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Homes&Property

Wednesday 23 March 2016

London’s best property search news: homesandproperty.co.uk

Money issue: turn a studio room into a flat

Homes are where the art is Page 6

PLUS: transform your home. Easter paint special Page 14

The best seatin the house

2 WEDNESDAY 23 MARCH 2016 EVENING STANDARD

Find Ruth Bloomfield’s full story at homesandproperty.co.uk

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Lifechangerof the week find perfect peace and run a New Forest village B&B

London buy of the week a boutique flat near Richmond Green and beautiful river walks

Trophy home of the week a Sandy Lane villa... so handy for London

By Faye Greenslade

Don’t let them destroy Whiteleys, say protesters

£975,000: in the pretty village of North Gorley, a peaceful, secluded spot in the New Forest, sits Little Mere — a picture-postcard thatch. Once the village shop and tea rooms, it is now a lovely home with two successful B&B rooms that you could expand upon.

The reception room features a huge inglenook

fireplace, the dining room has a mass of beams, the family room is spacious, and the kitchen/breakfast room —kitted out superbly for serving all those “full Englishes” — leads to a

spacious conservatory. Upstairs are five more bedrooms and two large loft rooms ripe for conversion, all with country views. Through Hamptons International (01722 417939).

£500,000: this ground-floor, one-bedroom flat is in a boutique development in a quiet street, just a stroll from Richmond Green. And if you love clean, uncluttered lines, this is the home for you.

With skylit ceilings and pale wood floors, the open-plan reception room includes generous dining and kitchen areas kitted out with sleek cabinetry.

There are fitted wardrobes and more skylights in the bedroom, while the bathroom is tiled in luxe grey marble. Bustling Richmond town centre is close, along with fabulous leafy riverside walks. It’s on the market with Foxtons (020 8879 2100).

PROTEST from major conser-vation groups and 1,000 local residents has greeted a plan to demolish London’s first department store. A wealthy

Brunei-based private family trust wants to turn the historic Whiteleys shopping centre in Bayswater into a 10-storey block of luxury flats, with no affordable homes included.

Though some façades would be retained, the store, founded in the Victorian era and rebuilt in 1912, would be gutted and its distinctive Edwardian glass domes removed. The proposal is the centrepiece of a £1 billion project to clean up Queensway, which has gone from chic to shabby in 20 years.

Westminster council planners will rule next week on whether Whiteleys can be demolished leaving only its stucco façades in Queensway and Porchester Gardens standing.

Three new basement levels are planned in the Grade II-listed building

and as well as 103 new homes, there will be shops, a gym, a boutique hotel, a cinema, a large car park and a crèche. The homes are likely to sell for sums which only the world’s richest could consider. At The Lancasters, the only comparable development locally, a four-bedroom flat is for sale at £24 million.

Luxurious: the remodelled centre would have a giant glass-topped atrium, top-spec homes a cinema, hotel and shops

Homes & Property | News

2,000-ticket giveaway National Homebuilding and Renovating Show

£2,775,000: you don’t have to bother with Barbados to luxuriate in a Sandy Lane villa with palm trees. This one overlooks a golf course in Sandy Lane, the poshest street in Kingswood, Surrey.

The newly built pile rivals the spec of its Caribbean cousin — the Sandy Lane resort that’s a firm Barbados favourite with holidaying celebrities. It boasts four bedrooms that all have

terraces, plus a sauna and steam room, a gym and mood-lit spa pool. There’s also a games room, a private cinema, an open-air entertainment area, and ornate pools and relaxing

water features in the landscaped gardens. Nearby Kingswood village has a great pub and is just 45 minutes from London. Through Sotheby’s (01932 485110).

STYLING your home around your needs and ideas is one of the most exciting and rewarding experiences you’ll ever take on. It can, however, be challenging and stressful — which is where a day at the Homebuilding & Renovating Show can really help.

We have 1,000 pairs of tickets to give away, first come, first served. You will find everything you need for your next project, big or small. From interior design to exterior landscaping,

roofing to flooring, restoration to new builds, it’s all at the Homebuilding & Renovating Show.

To apply for a free pair of tickets visit standard.co.uk/offers before 3pm on April 12. Usual rules apply.

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EVENING STANDARD WEDNESDAY 23 MARCH 2016 3

An art fan’s prize next to Jay’s place

Got some gossip? Tweet @amiranews

Rent Leo’s Caribbean retreat

Star in Jamie’s kitchen

ALICIA KEYS is selling her holiday home. The singer and her hip hop star husband Swizz Beatz, right, have put the estate, above, in Phoenix, Arizona, on the market for £2.6 million because they can’t find the time to fully appreciate it.

The palatial house has four bedrooms, five bathrooms and a six-car garage. When the couple bought the place, Keys is said to have fallen for the incredible surrounding landscape.

“There are only a handful of properties in Phoenix that offer such magnificent views,” says Kristle Jensen of Luxury Treehouse Realty. “This remarkable estate captures every element a buyer could ask for. It was designed for entertaining and upscale living.”

Alicia kisses goodbye to her Arizona ranch

By Amira Hashish

For more celebrity gossip, visit homesandproperty.co.uk/gossip

News | Homes & Propertyhomesandproperty.co.uk powered by

A CARIBBEAN retreat where film actor Leonardo DiCaprio, inset, partied with singers Rihanna, Lana del Rey and fashion designer Marc Jacobs is up for holiday rent.

The villa, right, with a private pool and four bedroom suites, is on St Jean Beach, the best in St Barths. Guests can use facilities

of the fabulous Eden Rock hotel next door.

Described as “a hundred-million-dollar yacht on

land”, the villa also has a recording studio which features the console used to make John

Lennon’s album Imagine. Visit homeaway.com/vacation-rental/p3518250 — price on request.

LIVE next to White Cube, the contemporary art gallery owned by Jay Jopling, above, often credited with making household names of Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin.

Former offices at the junction of New Cavendish Street and Weymouth Mews, below, moments from Marylebone High Street, are now a five-flat development where a three-bedroom home is for sale through Druce at £4.6 million.

Super-chic styling includes European oak panelling, Italian marble in the kitchens and book matched marble in the bathrooms, while Tom Dixon metallics make this a design lover’s dream.

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THE stunning period house, right, which was the set for Jamie Oliver’s Naked Chef TV series is for sale. It’s back on the market at £2.75 million with KFH, having been listed for £3 million last year.

In Chequer Street, EC1, it has been refurbished since the days when the

superstar chef, left, would slide down the banister to the kitchen on the

opening credits. The

three-bedroom

house has a spa and home gym, and it is generous at 2,410sq ft, but wouldn’t quite suit Jamie, who recently revealed that wife Jools is expecting their fifth child.R

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Homes & Property | New homes

This could be the perfect day outA recipe for success: treat your family to the city’s top sights this Easter while you enjoy the best show homes in London, says David Spittles

THE slowdown in house prices means it will be a buyers’ market this Easter.Developers, tempting us with an Easter parade of

show homes, will be open to serious offers. With such a wide selection of schemes to view, why not combine hard-nosed house hunting with a spot of sightseeing and retail therapy?

