Island living Textile queen Show focus Page 20 Wednesday, 12 September 2007 New homes 4 Corfu 8 My home 32 Design crazy School report... Mira Bar-Hillel reportsSpace to party ■ Property:
Trang 1Island living
Textile queen
Show focus
Page 20
Wednesday, 12 September 2007
New homes 4
Corfu 8
My home 32
Design
crazy
School report
Trang 2Exposed: flat-owners hit by insurance scam Mira Bar-Hillel reports
Space to party
■ Property: three-bedroom flat
■ Price: £349,995 (includes
a share of the freehold)
■ Agent: Kinleigh Folkard
& Hayward (020 8469 0202)
Faye Greenslade
Evening Standard Homes & Property Wednesday, 12 September 2007
PROPERTY
2
BUY OF THE WEEK
Visit our great new website: homesandproperty.co.uk
LONDON goes design mad this month The London
Design Festival — Europe’s biggest — is a must for all
home lovers There is a staggering number of events in
shops, exhibition halls, warehouses and studios all over
the capital Top craftspeople, young designers and
established names will display their wares and share their skills Check out the London Tent,
in a former brewery in Brick Lane,
■ Decorating
TAKE one Victorian conversion flat
in leafy Brockley, SE4, open up the main space, and enjoy the results –
a 22ft reception room, perfect for entertaining friends with its ample seating and dining areas, along with
a high-spec, open-plan kitchen
Sharing is easy in this flat with its three bedrooms (two double) and a bathroom
Off-street parking and a communal garden are part of the deal, plus Hilly Fields Park and Brockley train station are an easy walk away
LONDON f lat-owners are
being regularly ripped off by
their managing agents, who
ch a r g e t he m e xc e s s ive
amounts for buildings
insur-ance The agent or the
free-holder then collects a nice sum for
themselves in commission for
giv-ing an insurance company the
busi-ness They do not pass this
commission on to the flat-owners
And they do not have to disclose this
fact to the residents
The practice is going on all over
London, claims chartered surveyor
Roger Southam, former president of
the Royal Institute of Chartered
Surveyors (RICS) He says the
insti-tute should crack down on the tactic
Southam raised the issue more
KENSINGTON could be the home of a new 60,000-seat football stadium Billionaire Roman Abramovich has found a possible site for Chelsea FC that runs along Warwick Road, between Tesco in West Cromwell Road and Kensington High Street,
writes Compton Miller It could take advantage of reasonable
public transport links via Olympia and High Street Kensington stations
“This huge development area is mainly owned by the Prudential and two other developers,” says local Tory councillor Victoria Borwick “There’s already a scheme afoot to build luxury flats, affordable housing, a school and a park there But who knows what the future holds?” The Russian tycoon dreams
of emulating Arsenal’s new 60,432-seater Emirates Stadium
and try your hand at ceramics, mosaics or silversmithing.
Our website, homesandproperty.co.uk, will keep you at the cutting edge of London’s design scene
The hard hats are out again in Manhattan as developers reach for the skies with new condos and apartments Our website tells you where to splash your cash and revel in your wealth as a Brit with pounds in your pocket and a favourable exchange rate
Can’t stretch to the Eastern Seaboard? How about a break in Devon? We reveal the best places to go
Also, search for your ideal home, catch up on the latest property news and get fantastic ideas for making the best of your home, inside and out.
Blowing the whistle:
Roger Southam
than a year ago after press reports about it He was given the task of investigating the practice by the then president, Graham Chase But since then he has met with nothing but obstruction from the RICS, he told Homes & Property
“I have spoken with various people
in the RICS executive office, only to
be told they’ll get back to me,” he
said “They keep saying they aren’t ready to start the working party So I decided to blow the whistle.”
Mr Southam discovered the prob-lem when the freehold of Boardwalk Place, E14, a property his company Chainbow was managing, was sold
in September 2005 to a company con-trolled by Vincent Tchenguiz The new company demanded insurance amounting to more than £100,000 for
370 flats and houses in seven blocks
“I went to a broker and got a quo-tation for £60,000, including a 20 per cent commission for the agent or freeholder,” said Mr Southam
The Government is considering forcing the disclosure of more details of service-charge accounts, but says this would not include details of insurance commissions
Football pitch for Kensington?
