoor swimming pools are the only kind that get any kind of use in the UK, its a no-brainer.

Park City Real Estate said...
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Anonymous said...

Pantry = Pain = bread stores.
Larder = Lard = ham and bacon (or any cured meats) stores.
Buttery = Butts (Barrels) = Beer and wine stores, whence the name Butler derives.

property in indore said...
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Sandpiper said...

Find it perplexing that the addition has little regard for the existing the manor. Have always been of the understanding that a proper add-on should be in seamless architectural harmony.

Here, the new ignores existing. The feeling of transition toward that objective is absent. IMHO, should left the residence as is.

The only attempt made that I can see was to match windows. The rest, what were they thinking!

My smarmy two cents.

Anonymous said...

to March 20, 2013 at 5:41 AM

Great Post :)
i never knew their origins and never thought to look them up either

Anonymous said...

UGLY, English-ugly both inside and out.

Petra's said...

Just horrid all-around.

Jesse said...

I love some of the comments on this blog. People are so picky when studying photos from their studio apartment.

Anonymous said...

Sandpiper

Current UK planning policy states all modern additions to listed properties must look modern and not faux old.

Ranvijay Thakur said...
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Unknown said...
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Anonymous said...

1:46 Hogwash

Anonymous said...

2011 article on the above-mentioned Campden Hill mansion -

Central London mansion on the market for £75m

Unknown said...

Hi all--Clue me in--why is a mansion of this vintage decorated in "chalk white."

Will Slueth for Bourbon said...
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Karen Hartley said...

Nice work and great post Mama, Beautiful pictures…

Anonymous said...

ann@2:04
White creates an uncluttered visualization of a property's potential. Interiors with busy colors may at times hamper this objective. Hope it helps.

Anonymous said...

I'm a little late to this house but as regards Mama's comment about the lack of direct access from the kitchen to dining room. That's not unusual in England where most houses until fairly recently didn't have interconnecting rooms. Even in modest houses you'd have to carry the food from the kitchen into the hall and then into the dining room.

The original kitchen of Heath house was probably a mile away and the food carried by fleets of servants to the dining rooms.

Anonymous said...

It's not at all bad inside ... The indoor pool is a bit too bling but the rest of it has a nice feel the photos don't do justice to. The carpet is not bad at all in person.

bsrealty said...
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bsrealty said...
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Anonymous said...
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Anonymous said...

Think I saw the Heath Hall listing on UK craigslist.

Anonymous said...

Tally-ho, Trevy

Carpet Protection Film said...
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