SOUTHWARKSHREK’S ADVENTURE AND THE LONDON EYEWith its “string of pearls” of riverside attractions, Southwark is a good place to start. Head for County Hall, where the office of former mayor Ken Living-stone is part of a marketing suite for Thirty Casson Square at the South-bank Place development, named after Sir Hugh Casson, the late director of architecture for the 1951 Festival of Brit-ain. Prices from £750,000. This high-brow cultural quarter now includes family attractions such as Shrek’s Adventure and the London Eye.

BOROUGH MARKETTHE SHARD AND THE OLD VICStroll past Tate Modern towards Bor-ough Market to find a show home centre for three SE1 schemes by developer Crest. These include Valentine Place — 42 flats and mews houses near the Old Vic theatre, from £735,000, and Snows-fields Yard, 28 flats in the shadow of The Shard, from £765,000.

THE CITYSHAKESPEAREAN HISTORY TOURCross London Bridge into the City to visit The Stage, a 412-home develop-ment on land where Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet and Henry V were first performed. Archaeological remains of the original stage will be encased in glass as part of a new heritage centre that includes a 200-seat sunken amphithea-tre. Show flats designed by award-win-ning Nicola Fontanella have been created in refurbished railway arches on the 1.2-acre site. From £695,000.

FINSBURY PARKSAIL, CYCLE AND GET THE INTERIOR DESIGN VIBEBuilders are pushing the boundaries of design and architecture, some collabo-rating with luxury brands, others focus-ing on high street chains and specialist local shops to offer flats where first-time buyers can afford to “get the look”.

Furnishing store Heal’s has designed Scandi-style show homes at Wood-berry Down, Finsbury Park, where new flats, from £465,000, overlook two reservoirs with a busy sailing club and a nature trail. Call 020 8895 9918.

From £675,000: above and above right, homes at Keybridge Lofts, Vauxhall, the UK’s tallest residential brick tower at 37 storeys

From £695,000: The Stage in EC2, right, with 412 new homes and a heritage centre on the site where Romeo and Juliet was first performed

Live by the water: marvel at new-look Southwark riverside from the London Eye when you call in to view flats at Southbank Place luxury development

From £750,000: Thirty Casson Square, Southbank Place. Ken Livingstone’s old office is part of the marketing suite


New homes | Homes & Propertyhomesandproperty.co.uk powered by

Worth a look — and at a price to suit you

PICK OF THE SHOW HOMESUNDER £500,000St John’s Way is a new 528-home neighbourhood opposite Clapham Junction train station where Peabody, the developer, is creating a new route through to Wandsworth Common.

Art and architecture come together with relief sculptures depicting the history of the area embedded into the brick façades. Call 020 7758 8431.

UNDER £750,000Islington Square, on the site of the former Royal Mail depot, is a new quarter for fashionable Upper Street.

It has a grand double-arched entrance and listed Edwardian warehouses. A new shopping arcade and civic square are being created as well as 263 homes plus an acre of green rooftop space. Call 020 7723 6733.

UNDER £1 MILLIONReach Sundridge Park in the Bromley suburbs by a leafy road running alongside a golf course leading to a listed Nash mansion. New homes are being built in the grounds of the 275-acre estate — flats, plus three-storey townhouses that have an open-plan kitchen and family room opening on to a neat garden, and a first-floor lounge with sun terrace. Call 020 8313 9163.

UNDER £1.5 MILLIONThe Villas is a scheme of eight freehold houses at a former builder’s yard off Harrow Road in north-west London. The bespoke entrance gates made of polished brass herald the high-quality architecture of hand-some Danish brick frontages with floor-to-ceiling glass and designer interiors, in a landscaped courtyard.

Aimed at design-conscious urbanites, the three-bedroom houses have underfloor and solar heating plus a clean-air ventilation system and a basement with an “engine room” that usefully doubles as a utility area.

Each house is cabled for CCTV and entertainment systems, and has a ter-race and private parking. Call Aston Chase on 020 7724 4724.

UNDER £2 MILLION190 Strand is the first purpose-built housing scheme in this part of central London for more than 100 years.

GRID Architects took their cue from the many classical buildings that surround the site and came up with a façade of Portland Stone and mansard roofs with decorative metalwork filigree panels, tying in

bespoke joinery and extravagant finishes of marble and polished nickel. As well as underground parking and a grand staffed entrance lobby, there are basement storage rooms — these are big, walk-in spaces — plus a package of amenities from spa to private cinema and virtual golf. Call 020 3051 1022.

Our selection of hot new offers, starting below £500k

From £610,000: apartments at former optical works Camden Courtyards, left, in St Pancras Way, close to Camden Town

Less than £1.5 million: The Villas, eight handsome houses off Harrow Road, north-west London

with the Beaux Arts and Victorian English Baroque buildings in Aldwych and Kingsway.

A ground-floor colonnade with shops runs towards Temple Gardens next to the river. The apartments’ interior design is inspired by the grand Savoy hotel nearby — bold and classic, with coffered ceilings,

DEVELOPERS are bringing in interior architects at an early stage to devise flexible floor plans and storage solutions. One result is “Manhattan-style” homes, where you step straight into the main living space. Sprinkler systems cut the need for fire doors.

In high-rise flats with floor-to-ceiling windows, such a floorplan accentuates the sense of space and light, and the views. See the impact at Keybridge Lofts, Vauxhall, the UK’s tallest brick tower. From £675,000. Call 020 7205 4152.

At Artisan, Fitzrovia, developer Dukelease opts for a “broken plan” layout, using sliding walls and screens to provide flexible space. A curving oak-and-glass staircase is a standout feature. From £1 million. Call CBRE on 020 7420 3050.

Bling interiors are making way for comfort, using glass, stone, stainless steel, leather, laminates, wood and

concrete. At Blake Tower, Barbican, Conran-designed flats have a concrete feature wall and Sixties-style brass and terrazzo fittings and fixtures. Sliding “pocket” doors, hall cupboards and window bench seats in bedrooms make the most of space. Prices from £725,000. Call Redrow on 020 3538 3719.

Other developers are taking inspiration from context and character of the location. At Camden Courtyards, a former optical works in St Pancras Way, 164 new homes are being built. Clad in patterned brick and with a striking rusty Corten steel two-storey roof extension, the architecture picks up on the site’s industrial heritage.

The innovative S-shaped building allows for two tranquil internal courtyards and communal roof terraces. Prices from £610,000. Call Barratt on 0844 2250032.

INTERIOR DESIGN: A SIGN OF THE TIMES

From £725,000: Conran-designed apartments at Blake Tower, Barbican

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Homes & Property | Homes with art

Good for the artMaking room for young creatives in new schemes is a win-win for everyone. By Ginetta Vedrickas

ARTISTS are being invited to open workshops, studios and gal ler ies in new housing schemes — a happy reversal of the saga when

creatives are forced out of a district as developers move in. The idea is seen as a solution of mutal benefit — with creatives attracting visitors and bring-ing a youthful vibe to a district, which in turn draws in home buyers.