Abramovich, right, and Chelsea scorer Didier Drogba
Taken for a ride
Trang 3IF HOLIDAY travel has given you a taste for homes abroad then how about this? For the price of
a London studio (about £115,000) you could buy a home in Canada’s coastal retreat, Nova Scotia The city will be a distant memory once you are settled into this 1,800sq ft log-cabin, complete with 25 acres
of meadows and woods that meander down to your own stretch of river A honey-pine kitchen, various living rooms, plus three bedrooms and a bathroom span two floors, and large decks provide a platform for soaking up the scenery After a five-and-a-half-hour flight to Halifax you can be at you new home
in less than an hour from the airport
Call Kilmeny Fane-Saunders (020 7939 7923), or visit www.secondhomenovascotia.com
THE Yorkshire village
of Langtoft might not
be as exotic as Nova Scotia (above) but for
a character cottage this is hard to beat
The outside, a façade
of sash windows and whitewashed brick, provides a pretty canvas for window boxes, while inside is deceptively spacious with a 17ft sitting room with open fireplace, kitchen/dining room, two bedrooms and a bathroom Time-poor gardeners can relax in the back yard, large enough for seating, with a timber shed and potted plants
Scarborough (16 miles away) has trains that reach King’s Cross in three hours Beanland Illingworth (01751 475557) is asking £122,500
Pictou County, Nova Scotia, Canada
Langtoft, North Yorkshire
WHO’S MOVING
homes gossip
SHADOW environment
secretary Greg Barker
is selling Woodside House,
his eight-bedroom Georgian
property near Sir Paul McCartney’s
home in Peasmarsh, East
Sussex, for £2.65 million through
Savills This follows the recent
break-up of his 14-year marriage
to brewery heiress Celeste
Harrison, after revelations that
he was having a gay relationship
with antiques dealer William
Banks-Blaney.
The Barkers’ immaculate
Grade II-listed house, set in
15 acres, includes a walled garden,
tennis court, swimming pool,
coach house and garages.
The Tory MP for Bexhill and
Battle, who has three children and
is one of David Cameron’s most
trusted aides, already owns an
£800,000 Belgravia pied-á-terre.
Katie Hopkins
Christian Slater
Sir Oliver Millar
Greg Barker
KATIE Hopkins, the pushy
Barnstaple-born Apprentice star who became the first contestant to snub Sir Alan Sugar’s job offer, has resisted offers to move to London Instead she has spent £300,000 on a four-bedroom, three-storey, new-build terrace near Exeter, where she was at university The self-confessed ruthless alpha female lives with her toddlers India and Poppy Alas, after a spate of raunchy publicity earlier this year, she lost her
£90,000-a-year Met Office job.
DAVID Cameron’s media
advisers, worried his patrician image might mirror 1960s predecessor Harold Macmillan, will be relieved to learn there’s no chance of him being tempted to invest in a grouse moor “As far as I’m aware
there are no moors for sale,” says Andrew Rettie, Strutt & Parker’s senior partner in Edinburgh.
“There are only 400 such properties in Scotland and Northern England and these are the preserve of very rich individuals and rarely come
on to the open market.”
FOR most of his 40-year
royal career Sir Oliver Millar, former surveyor
of the Queen’s pictures and director of the Royal Collection, lived in grace-and-favour apartments at St James’s Palace.
But, upon his retirement in
1988, he and his wife, Delia, moved to The Cottage, a seven-bedroom Victorian brick-and-flint house in Penn, Buckinghamshire, which is now up for sale at
£1.25 million through Savills The
Queen, who has always preferred the gee-gees and corgis to any kind of art, completely relied on the erudite Van Dyck expert’s artistic judgement
Sir Oliver died four months ago aged 84.
Evening Standard Homes & Property Wednesday, 12 September 2007 PROPERTY 3
Editor: Janice Morley
Deputy editor: Philippa Stockley Advertisement manager: Louise McGaffigan Editorial: 020 7938 6714/7245; advertising: 020 7938 7247
www.homesandproperty.co.uk
Homes & Property, Northcliffe House, 2 Derry Street,
WHEN hellraisin’ Hollywood heart-throb Christian Slater stars in
the Tinseltown satire Swimming With Sharks from next month he
will stay in the five-star 51 Buckingham Gate Hotel It’s only
a short stroll across St James’s Park to the Vaudeville Theatre, where he
appears opposite Helen Baxendale for a 15-week run Three years ago,
when this exuberant New Yorker made his London stage debut in One
Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, he brought his TV producer wife Ryan
Haddon, mother of their children Jaden and Eliana “Christian loves
England but Ryan never felt at home,” a friend commented Shortly
afterwards they parted This award-winning red-brick hotel, as well as
having London’s longest bar, boasts a spa that will provide Slater with
“complete mental, spiritual and physical healing”.