Councils and communities are behind this move to encourage art-based busi-nesses into regeneration zones, help-ing to build new neighbourhoods and often creating lasting relationships between developers, students and col-leges.

Greenwich Peninsula will have 30,000 residents when complete and developer Knight Dragon hopes this new swathe of London will become a “creative quarter” with galleries, public art and community events. Ravens-bourne College opened its campus there in 2010 and students and teachers regularly exhibit work in the free and permanent NOW Gallery, which is show-ing Where Pioneers Live, a specially commissioned abstract interpretation

of the peninsula’s transformation, until May 16. Meanwhile, in Tunnel Avenue, Greenwich Peninsula, Lazarides Edi-tions produces handcrafted limited editions of the work of innovative young artists, using traditional and digital printing techniques.

More space is being set aside for use by creative companies, start-up busi-nesses and artisan producers. Richard Margree, Knight Dragon chief executive, has responsibility for choosing artistic ventures which he says are vital when creating a distinctive community.

Developers hope that people who come to a district to see art, visiting local bars and restaurants in the process, will also be interested in their homes for sale. Sculptor Alex Chinneck’s installa-tion A Bullet From a Shooting Star — an illuminated lattice shaped like an inverted electricity pylon — was com-missioned by the London Design Festi-

val and Knight Dragon at Greenwich Peninsula last year. This commercially attractive, 115ft-tall work generated crowds. Knight Dragon also commis-sioned British artist Morag Myerscough to enliven the peninsula skyline as development progresses, and currently her Colourblock Cranes add splashes of bright hue to the landscape.

The latest phase of new homes on the peninsula is at Upper Riverside with one-bedroom apartments from £450,000. Call 020 3713 6153.

AFFORDABLE ARTA Shoreditch building acquired by Lon-donewcastle is home to Art Rabbit, a venue for emerging art that has hosted 500 shows. The developer says it gives access to affordable art and helps it to judge what customers want. At 62-68 Rosebery Avenue in Clerkenwell, video installation artist Marco Brambilla’s

From £450,000: below right, apartments at Greenwich Peninsula’s latest phase, Upper Riverside

Brightest and best: artist Morag Myerscough’s Colourblock Cranes are a striking addition to the Greenwich Peninsula skyline

For new stars of the east: far left, St George and Bow Arts Trust are delivering 90 affordable artist studios at Pennington St Warehouse in Wapping

Community showcase: below, the free and permanent NOW Gallery exhibition space at Greenwich Peninsula

Computer generated image of XY Air.*Prices correct at time of going to press.

VISIT THE


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work helped to sell all units to Lon-donewcastle’s target — creatives living around Exmouth Market. The develop-er’s flats and penthouses at Queen’s Park Place, NW6, start at £565,000. Call Aston Chase on 020 7724 4724.

In Hampstead, new development Kidderpore Green includes a new base for Hampstead School of Art, built by Barratt London as part of planning requirements. Principal Isabel H Langtry says the school’s relationship with the developer is so sound that a studio will be named for Barratt. The school offers vital opportunities to art-ists seeking affordable workspace, and artists Frank Bowling and Alan Gouk are new patrons, the first since Henry Moore. At Kidderpore Green, 128 new and refurbished homes start from £1.35 million. Call 0844 811 4321.

Henry Moore’s sculpture Locking Piece stands in Riverside Walk Gardens

near Vauxhall Bridge and now Ronson Capital Partners has commissioned works by Peter Randall-Page and Pablo Reinoso for its neighbouring homes scheme at Riverwalk. Artsource’s Patrick Morey-Burrows helps develop-ers choose art, and selected Reinoso. “Westminster wanted artwork to include a play element for children. You can imagine how that goes down with most artists, but Pablo sweetly incorporated this into his Children Only Bench.” Riverwalk apartments start from £1.25 million. Call Savills on 020 7828 3007.

HACKNEY SHOWCASEWoodberry Down, one of Hackney’s biggest new homes developments, hosts Exhibition in the Sky in May, showcasing work from local gallery, Unit G. Exhibi-tions are regularly held in the marketing suite, community centre and wetland centre. A new Heal’s-designed show flat has just opened with prices from £550,000. Call 020 8985 9918.

The River Medway isn’t known for its art scene but residents at Victory Pier, Peninsula Quay, in Kent have their own floating art gallery — LV21, a 40-metre steel-hulled lightship moored opposite. Prices from £270,000. Call Berkeley (01634 776773).

St George and Bow Arts Trust are bringing 90 affordable artist studios to Pennington Street Warehouse in Wapping. The studios are the first use of the warehouse in over 200 years. It’s all part of the St George London Dock masterplan, a mixed-use scheme deliv-ering 1,800 homes and 200,000sq ft of commercial space. Homes in the latest phase, Clipper Wharf, start from £869,950. Call 020 7971 7880.

Homes from £270,000: the LV21 floating art gallery, left, is moored opposite apartments at Victory Pier in Gillingham, Kent

From £1.35 million: below, homes at Hampstead’s Kidderpore Green, which contains a new base for the Hampstead School of Art

Creative home: Lazarides Editions workshop and digital print studios, a platform for fine art print editions at Greenwich Peninsula

LAUNCHING SOON


Homes & Property | Money spinners

Let your home make the money

Turning other people’s houses into music video backdrops

Creatives get a cosy office, you get the rent. It’s a perfect solution, say Liz Hoggard and Ruth Bloomfield

MODERN offices can be so soulless that it’s hard to focus on the task at hand, says Roddy Campbell. It’s one reason why the

hedge fund manager-turned-digital entrepreneur launched Vrumi, a “day rental” version of Airbnb.

Rather than hire out your home over-night to people on a city break, with Vrumi you hire it out to people looking for an affordable, pleasant workspace while you are out at work yourself.

Vrumi connects people who need extra working space — from writers and photographers to hairdressers and yoga coaches — with those who aren’t using their homes during the day.

The renters may be regulars or they could be looking for a one-off space — head-hunters needing somewhere to hold interviews, perhaps, or actors wanting to stage a script read-through.

Campbell launched Vrumi last year with his friend, entrepreneur and phi-lanthropist William Sieghart, who co-founded Forward Publishing — sold to WPP in 2001 — and created National Poetry Day. Campbell’s own big ram-bling house in Pembridge Villas, Notting Hill, doubles as Vrumi’s HQ. Downstairs in the kitchen, smart twentysomethings on laptops help to match requests with interesting homes.

“I had a big mortgage and my prop-erty sitting idle all day long,” explains Campbell. “Taking idle residential space and using it as productive work-space seemed to me to be something which would suit everyone.”

Vrumi came about after Campbell broke his leg in a skiing accident. Chat-ting to his physiotherapist, he realised the physio could rent a comfortable room in a house more cheaply than a cramped space at the back of a gym.

Some 600 Londoners have registered their homes, offering everything from space at a kitchen table in a house in Kingsbury, north-west London — £30 a day with use of the coffee machine and living-room sofa — to a basement in Chelsea with a pool and sauna for

SINGER and composer Katherine Gillham finds different spaces through Vrumi to perform and film new arrangements with film-maker Anton Nelson.

After shooting, Nelson, who works under the name AHTOH, colours the film, influenced by the décor and Gillham’s costume choice. “If you’re working in people’s houses you get that natural light, which is different from a recording studio,” he says.

We catch up with them at designer Tamara Tymovski’s

flat in Holland Park Gardens.She runs her company Sybaris Interiors there, but enjoys having others around. “Vrumi is a huge antidote to the loneliness of working from home,” she says. “It’s almost like a creative club.”

Her flat has high ceilings, original fireplaces and a huge blue sofa that she designed. “We can create an environment to work in that suits us much more than an office, where you have zero privacy and mustn’t disturb colleagues,” she adds.

£150 a day. Even Campbell’s own living room is listed, at £70 a day.

One of Vrumi’s absentee hosts, project manager Corina Lee, 30, travels daily to her Canary Wharf office for 7.30am, and used to leave her two-bedroom Victorian house in Islington standing empty for 12 hours. Since discovering Vrumi, she has had a steady stream of bookings, from mar-ket research companies to an advertis-ing agency which needs a place for meetings. She charges £60 a day and estimates she has earned about £300 a month since joining late last year.

Working in someone else’s house means you won’t get distracted by your own household chores, or by having to walk the dog. Plus the clock is ticking, “so your subconscious is saying, ‘Get

on with it’,” says Sieghart. The Vrumi website carries hosts’ room details and manages the payments, taking around five per cent of the rental fee. There is a system of reviews and feedback.

The income Vrumi hosts make is tax-able, says Campbell, but he is lobbying to have the service included in the Gov-ernment’s Rent a Room scheme, under which people taking a lodger can earn up to £4,250 per year tax free, rising to £7,500 from next month.

Vrumi’s founders say the “sharing economy” business model fosters mutual trust and community recycling of empty buildings. Lasting friendships have emerged from Vrumi, while Lon-doners get pleasant, affordable, flexible places to work.

“The way people work is changing fast,” says Sieghart. “So many corpo-rate office spaces are windowless, with no natural materials. I think it affects your psyche and the way you think and behave.” He gestures around Camp-bell’s living room, with its leather arm-chairs and eclectic art collection, and adds: “In a space like this, there’s no limit to your imagination.”

Founders: William Sieghart, left, and Roddy Campbell set up Vrumi last year

‘I had a big mortgage and a home sitting idle all day... it seemed that using it as productive workspace would suit everyone’

£400 A DAYA SPACIOUS warehouse apartment with a roof terrace in County Street in trendy Borough, SE1

£100 A DAYA LARGE, bright converted pub with bags of character in Lyndhurst Road, Peckham

To rent out your home or book a work-space, visit vrumi.com

katherine gillham.com

sybaris interiors.co

Creative collaboration: Katherine Gillham and Anton Nelson

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Homes & Property | Commuting

Weekly boarding is the trendRuth Bloomfield says the price of a big family home can be a breadwinner’s long commute

ALASTAIR TURNER works in Shoreditch where his life is a frenetic round of meet-ings, pitches and after-work drinks. His wife,

Anne-Marie, lives 130 miles away in Dorset with their three small children in a house in need of renovation.

This is how the huge cost of London housing has left many people. The Turners are typical of families striving to find a balance between work and home that results in a “split-screen” life. Anne-Marie and the children live in the family-size house they’d craved, while Alastair has become a “weekly boarder” in the capital, returning for three, sometimes four nights a week.

Many of the friends the Turners have made since buying their Georgian farm-house 18 months ago in Gillingham, near Sherborne, are in the same boat.

SpareRoom.co.uk says more than 6,500 people advertised on its website for a Monday-to-Friday London rental last year. Meanwhile, MondaytoFriday.com rentals website was set up spe-cifically to cater for those who only live in London on weekdays.

The Turners had a terrace house in Acton but with daughter Georgie, five, and three-year-old twin sons Archie and Charlie, they were desperate for more space. They also worried about the quality of the local schools.

Anne-Marie says:“I cried all night after we left London, and I cried saying good-bye to our neighbours. We both loved London but it was the children.”

The Turners bought their Acton home for £450,000 and extended it, then sold for a little over £1 million — just enough to buy and start renovating their new home; even a long-distance move doesn’t automatically mean you can afford a fabulous country pad and have a pile of cash to spare.

They chose far beyond the commuter belt. If they were going to leave London they wanted “real” countryside. “We wanted the children to be able to run around fields, and all of that,” says Alastair, chief executive of public rela-tions firm Aspectus.

Despite the tears they’ve had no regrets. Alastair says he has the “best of both worlds”, particularly as he can work from home one or two days a week.

“I run a business based in Shoreditch, then at weekends I go to the English countryside. It is great. The summer’s

coming, the kids are running out to meet me shouting, ‘Daddy! Daddy!’ I do get the best of it.” But what of Anne-Marie, alone looking after the children? “At first it was really hard,” she says. “Friends thought we were crazy, and it wasn’t that much fun initially. But now I’d recommend it to anyone.

“Life is much more relaxed in Dorset, we’ve met like-minded people and there’s plenty to get involved with. Our friends all come and stay weekends, and though it is hard being apart from Alastair we talk a lot and have a very

strong relationship. We always said we would never live apart, that it was a recipe for disaster, but in a crazy way it has made things better because we appreciate our time together.”

The boys settled into their new rou-tine instantly. Georgie, plunged into full-time school for the first time, was less sure but is now fully involved in country life. And Anne-Marie certainly isn’t bored or lonely. “I don’t have time to breathe, especially with house reno-vations. We are both working hard. Sometimes you just have to man up.”

Dorset’s home: Alastair Turner travels back to Gillingham at weekends

London’s for work: Shoreditch, where Alastair is a PR firm chief executive

“We’ve had to man up”: Alastair Turner, wife Anne-Marie and their children moved from Acton to Dorset in search of a bigger home and better schools

‘IT’S A SACRIFICE’

MAT GAZELEY, 32, and his fiancée Fleur Vidler, 30, face spending the early years of their marriage, at least, living 100 miles apart.

Renting in Muswell Hill, they decided last summer to buy a family home in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, right, near Fleur’s family. As their £400,000 budget wouldn’t go far in London, they went for a five-bedroom Georgian townhouse in “the gateway to the Cotswolds”. The mortgage, at £1,200 a month, is less than their £1,500-a-month London rent.

Mat, who works for online lending company Zopa, now spends three nights in London, splitting his time between friends and a kind aunt and uncle with a spare room, and works from home on Fridays. Fleur, 30, runs

upmarket children’s fashion label Belle Enfant from Cheltenham.

Mat admits that the weekly separation is a “sacrifice”. He adds, however: “We have got into a routine, and it is not so bad.

“But I do think that what we have done is a bit of a trend. Lots of our friends are doing the same.

“There comes a point when you need to stop renting in London and think about the future.”