Trang 4A new school of thought
Across London, schools are working with house builders, transforming their space
to create new homes and improve school facilities David Spittles reports
Evening Standard Homes & Property Wednesday, 12 September 2007
NEW HOMES
4
AS THE new school year begins, there is a new
subject on the curriculum for pupils and teachers
at Central Foundation Boys’ School, a
well-regarded state secondary located on the fringe of
the Square Mile — it is design and architecture
In a ground-breaking marriage of land sites,
work will soon start on a spectacular redevelopment of the
school that will include a new skyscraper already
trumpeted as “the residential equivalent of the Gherkin”,
the iconic office tower barely half-a-mile away
The existing school will continue to operate with the
benefit of improved sporting and community-based
facilities, says developer Tudorvale, which is creating
136 apartments in glamorous glass-and-steel high-rise
buildings and converted classroom blocks
Standing immediately south of Old Street roundabout,
opposite historic Bunhill Fields and cemetery, the
develop-ment will be a Barbican-like trophy address for City
workers, says Andrew Palmer, director of DTZ Residential
“It’s the gateway to the City Apartments will have
signature interior design, fantastic views and sell for up to
£850 a square foot, unprecedented for the EC2 postcode.”
Central Foundation also borders Shoreditch Triangle, a
trendy quarter of lofts, bars, restaurants and creative
businesses — and a diverting alternative to the pin-striped
Square Mile The entry price is likely to be £350,000,
KINGSWAY Square in Battersea struck a chord with Peter Rutherford, 30, who bought
a two-bedroom flat there
Hailing from Edinburgh, where he still has a home, Peter now works in London as
a banker “I hadn’t really
considered a new development but here was the perfect compromise It’s a fantastic building — elegant rather than trying too hard to be a fashion statement I love the sense of grandeur and space — the ceiling heights are 4.5 metres.”
‘It’s a fantastic building
rising to more than £1 million Call DTZ Residential on
020 7710 8116
The start of the autumn term certainly marks a new era for school redevelopments in London In Kensington, Places for People, one of the UK’s largest property management and development companies, is demolishing St Thomas’, a dilapidated Seventies primary school, and building 69 flats
above a state-of-the-art new school at a cost of £14 million for the school alone Fifty-five of the flats will be sold on the open market, funding the St Thomas’s project on Apple-ford Road, close to fashionable Notting Hill Gate
Apartments will have separate access and are designed so they do not overlook the school and playground Construction is under way and flats will go on sale in early 2008 Places for People has roots in the housing association movement and focuses on affordable homes, so prices will start below the £250,000 stamp duty threshold
“We believe this is a model that could be used across the capital,” says Tim Weightman, develop-ment director “It pays for vital school maintenance while meeting housing need, and frees schools from relying on government funding for improvements.”
London Diocesan Board for Schools is a develop-ment partner Call 0845 603 7786
Increasingly, schools led by entrepreneurial governing bodies are collaborating with developers A number of schools have recently traded their playgrounds and open space to make way for housing to pay for educational improve-ments and better facilities
Nearing completion on Stamford Street, SE1, is a scheme called Portico — 58 flats built behind the listed entrance of London Nautical School
It is a cracking location, moments from the South Bank arts and media centre Crown Estate spotted the investment
potential and stepped in to purchase all the flats from developer Crest Nicholson The homes will be kept as a rental portfolio and let to local executives and people who want a weekday pied-â-terre
A decade ago Victorian school conversions propelled the loft-living trend that had taken off in Clerkenwell Dozens
of these splendid old schools have since been split into fancy homes, many in the borough of Wandsworth, where local politicians seem less sentimental about keeping open state primaries and are using government money to build new academies
Just when it appeared the supply had dried up along comes arguably the best building yet — former Battersea Polytechnic, a listed red-brick gem dating from 1891
It is being transformed by developer St James Homes into
a complex of 153 flats, from studios to triplexes, set around landscaped courtyards Homes in the refurbished old buildings, which include the Great Hall, have double-height
‘This is a model that could be used across the capital It pays for school maintenance while
meeting housing needs’
Peter Rutherford was swayed to buy in Kingsway Square, because of its space and sense of grandeur
Eighty-four flats are being created out of a building in Twickenham, west London,
that was once part of Brunel University Prices are not yet set Call 020 7710 8116
From £240,000: Kingsway Square, SW11 Homes are being created in former Battersea Polytechnic, where the old library will become a members only dining club Call 0870 850 7674
About £350,000: an artist’s impression of how glamorous glass-and-steel high-rise blocks with 136 apartments
will look surrounding Central Foundation Boys’ School in Cowper Street, EC2 The school will benefit by having
improved sporting and community-based facilities For more information, call DTZ Residential on 020 7710 8116
Trang 5Evening Standard Homes & Property Wednesday, 12 September 2007 NEW HOMES 5
TO FIND MORE NEW HOMES, VISIT
homesandproperty.co.uk
spaces Entrance to the development is via the grand foyer,
preserved in its entirety, with a sweeping staircase and
mosaic floor
The design emphasis is on retention of fine period details
The old library, which is oak panelled and has stained-glass
windows, is to become a members only dining club, a
fashionable new venue for SW11 (Battersea Park Road)
Called Kingsway Square, prices start at £240,000 for a studio
Contact St James Homes on 0870 850 7674 Underground parking spaces cost £15,000
What makes these schools such appealing homes is the solid, robust architecture Often there is a boundary wall providing privacy and security — a gated community without being fortress-like
The College, Wood Lane, TW7
Grade II listed Lancaster House and George Little
House were once part of Brunel University.