‘THIS IS FOR LIFE’

RICHARD SAMUELS has been living the weekly boarder lifestyle for five years. His wife Tara, 32, lives in Darlington, County Durham, right, with their children Bronte, two, and Verity, eight months.

“We have decided this will be forever, until I retire,” says Richard, 34. As an account manager for a marketing tech company in London Bridge, he earns three times the £30,000 he’d get in the North-East.

The family can afford the mortgage on their four-bedroom Victorian semi, bought for £295,000, and cover the £500-a-month rent for a Monday-to-Friday room in a Crouch End flat.

Richard tries to get three or four nights a week at home, then catches the 6.30am train to London on

Mondays, keeping in touch with his young family via Skype. The couple chose Darlington for affordability and because Tara’s parents live nearby.

Richard doesn’t feel he is missing out as his children grow up. He says a regular commuter is likely be leaving home before the children wake and getting back when they are asleep. “When you think what it costs to raise a family... it has to be a London salary or it just does not stack up for us.”

TOM

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A new star is born in the AlpsCathy Hawker finds £75k village homes where you can wake up in France and ski to Italy for lunch

‘La Rosière has all the big resort qualities — and it is so friendly’

BOASTING LONG, snow-sure descents, the Tarentaise Valley in the French Alps is home to some of skiing’s top resorts. In Val d’Isère,

Courchevel, Méribel and Les Arcs, all property, from a café to a slope-side chalet, comes at a sky-high price premium.

So three cheers for the delightful French resort of La Rosière which ticks all the boxes on altitude, spectacular views and authentic charm. Even better, it links directly with La Thuile in the Aosta Valley, meaning you can breakfast in France and ski to Italy for lunch.

“La Rosière has exceptional views over the Tarentaise Valley and is fully south facing with sun all day,” says Charles-Antoine Sialelli of Athena Advisers. “It is in the exclusive ‘Club of 1800s’ at the same altitude [1,850 metres/6,070 feet] as Val d’Isère and Courchevel but without the crush and queues, even in peak weeks.”

Family-friendly La Rosière is lined with pine trees and traditional chalets. It has 100 miles of runs and work is about to start on two new chair lifts that will add 28 miles. When the £9 million project is complete in December 2018, the top height will be 2,800 metres, or 9,200 feet.

Summer activities centre on hiking and biking trails and a nine-hole golf course. A steady stream of visitors heading through La Rosière to Italy via the Little St Bernard mountain

with management provided by the developers, established French company Terresens. Annual maintenance starts from £1,700.

The homes will be in a group of chalet-style buildings beside the tree-lined pedestrian path with all the village facilities, including a multilingual children’s club, within an easy walk. The lifts are less than five minutes’ walk away and skiers can return within yards of the property.

Homes are all freehold and can be purchased outright or through a flexible lease-back scheme where buyers can claim back VAT — 20 per cent of the purchase price. In return they must put their homes into the rental pool for at least 83 days a year. “La Rosière doesn’t have Val d’Isère’s prestige but that is not what buyers there want,” says Sialelli. “They want to ski with their family in a beautiful Alpine resort. In La Rosière they find the spirit of the Tarentaise Valley, the views, the sun and great skiing linked to Italy, all at a good price.”

Athena Advisers: athenaadvisers.com

(020 7471 4500)La Rosière Office du Tourisme:

larosiere.net

Loving the lifestyle: ski school boss Simon Atkinson, his partner Colette and their sons Erwan and Dylan

YORKSHIRE-BORN Simon Atkinson has a fabulous claim to fame. Since 2011 he has headed up the ESF — the École du Ski Français — in La Rosière, the only Briton to be elected director of any French ski school.

“My parents were both teachers and I went with them on annual school ski trips,” he says. “My two dreams were to become a ski instructor and to take part in alpine cycle racing.

“In 1989 I gave up my job in printing to work in the Alps. It took me four years to qualify with the ESF, training while I held down other jobs including cleaning bars. The local ESF could not have helped me more along the way.”

Atkinson has lived in La Rosière for 17 years and he and his French partner, Colette, have two sons — Dylan, 16 and Erwan, 11. He spends winters skiing and working long days at the ESF, while in summer he has time to devote to cycling and racing.

“La Rosière has all the qualities of a big resort but the friendliness of a small, intimate one,” he says. “I see people from all walks of life, from those who want a simple holiday up to very wealthy families. They all like the peace and quiet here, and of course the great snow and the sunshine.”

pass ensures that many of the resort’s 13 restaurants open all year round.Turin is 90 minutes away, Geneva airport is a two-and-a-half-hour drive and there are hopes of linking Bourg-Saint-Maurice in the valley to La Rosière by cable car from Séez, possibly in a decade. This would let skiers board a train in St Pancras and reach La Rosière with one change.

NEW-BUILD SKI HOMESTypical property prices in La Rosière are a quarter of those in Val d’Isère says Charles-Antoine Sialelli. Small

resale studios in the village centre start from under £75,000 but increasingly buyers want larger flats with more bedrooms, both for personal use and to maximise rentals.

Athena Advisers is selling flats and chalets at Le Hameau de Barthélémy where building starts this spring. On completion at the end of next year there will be 19 two- to four-bedroom flats from 775sq ft priced from £300,000 and one detached five-bedroom chalet of 1,615sq ft for £928,000. All have mountain views, balconies and underground parking

From £300,000: two- to four-bedroom flats and a detached five-bedroom chalet at Le Hameau de Barthélémy, all with balconies and parking (Athena Advisers)

Spectacular: balcony view from new-build Le Hameau de Barthélémy in family-friendly French alpine ski resort La Rosière


Homes & Property | Decorate

the new

Transform your home this Easter with the sizzling new spring paint colours. Create a feature wall or a fun kids’ room. Interiors writer of the year Philippa Stockley offers some inspirational ideas

colours

Homes&paint

OIL OR WATER BASED?FOR centuries, most paint was mixed by eye in a bucket using linseed oil, pigments, and turpentine to thin or flatten. House painters knew basic recipes by heart, mixed with a limited range of cheap earth tones, such as yellow ochre, green earth, lamp black (from soot), white lead (from lead —poisonous), along with precious pigments such as blue made from ground-up lapis lazuli.

From the Seventies, advanced chemistry and concern about volatile solvents including turpentine led to a surge of acrylic water-based paints. Pioneers were companies such as Crown. Today, water-based paints come in many finishes from flat to glossy and can be really durable, wipeable — and of course, they dry fast. But demand for traditional oil-based paints has surged again, mainly because they use natural ingredients, they last even better —particularly for outside woodwork — and look gorgeous. Many smart companies now offer them once more.

Crown’s Sun-Drenched City range: yellows accented with pink, green and copper, grey and charcoal flashes

Universally useful shade: this wall is in Edward Bulmer Natural Paint emulsion, in White Lead, £40 for 2.5L (edwardbulmerpaint.co.uk)


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NOTHING transforms a room as fast as paint. Do some trompe l’oeil panelling, paint a mural, cover a feature wall in a fashionable

dark colour, or paint inside an alcove to make a niche for a desk. Run a citrus stripe along a skirting, or paint a chair in singing flame for instant zing.

Work with different tones of the same colour on wall, cornices and ceiling for an “architectural” look, or put strongly contrasting colours on walls and doors for elegant fun. Use one strong colour, such as a dark blue, on everything — or just apply a shocking-pink band right around a room like a wide ribbon. Be a devil and do the ceilings a darker colour than white — if you don’t like it, change it.

Colour lifts your spirits. And since even posh paint only costs about £40 for a can that will coat the walls of a smallish room, pick up a brush. There are hundreds of colours, so choose a brand, do some tests, and get cracking.

GO ARCHITECTURALUntil recently, the paintmaker Little Greene was off most people’s radar. Now it has a smart new showroom in New Cavendish Street, W1. Next month it will relaunch the Paint and Paper Library, with its so-called “Architectural Paints”, which were developed by David Oliver, from whom Little Greene bought the company last year.

The architectural range has five tones, marked I-V, of each of its 19 basic colours, so that you can use grades of one colour for particular effects. Paint a wall one tone, a cornice another and the ceiling another yet. The system ensures that they harmonise.

Among Little Greene’s regular paints, its five best-selling colours include sizzling, orangey Atomic Red and the soft, deep, warm Hicks Blue, fantastic in a bedroom with crisp white bed linen; or use as a feature wall. Paint the guest loo Atomic Red — visitors will love it. From £38 for 2.5L (matt emulsion).

Packed with pigment: a strong, stunning blue deserves to be splashed across a generous-size space. Panelling in Azurite water-based eggshell, priced £25 for 750ml, £70 for 2.5L from Edward Bulmer Natural Paint (edwardbulmerpaint.co.uk)

It’s cool to contrast: Yeabridge Green walls and doors, opening to a room in Vardo teal, both estate emulsion, £39.50 per 2.5L; Shadow White woodwork in estate eggshell, £55 per 2.5L; floor paint in Manor House Gray, £59 per 2.5L, all Farrow & Ball (farrow-ball.com)

Hit the highlights: this bright-white diner has Trumpet yellow Intelligent matt emulsion from Little Greene on its stair flashes. Priced £45 for 2.5L (littlegreene.com)

Standout shades: score with doors in a sunny hue. Little Greene’s brightest yellow is Mister David, £28 per litre of traditional oil gloss (littlegreene.com)

Accentuate your features: Knightsbridge Intelligent matt emulsion is used in an alcove to help create a separate office area — £22 a litre from Little Greene (as before)Continued on Page 16


Homes & Property | Decorate

Homes&paint

UNBEATABLE AND TRADITIONALGet superb-quality paints and exquisite colours from Papers and Paints (papersandpaints.co.uk) —which has been going for years in Chelsea and has a deservedly devoted fan base — and also from Edward Bulmer (edwardbulmer paint.co.uk). These premium firms make sublime paints using very good pigments, and sell hand-painted colour cards so you can be sure you like the shade. This saves painting your own swatches, so it’s worth it.

Papers and Paints, run by Patrick Baty, who advises historic houses and palaces on colour, divides its pitch-perfect paints into ranges. The Historic range has some incredibly vibrant colours with evocative names such as Della Robbia Blue, Pale Majolica Yellow and Sèvres Green. Its Thirties and Fifties selections are so gorgeous that the hand-painted swatches look edible. These are fantastic if you love strong colour.

The Traditional range features colours used by English house painters over the centuries, including superb neutrals. Lovely to work with, the paint costs from

£38.40 for 2.5L of matt emulsion. Its paints are water-based, though eggshell and gloss also come in oil.

Edward Bulmer’s well-chosen range of 72 oil-based paints, and distempers, go on like a dream. Compared with other brands, these well-made paints are, taken as a

group, chromatically relatively sober. There are some really lovely greys — bang on trend at the moment — that work well in both historic and modern interiors. Charleston Grey is worth a look. If you want your home to recall a Dutch still life, this is the brand for you. The website is very good. Prices start from £40 for 2.5L of matt emulsion.

WHAT’S NEW? Farrow & Ball has launched nine new colours to celebrate its 70th year. This widely loved brand (farrow-ball.com), which sells only water-based paints, revealed the new additions to its appealing 132-shade range last month.

Available in all finishes, the new colours have an emphasis on freshly fashionable drabs and greys. The darker tones work well on their own for elegance, or counterpoint them with whites or brights — in both paint and furnishings — for a contemporary look. The names of the new nine are

historic and British, and include Drop Cloth, Worsted, Cromarty (a misty green-white), Yeabridge Green (a Georgian green, good in a bathroom or sitting room), plus a good strong teal called Vardo.

The wide range of Farrow & Ball finishes includes estate emulsion at £39.50 for 2.5L, through to gloss and floor paint. The company also makes casein distemper — a traditional milk protein-based paint with a soft, chalky finish — from £47 for 2.5L, and limewash, from £46 for 2.5L.

Dulux Magic (dulux.co.uk) offers a really tough new water-based paint

Counterpoint: Chinese Emperor yellow and Copper Beech create a colour-block architectural look — £21 for 750ml (paintandpaperlibrary.com)

Create a mini home office: Crown suggests painting an alcove or a feature wall darker than the rest of the room to single out an area for your desk. This is new Peek-a-Boo Blue, £18.49 for £1.25L emulsion (crownpaint.co.uk)

The real deal: a hand-painted colour card, below, gives a true idea of the shades (papers andpaints.co.uk)

... Continued from Page 15

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suitable for children’s rooms and play areas. Called Endurance+, it is 20 times stronger than regular emulsion, and even crayon wipes off it. It comes in 14 “playful” colours, so use it for simple murals in children’s bedrooms. From £20.99.

Dulux has some great ideas for children’s rooms that anyone just a bit artistic can try. Each uses a maximum of four colours. Try its

Superhero, Jungle, or Storybook bedroom designs. The company’s clever Magic White, meanwhile, goes on pale pink and fades to white in an hour. So if you’ve ever had trouble seeing where you just painted, this is the answer. From £18.98.

Crown (crownpaint.co.uk), a tried-and-trusted, and also innovative brand, has some good ideas for using contrasting colours.

It suggests painting a piece of furniture in a geometric pattern of different tones for instant upcycling, using masking tape to get the lines straight. Or paint a two-inch band

along the top of a skirting board for a striking effect in a hall. A niche or alcove painted a darker colour than the rest of the room creates a mini-office area for a desk.

Crown’s new Hall & Stairs matt paints are, like Dulux’s Endurance+ range, “20 times more scrubbable”

than ordinary emulsion. From £26.49 for 2.5L.

MONEY-SAVING TIP: it always pays to buy quality brands. If you use cheap paint, you will spend just as much of your precious time applying it but the result won’t be as good. In

particular, it may not look as good in certain lights. Pigments appear different under electric and natural light. It is worth spending a few pounds more to get the best result.