Jaspar Group, a niche conversion and restoration
specialist, is creating 84 flats Prices yet to be
released Call DTZ on 020 7710 8116
L’Ecole, Benwell Road, N7
Big loft apartments and duplexes have been
created at this Victorian school, close to Arsenal
football club’s Emirates stadium Prices from
£505,000 Call DTZ on 020 7710 8116
Academy House, Chaplin Mews, N1
A new address for a fashionable Islington location, close to City Road canal basin Prices are from £309,950 Call developer Crest Nicholson on 0870 750 8403
Mary Datchelor, Camberwell, SE5 This prestigious former girls’ school sits in
a conservation area fronting Grove Lane
Part-conversion, part new-build, developer
St George is creating 90 homes To register, call 020 7587 3710.
Earning top marks
From £250,000:
St Thomas’ in Kensington (right)
is being rebuilt as
a state-of-the-art school, with 69 flats above Call
0845 603 7786
From £505,000: L’Ecole (above and left) close to Arsenal football club’s N7 stadium, is being converted into large loft apartments and duplexes Call DTZ on 020 7710 8116
The imposing façade of the former Battersea Polytechnic has been incorporated into Kingsway Square, SW11, a scheme of
153 flats.
Call 0870
850 7674
Trang 6Playing the
Evening Standard Homes & Property Wednesday, 12 September 2007
OUT OF TOWN
6
THE Grange is a former rectory in a village
near Newbury It started life as a simple
tile-hung Queen Anne vicarage suitable for a
modest country parson but sometime at the
end of the 18th century a vicar with grander ideas
and a budget to match added
a Regency extension with an
imposing classical front; a grand
living room with two long
windows overlooking hills and
woodland; and a magnificent
staircase, which spirals up to
the first floor and an equally
spacious bedroom.
When art historian Louise
Chapelle and her husband, Ian,
a retired pension fund manager,
bought the house in 2002 it
needed everything doing to it.
“We wanted to move out of
London and were looking for a
period house with big windows
and space.” For Louise, that
meant Georgian, and, she says,
“The Grange was perfect for us”
It was riddled with damp Curing this problem
involved lowering the Yorkstone terrace and
installing ventilation and then replacing all the
rotten joists and flooring They employed English
Heritage-appointed craftsmen and the roof was
overhauled The Grange was rewired and
replumbed; windows, cornices and skirtings were
repaired or replaced; and the outside walls were
stripped and repointed.
Louise was determined that every detail should
Louise Chapelle and her restored home, The Grange “It was exciting returning it to its former glory”
The polished steel bath in the en suite bathroom
The kitchen with freestanding Chalon units runs into the back extension, which is filled with light from large leaded windows
be in keeping with the period She had Georgian six-panel doors specially made in Norfolk to replace the existing pine ones “Whenever I saw
a Georgian door, I would measure it and keep
a note of the dimensions I even went up to strangers’ front doors with my tape measure, hoping that no one would come out and ask me what I was doing,” she says.
Louise scoured the world for suitable fittings, with the brass beehive door knobs coming from
the Black Country; the reclaimed maple floor from Essex; the Regency fireplace in the dining room from London; and curtain tie-backs from Egypt and France.
Ian and Louise bought the house for £975,000 and the restoration has cost them another £800,000 The Grange is currently divided into two separate properties.
The main house, where Ian and Louise live, has four bedrooms and three bathrooms The adjoining house, the Lodge, has three bedrooms and is let for
£1,300 a month
Ill health makes it difficult for Louise to live in her home any longer and the couple are moving to a more manageable space
“It was so fulfilling and exciting, tracking down the right pieces to return the home to its former glory But, for me, it was exhausting, so we’re happy to leave it for new owners to enjoy.”
The Grange, including Grange Lodge, is on the market for £2 million For more information, contact Jackson-Stops & Staff on 01635 45501, or Knight Frank on 01488 682726.
The restored 18th century staircase
The Grange, Speen, Berkshire
L o n d o n s o m e t u r n property into their career, seeing the search for a new home, and its renovation and refurbishment, as a challenge and a profitable exercise We talk to two women who found their crumbling wrecks riddled with damp and dry rot and thought: “Oh Joy.”
Castle House is in the centre of Guildford,
a rich market town in Surrey, about 30 miles from central London It is a fine Jacobean house with
an elegant red-brick Georgian façade, and an impressive porch with two columns each side of the doorway topped with a classical pediment
The house is in a pretty street in the old part of Guildford, backing on to the castle…
Castle House, Guildford, Surrey
ANTIQUARIAN bookseller Charles Traylen lived
in Castle House for 50 years, and used to sit at a desk that once belonged to Charles Dickens How-ever, the house fell down around him, and when
he died in 2002, aged 96, the new owner got no further than stripping back to the Jacobean timbers It was too big a task for a part-timer
Looking for a new project?
Anthea Masey meets
career women who took on country wrecks and won
LOUISE CHAPELLE’S STORY
KATE VORLEY’S STORY
Trang 7Evening Standard Homes & Property Wednesday, 12 September 2007 OUT OF TOWN 7
Kate, a mother of three who had run a busy
London legal office, had lived in Wandsworth for
10 years with her husband and family They were
planning to leave the city when her husband
heard about Castle House When Kate saw it she
knew it was exactly what she wanted
It took Kate two-and-a-half years to gain all the
planning approvals and buy the house During
this time she did a one-year interior-design
course at top London design school KLC,
Chelsea Harbour More than simply choosing
fabrics, this proved to be a comprehensive
exer-cise in drawing, planning, wiring and plumbing
as well as design “The course was tough and
gave me ideas and the confidence to get on with
the job,” says Kate She then hired a specialist
conservation architect, Richard Greening from
Nye Saunders in Godalming, who knew his way
round the planning system
With designs in place they searched for the
right builder, but the quotes that came in were
double Kate’s budget “At this point I decided to
hire the craftsmen individually and pay them a
daily rate I was lucky to find an excellent site
foreman and carpenter, and I organised the
project with monthly visits from the architect
I saved at least 50 per cent this way.”
The house had to be replumbed and rewired;
the windows were either overhauled or replaced
and the back wall of the house had to be rebuilt
Exposed timbers in Castle House’s main bedroom
Guide price £375,000: Combe Dale, Clayhanger Lane, Chard, Somerset
A listed thatched six- to seven-bedroom house on the market for the first time
in 70 years For auction on
20 September Through Greenslade Taylor Hunt (01460 65651)
£385,000: The Cottage, Middleton Moor, Suffolk
A three-bedroom cottage with large garden, close to the Suffolk Heritage Coast Through Bedfords (01728 454505)
Busy mum Kate Vorley, with her children, Imogen, nine, Ted, six, and Louis, five
£450,000:Old Coastguards, The Lifeboat Slip, Appledore, Bideford, Devon A two- or three-bedroom house on the market for the first time in 38 years with planning permission for an extension Though Stags (01237 425030)
Properties to restore
renovation game
The new wall was faced with custom-made
“mathematical” tiles, which look like red bricks but are actually rectangular tiles nailed to the wall The carpenter made a new back staircase and laid new oak floors, sometimes on top of existing floors, which the local conservation officer insisted should be preserved
The end result is a fine family home There are two reception rooms, a utility room and
a tucked away suite of rooms for the nanny on the ground floor A grand Georgian staircase leads to the first floor, where there are two
elegant reception rooms — one used as a draw-ing room, the other as a dindraw-ing room — and
a family room, much loved by Kate’s three children, Imogen, nine, Ted, six, and Louis, five
The kitchen has freestanding units from Chalon The room runs into the back extension, which overlooks, through leaded light windows,
a courtyard with an ancient magnolia grandi-flora Upstairs, on the second floor, there is a charming rabbit warren of rooms, including an impressive master bedroom, partially open to
the roof timbers, which leads to a dressing room and an en-suite bathroom with an unusual free-standing polished-steel bath There are another five bedrooms and two bathrooms and, on the top floor, under the eaves, studious Imogen has a tiny attic room that she uses as a library
The former ballroom, which is joined to the back of the house and forms one side of the courtyard, has full-length Gothic-style windows, leading on to the garden, and was a 19th century addition This is incomplete, but would make
a grand entertainment space, billiard room, or could be rented out for photoshoots and parties
Kate bought the house for £800,000 and spent
at least £1 million renovating it “I have done up this house so that it will last another 400 years, and that doesn’t come cheap,” she says When the bills topped £1 million I stopped counting.”
With so much knowledge, and hungry for another project, the family are now moving on
“I began to realise you never really own a house like Castle House, and if I stayed I would just keep endlessly renovating But that isn’t sensible
I need a new project and for it to be profitable
But we are definitely staying in the area There are good schools and shops, and lots of open fields and surrounding villages.”
■Castle House is on the market for £3 million through Knight Frank Call 01483 565171.