BRUSHES: buy good-quality brushes, ideally with natural bristles. Cheap brushes shed hairs, and picking hairs out of a painted wall is just a waste of time. At the end of the job always clean the brush meticulously, with white spirit if using oil paint, or water and a bit of washing-up liquid if the paint is water-based. A really clean brush can be used over and over, but one left half-clean will dry rock hard.

TEST IT FIRST: use a tester pot of your top choices. This small outlay helps to minimise mistakes. Paint a big test patch on white paper, write the paint name by it, and when dry, tack it to the wall with masking tape. Look at it in natural and electric light and move it on to different walls to see the true colour effect.

AND FINALLY…. what about those half-used tins? As long as you close the tin tight and use tape to secure the lid, most paint will last about a year — longer if you decant it into a suitable smaller container; this removes air, so helps prevent drying. But do label it with name and type. Don’t pour unwanted paint down the sink — take cans to the local dump.

Upcycle: give old furniture a new lease of life. This chest, above left, teams Crown’s Beige White and Soft Shadow non-drip satin, both £14.99 for 750mls

Great for kids’ rooms: super-hardwearing Endurance+ paints used for Storybook scheme, right, are matt Blue Babe and Jasmine White, from £20.99, and tester pots of Goose Down and Polished Pebble, from £1 (dulux.co.uk)

Stunning combination: Lamp Black intelligent matt on wall, left, £45 for 2.5L, is teamed with Shallows floor paint, £61 for 2.5L from Little Greene (littlegreene.com)

Philippa Stockley was named lifestyle & interiors journalist of the year at the LSL Property Press Awards this week. Twitter: @stockleyp


My design Londonondon

By Liz Hoggard

Homes & Property | Interiors

KIT KEMPHOTELIER/INTERIOR DESIGNER

KIT KEMP has been splashing colour on to London’s hotel scene for the past 30 years. Her Firmdale Hotels portfolio,

co-founded with her property developer husband, includes the Soho, Charlotte Street and Covent Garden Hotels, as well as Ham Yard in Soho, now a regular haunt for film premieres and theatre after-parties.

An interior designer by trade, she is a passionate collector and all her hotels display art, craft and design commissions. She says a good hotel throughout “should have a sense of arrival and adventure”.

MY FAVOURITE SHOPIn Camden Passage, Caroline Carrier’s tiny shop, Number One, does vintage English porcelain and Wedgwood, and hideously fabulous old ornaments. It’s like the best cupboard you’ve ever opened. FAVOURITE MAKERSI discovered Hermione Skye O’Hea at her graduate show at Chelsea College of Arts. She has since been doing loom artwork for us, including one over the

reception desk at Ham Yard. And Daniel Reynolds at Pullens Yard does ceramics, mobiles and candelabra.

FAVOURITE FABRICSLondon’s markets have got touristy. I prefer to go to people like Susan Deliss (susandeliss.com) who travels to Turkey, Egypt and Morocco and collects wonderful old and new silk ikats, embroideries, kilims, velvets and linens.

SECRET LUXURYWalking to work down Exhibition Road, which has been redesigned boulevard-style, and past Imperial College, the V&A and the Natural History Museum, and the French community shops in South Kensington with lovely delis and tasty cheese shops.

MOST COVETED DESIGN OBJECTA Lynn Chadwick bronze candlestick. We borrowed it from Willer in W8 (willer.co.uk) for a shot in my new book but had to return it.

HOMEWARE TIPI really admire Fine Cell Work, a charity that teaches male prisoners to be skilled in needlework. They asked me to design some new products for them, so we’ve come up with a headboard and a footstool, a mirror and a lamp shade.

Kit Kemp’s Every Room Tells A Story is published by Hardie Grant, £30.

WHERE I LIVEMy home is in Kensington, which makes it slap-bang in the centre of London, yet I have so much greenery on my doorstep: Hyde Park to Green Park to St James’s Park. We have a double-fronted Thirties house that we bought 15 years ago. It’s quite a carefree home. I get teased that I am a cluttered minimalist. There are fabrics everywhere and colour makes me feel happy.

WHAT I COLLECTI love painter Juliette Losq. Her artworks are created from collages of photos taken in the suburbs of London. I also love the work of artist Morag Ballard, Anna Raymond’s textile prints and the paintings of Breon O’Casey. We should respect our British artists more.

Collector: Kit Kemp, left, covets one of Lynne Chadwick’s bronze candlesticks, above, and admires Fine Cell’s prisoner-produced needlework, right

Favourite shop: left, Caroline Carrier’s little vintage shop in Camden Passage

Bespoke fabrics: Kemp prefers Susan Deliss to “touristy” market finds

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Homes & Property | Our home homesandproperty.co.uk homesandproperty.co.uk

My trade secrets for an ultra-luxe lookInterior designer Natalya Nesterova spends millions on clients’ behalf but transformed her Nunhead cottage on just £150k, says Ruth Bloomfield

FOUR years working as an inte-rior designer for super-rich Russians living in London has given Natalya Nesterova strong champagne tastes — but, sadly,

still only a prosecco budget. By day she helps clients spend seven-

figure sums upgrading homes in Chelsea, Belgravia and the Surrey countryside. The largest interiors budget she has had to play with was £3 million, though this, she explains, had to include a new swim-ming pool and staff quarters. By night she returns to her family home in Nun-head, south-east London.

Nesterova, 41, and husband Alessandro Mangiavacchi, 42, bought the three-bed-room Victorian terrace house, their first property together, in 2011, paying £405,000. Since then, as well as having a son, Dante, now four, and setting up Nesterova’s company, Nesterova Interi-ors, they have extended and remodelled their house with a budget of £150,000.

“Pocket money to an oligarch but a substantial sum for most of us,” she says. A tight hold on the purse strings meant this paid for extending the kitchen and converting the loft, adding underfloor heating and installing new sash win-dows, putting in a new kitchen and two new bathrooms and furnishing the house from top to bottom. Nesterova’s day job

has left her with an enduring respect for quality and luxe finishes. From the lime-stone tiles on the hall floor to silk wall-papers and dramatic lighting, this is a refurbishment which looks — and feels — very expensive.

“I wanted to create a beautiful home for us to live in,” she says. “I also wanted it to have personality. Alessandro of course likes grey and white and black, he is an architect. But I like colour — and he has come to like it.”

Born and brought up in Uzbekistan, Nesterova’s training as an interior designer sent her first to New York, then Istanbul and finally London. After grad-uating from the University of Bedford-shire she got a job as an interior designer with a firm of architects, where she met Mangiavacchi.

EYE FOR AN ONLINE BARGAINThe couple rented a flat in Manor House, north London, where they saved hard to put together the deposit and bought their house shortly before Dante was born. The place was “a bit of a wreck” when they moved in and the reason renovations have taken so long is that they had to do the work piecemeal.

“We put all our savings into buying the property,” explains Nesterova. With cashflow constrained she turned to eBay

to furnish the house. Her favourite pur-chase was a classic G Plan dining table and chairs, plus two armchairs, which together cost £60. To make them look expensive she had them stained almost black and reupholstered. “They look brand new,” she says.