‘When the bills topped
£1 million, I stopped counting’
£500,000: Loup House, Lyme Road, Axminster, Devon A four-bedroom listed Regency house in need of modernisation, with a large enclosed garden Through Stags (01404 45885)
£695,000: Amberley Cottage, Littleworth, Amberley, Gloucestershire A 17th century house with four bedrooms and two attic rooms, and far-reaching views over the Nailsworth valley Through Murrays (01453 755552)
£600,000:Higher Elston, Coppleston, Crediton, Devon A three-bedroom house in need of restoration There is planning permission to convert the barns into live/work units Call Stags (01392 255202)
Trang 8■Building your own property is popular here
In rural areas you must have at least an acre
of land.
■Lawyer and notary fees range from one to 1.5 per cent each.
■Purchase Tax is nine per cent on the Government Objective Value of Property This is set by officials but is generally substantially below the real cost.
■All property is sold in euros.
An Ionian
sweetmeat
The beautiful island of Corfu, with its mixture of classical and Venetian influences,
is attracting large numbers
of British buyers to Greece,
says Cathy Hawker
Evening Standard Homes & Property Wednesday, 12 September 2007
ABROAD
8
AMONG the green hills packed with olive
trees, and the welcoming Ionian Sea,
there’s something very British about the
Greek island of Corfu, made famous by
Gerald Durrell’s book My Family and
Other Animals Whether it’s the cricket
pitch in the heart of Corfu Town or the lashings of
ginger beer consumed across beachfront tavernas,
it is easy to spot the remnants of British rule
mixed in with Venetian architecture and strong
Greek character
Nowadays, the British come to Corfu to holiday,
around 495,000 of us last year, while another
10,000-plus live there year round, all of whom should be
toasting the first season of direct scheduled flights
from London, which began in May this year
“British Airways flights from Gatwick have been
a positive step for the local property market,” says
Piers Williams of North East Corfu Real Estate
“The flights are well booked up by Corfu regulars
and we have high hopes the service will
eventu-ally extend beyond October into the winter Corfu
is a beautiful island out of season.”
Williams specialises in the north-east corner of
the island, where steep green slopes make
build-ing difficult, curbbuild-ing the over development seen
in parts of the south There are few hotels and
apartments, and those hills provide blissful views
from glistening white villas across the sea to
Albania and the Greek mainland This is already
a popular holiday area, nicknamed
“Kensington-on-Sea” for attracting the “right” sort of tourists, and those tourists are now house-hunting Most want a property built from the light Corfiot stone with exceptional sea views Prices here range from
£339,600 up to £2.03 million, according to Williams
“Our clients are generally looking for a four-bedroom family villa of about 2,690sq ft upwards, with a pool and plenty of outdoor space,” he says
“The north-east coast remains particularly popu-lar One client described it to me as being like the South of France in the 1960s.”
Thriving resort
In Kassiopi, once a quiet fishing village and now a thriving tourist resort, Williams is selling an old stone villa above the harbour for £305,570 with four bedrooms, swimming pool and attractive
£575,000: this villa (above and below),
in San Stefanos, has four en-suite double bedrooms, and great views Through Aylesford International (020 7351 2383)
From
£152,300:
Verde Blu is a modern complex just three minutes’ walk from Barbati beach Each property has a main apartment and a guest apartment underneath, which could be let to generate
an income.
There is also
a large communal swimming pool
Through Savills International (020 7016 3740)
The warm waters off
Kassiopi, which used
to be a quiet fishing
village, has enhanced
its appeal for tourists
and helped turn it
into a thriving
holiday resort that
is popular with
British families
From £61,000: one- and two-bedroom apartments, three minutes’ walk from the sea at Glyfada Through Savills International (020 7016 3740)
What’s on offer
‘BA flights from Gatwick have
been a positive step’
The
wine-dark sea
gardens, while £577,200 will buy a new four-bedroom villa 10 minutes’ walk from chic San Ste-fanos “This small village with its lovely tavernas
is a popular place for British families to holiday,” says Williams “David Cameron and his family came here last summer.”
Emma Wood of Savills associates The Corfu Property Shop in Barbati has land for sale on a ridge above Agni Bay Priced at £112,000, it has good views over the coast and planning
permis-sion for a large villa and pool In Gouvia, north of the Venetian capital Corfu Town, Woods is selling Castello Monte Mar, three new houses hand-built
by local stonemasons with pools and landscaped gardens priced from £227,500 to £292,000 “Corfu has a fascinating landscape, warm, hospitable people, low crime levels and an excellent climate,”
says Wood “There is a rich, varied culture on the island and Italy is just a ferry trip away No wonder British buyers are coming in large numbers.”
■North East Corfu Real Estate: 00 30 69420 54500;
www.northeastcorfu.com, or Aylesford
International: 020 7351 2383; www.aylesford.com.
■Savills International: 020 7016 3740;
www.savills.com/abroad
‘There is a rich, varied culture
on the island’
The narrow streets of Corfu’s charming Old Town bustle with tourists exploring its craft shops and tavernas
Trang 9Can sellers still avoid the costs of a HIP by calling
a spare bedroom “a study”, asks Jane Barry
Evening Standard Homes & Property Wednesday, 12 September 2007 ISSUE 11
FOR MORE EXPERT ADVICE, VISIT
homesandproperty.co.uk
THEE-BEDROOM houses joined
the HIPs club on Monday, when
it became an offence to sell
them without a Home
Informa-tion Pack Homes of four
bed-rooms or more have required
the packs since 1 August, when the HIPs
initiative was introduced
The packs will involve time and money
to prepare — the average cost is likely to
be about £500 But can sellers avoid both
by describing at least one bedroom as a
study, so that technically, they are selling
a two-bedroom home?
The Government admits there is no
legal definition of a bedroom
According to property lawyer Ken
Byass of Moss Solicitors, the staged
implementation of HIPs was a
last-minute decision “thought up on the
hoof ” by officials just before the HIPs
programme was due to be unveiled
Realising there were insufficient
trained energy
assessors to
pro-vide all homes
for sale with a
key element of
t h e p a c k s —
Energy
Perfor-mance Certificates — a decision was
taken to stagger their introduction
“But,” says Byass, “I don’t think
any-one did any definition of a bedroom for
the purposes of these regulations.”
So is a bedroom just a room with a bed
in it? Does it stop being a bedroom if
you remove the bed?
“If there’s no bed, and it’s lined with
books and there’s a desk and a computer,
then it is obviously a study,” agrees
Byass “But if you took the bed out only
last week it could amount to a
misde-scription to call it a study and the estate
agent and owner could be fined.”
Estate agents are answerable to the
Office of Fair Trading if they
misde-scribe properties And, though there has
not been a rush of sales yet — many
sell-ers put their properties on the market
before the launch of HIPs —most agents
appear to be playing it by the book
“Our aim is to be whiter than white,”
says Nick Taylor of agents John D Wood “An empty flat with several rooms is one thing, but when you go upstairs in a house it’s pretty obvious which are the bedrooms.”
So is a bedroom any upstairs room big enough for a bed? Well, no
“From a lawyer’s point of view,” says Rachel Howle of KJD Solicitors, “if a three-bedroom house has a loft conver-sion — you can describe the loft accord-ing to how it has been used.”
Kirit Patel of agents Hoopers has just sold a three-bedroom Dollis Hill house with a three-room semi-basement exten-sion, which has been on his books since June It could not be described as more than three bedrooms because that is how the extension was built, he says
“The extra rooms are in the extension and could all be used as living rooms.”
But at agents Camerons Stiff, in Willes-den Green, a three-bedroom flat with a
s t u d i o, w h i c h until this week might not have required a HIP,
h a d t o b e described as four bedrooms Says its Elaine Dyer: “We have to say four bedrooms because we could not sell the studio section separately, as it was not self-contained.”
Not so clever, anyway
Many sellers may find that “downsiz-ing” their descriptions simply does not pay off Though they might save £500 in the cost of a HIP, a “two-bedroom flat with study” will not sell as fast, or for the same price, as a property described
as “three bedrooms”, agents warn
And they add that potential buyers look for a price drop of up to £120,000 for every bedroom reduction and may not
be impressed by the potential of a small room described as a study
“I don’t know why they didn’t go for square footage on HIPs,” says Sam Mur-phy of estate agent Paramount com-plains “It takes out all the problems.”
HARRIETTE Kevill-Davies (right), a mature student, became one of London’s first sellers to be required to create a HIP.
Ironically, one of the four bedrooms of her Clapham Edwardian home, on the market with John D Wood for £765,000, has always been used as a study.
“But it’s so big that, when you walk into
it, you are convinced it’s a bedroom,” she
‘Saying study, not bedroom could mean you sell more slowly and for less’
says She decided to describe it as four bedrooms and paid £400 for a pack to be produced When Homes & Property spoke to her, five days after she decided
to sell, she was expecting the energy assessor to arrive within two days.
“It’s all gone very quickly,” she says.
“But the HIP has delayed me getting on
to the market by about a week.”
‘The study is so big, you do think its a bedroom’
£756,000: Harriette
Kevill-Davies’s
“three-bedroom” terrace house
in Clapham could have
escaped a HIP before this
week, but a fourth room
— a large study — was
clearly big enough to
make a further bedroom.
Through John D Wood
(020 8871 3033)
£464,950: this first-floor flat in Melrose Avenue, NW2, has three bedrooms, plus a studio (left) It has to
be described as four-bedrooms, for HIP purposes, because the studio is not self-contained.
Through Camerons Stiff (020 8459 1133)
Bedroom antics
Trang 10the look
Evening Standard Homes & Property Wednesday, 12 September 2007
SHOPPING
12
FOR MORE DESIGN NEWS, VISIT
homesandproperty.co.uk/design news
Design news by Katie Law
Going for luxury
Argos
Textured fabrics that look and feel luxurious, and black and mirrored glass, are
heavily featured in the new Argos home collection, much of which is not available
in the main catalogue, but can be found online The Trudy black glass chandelier is
a snip at £58.99, the Symphony collection of damask cushion cases are good value at £14.99 a pair and a chaise longue called Jessica (left) is very affordable
at £199.99
But the best value of all is that Argos will deliver anything in the home catalogue for only £4.95, no matter how much you order
For more information, call
0870 600 2020, or visit www.argos.co.uk
Window dresser
Brume
Net-curtain haters who like to let in the
light, while keeping their privacy, will love
Brume’s easy-to-use adhesive window film
This now comes in a range of designs
from the basic etched-glass effect to fancy
spots, curls, flowers, vintage filigree,
stripes and colours
The latest addition to the collection is
solar film, which is great for protecting
against glare and heat It comes in silver
or light grey and starts from £29 for a 1.2m
by 1m roll
For more information, call 01364 73090, or
visit www.brumebasics.co.uk
Drawing you in
British Art Fair
Celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, the British Art Fair is now on at the Royal College of Art
If you want to buy a piece of 20th century or modern art by a British artist you will find a wide selection on offer from the
56 leading UK dealers here, whether it is by Barbara Hepworth, Grayson Perry or an unknown Or how about a David Hockney called Pretty Tulips (left), painted in 1969, courtesy of William Weston Gallery
Prices start from a few hundred pounds and go sky-high
Admission is normally £8 a person but if you bring this page, two people will be admitted for the price of one
The British Art Fair runs until Sunday
The Royal College of Art, Kensington Gore, SW7 (020 8742 1611; www.britishartfair.co.uk)
What’s in your fridge, mate?
Bison
IF YOU hate the sight of plastic milk or juice cartons in your fridge, invest in Bison’s beautiful heavy-duty stoneware milk jugs, made in Australia
They come in milk, parchment, celery, raspberry or gun metal colours and cost from £11.50 for the smallest jug up to £33 for the largest
There are matching mixing bowls, from £12 to
£99, penguin jugs, and a vinaigrette and dipping dish set, too Available from ICTC
For more information, call 01603 488019,
or visit www.ictc.co.uk.
Expert Verdict
This mail-order and online company, which sells innovative gadgets for home and garden, has hundreds of clever ideas, including a telescopic ladder that extends to 3.8m and shrinks to just 76cm (£199), remote control adaptors for hard-to-reach sockets (£24.95 for three), a type of
putty called Cyber Clean that cleans your computer keyboards (£7.95), and an electric duvet (from £79.95) to keep you extra warm as colder nights approach
To order, call 0844 482 1122
For more information, visit www.expertverdict.com
Lined with linen
Lombok
This month sees the launch of a new linen range from Lombok, the company renowned for its pieces of chunky, reclaimed hardwood furniture
In keeping with its Far Eastern ethos, the collection includes a Chinese Flower range, with floral motifs and traditional crewelwork on pillowcases (from £9), a cotton-and-linen mix range called Lilly, and rustic hemp table runners The colours are predictably muted and neutral, designed to complement the furniture
For more information, call 0870 240 7380,
or visit www.lombok.co.uk
Reader giveaway
BT
The new BT Verve 450 handset combines sleek good looks with modern technology, including texting facility, inverse LCD light, two positions (“flat and upright”),
a memory that can store up to 200 names,
a clock/alarm, call timer and
10 hours’ talktime
It costs £49.99 for a single unit or
£79.99 for a twin, and you can register
up to five handsets
BT are giving away a BT Verve 450 single unit to each of the first 10 readers who send their name and address in an email to vervestandard@octanepr.com
Birds of a feather
Francesca Galloway
This leading dealer in, and collector of, 18th,
19th and 20th century textiles is holding a selling
exhibition at her West End Gallery This is the second
instalment of the two-part show, concentrating
on late 18th and 19th century textiles
Included are chair covers designed for princes, kings and emperors, as well
as designs for Morris & Co
Neo-Classicism
to Pop: European Textile Design 1790-1970 is at Francesca Galloway, 31 Dover Street, W1 (020 7499 6844;
www.francesca galloway.com)
The exhibition runs until
28 September
That’s a good idea
The offer runs until 19 September
Conditions apply
For more information about this offer visit www.shop.bt.com
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