In 2013 the couple had saved enough to have their loft converted, a project which typically costs £40,000. They managed it on just £24,000, even though it was not a straightforward job. In order to create enough ceiling height in the new master bedroom they had to lower the ceilings on the first floor.

“Instead of getting the loft company to do everything we only got them to do the structure, and then we hired a builder to finish it,” explains Nesterova. “It was much cheaper that way.”

The following year they had saved up again, and were able to extend their kitchen into the side return, add sky-lights, and install bifold doors to the garden. They also took down the wall between the dining and living rooms to give a single generous space and added a window to give a view of the garden.

The hallway is decorated with a mon-tage of family photographs taken from the couple’s Instagram feed, profession-ally framed to give them a slick look. “I am obsessed by square pictures,” laughs

Calming shades: Natalya Nesterova, above with son Dante, four, chose gentle greys as a backdrop throughout the family home

Standout features: top, bespoke grey bookshelves, super-size artwork and bargain pendant lights in the living room; above centre, stainless steel, plum splashback and matching gloss paint in the kitchen; above, continuing the plum theme in a bedroom; main picture, tasteful but practical finishing touches give a warm, family-home feel

Nesterova. Her husband, a keen cook, designed the kitchen, choosing stainless steel work surfaces and cabinets in a mix of grey laminate and dark-stained oak. Nesterova chose a deep shade of plum for the glass splashback, and got her joiner to build a timber cover for the

extractor and spray it with gloss paint to match. At the same time she had timber panelling made and sprayed the same glossy colour to cover the cupboard housing the boiler and water tank. “It is not,” she says with admirable under-statement, “a neutral house.”


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Little black bookNatalya Nesterova: nesterovainteriors.comBuilder: Robert Pawlus (07940 239114)Upholsterer: Hennis Upholstery (hennisupholstery.com)Joiner: Mark Quinnell at Q Joinery (07973 193824; [email protected])Picture framer: David Mitchell Picture Framing (28 Loampit Hill, SE13; 020 8469 0078)Kitchen suppliers/fitters: Farnham Furnishers (farnhamfurnishers.co.uk; 01252 715000)Bifold doors: IQ Glass (iqglassuk.com; 01494 722 880)

TOP TIPS FOR LUXE ON A BUDGET Nesterova says a house with high ceilings needs large artwork and light fittings. Her sculptural white pendant living room lights from Danish firm Normann Copenhagen cost less than £70 through clippings.com. Super-size artworks are from a range at johnrichard.com.

When buying second hand, Nesterova seeks out brands and favours Italian design for its quality. She buys B&B Italia, Minotti and Poltrona Frau, and reupholsters as necessary. Expect to pay about £250 to £300 to reupholster a chair — bought new the same piece could easily cost 10 times as much.

Rich colours require a calm backdrop, says Nesterova. She chose three Farrow & Ball shades (farrow-ball.com) for her backdrop — Pavilion Gray on the ground floor, Dove Tale on the first floor and Elephant’s Breath in the loft. She avoided bright white for the ceilings, opting for an extra-pale grey instead.

Vinyl wallpaper has a subtle but luxurious-looking sheen and is hard-wearing and washable, so it’s ideal in hallways and in homes with young families. Nesterova bought her hall wallpaper from Altfield (altfield.com/home). Her husband wanted a super-size chopping board for the kitchen, so he got the kitchen fitters to cut him a metre-square slab of wooden worktop.

JOINED-UP THINKINGA good joiner was a crucial part of this project. The same company also built the bespoke, grey-painted bookshelves which sit either side of the original Vic-torian fireplace in the living room, along with the built-in desk and plywood shelves in the study, and the walk-in wardrobe in the loft.

Upstairs, the deep plum theme contin-ues. For the master bedroom Nesterova bought a battered French wardrobe and

a nearly matching chest of drawers for £120 each, and painted them in Pelt by Farrow & Ball — the same shade that she so loves in her kitchen.In the en suite bathroom, even the second-hand free-standing bath has been painted in the same shade. “You can paint almost any-thing,” she insists.

Further eBay finds include the gilded wood mirror that hangs above the fire-place and cost around £180. And so keen was Nesterova to be faithful to the

house’s Victorian roots , she also bid for a fireplace for the guest bedroom, where the original had been ripped out. She had her auction find sandblasted, and then spray-painted it white.

While it is safe to assume that none of her customers spend their free time lug-ging rusty old fireplaces to sandblasting workshops, or rolling up their sleeves and stripping wallpaper, only four years after they joined the property ladder, this house has lifted Nesterova and her

husband into the millionaire bracket, on paper at least.

THE property has been valued at £1.25 million — not a bad return for their initial outlay and the money spent on renovations. And, with its

heady mix of rich colours, luxurious fabrics and bespoke furnishings, their simple Nunhead terrace house now looks a million dollars, too.

Open-plan: the dining/living room with bifold doors, top; an unfussy but sleek and timeless bathroom treatment, above

Photographs: Charles Hosea


Alison Cork Bargain newsBargrgaggagaain neneweewse swsws

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where possible. To offer feedback on any of these companies, email [email protected] with “Bargain News” in the subject line. For more bargains, visit alisonathome.com or homesandproperty.co.uk/offers.

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Readers are offered a £60 discount on this sleek table when quoting HALSTON60, reducing the price to just £485. Visit withinhome.com/halston60 or call 020 7087 2900 by April 6 to order.

BRING a patriotic vibe to your home with the handcrafted Wingchair. In a striking Union Jack design, it comes with a lifetime guarantee and is exclusive to Wallace Sacks.

With handmade studding on the sides and back, and a sumptuously cushioned seat, the Wingchair blends classic style with comfort.

Normally £995, readers can claim a 70 per cent discount when quoting ABN23MAR16 before April 13, reducing the price to £299 plus delivery. Visit wallacesacks.com or call 0800 011 4642 to order.

Union Jack chair at huge discount is a great British buy

Kitchens with 20% off

■ KDCUK designs, supplies and fits superb-value Next125 glass-fronted kitchens from Germany. The company is offering readers a 20 per cent discount on its glass-door range until April 30.

Visit the showroom at Fieldings Road, Cheshunt, EN8 9TJ — take junction 25 off the M25. Or visit kdcuk.co.uk to view more than 100 photographs of kitchens belonging to previous customers.

For more information, email [email protected] or call 01922 620777. Members of KBSA and Trustmark.

Mirrored shoe cabinet has room for 24 pairs■ KEEP your shoes organised in this handy cabinet from One Regent Place. Reduced from £199.99 to only £99.99 and available in an attractive oak, black or white finish, the cabinet holds up to 24 pairs of shoes on six shelves.

Featuring full-length mirrored doors, this practical, good-looking unit also includes brackets so it can be fixed to the wall.

To order, visit oneregentplace.co.uk/cab23 or call 020 3504 1532 before March 31.

POUF DADDY is offering readers a 50 per cent discount on two of its poufs, The Daddy and the Jubbly. The rectangular Daddy, below, earned its name thanks to its impressive 1.7m x 1.3m extra-large dimensions, and the triangular Jubbly, right, is similar in

size. Coming in nine vibrant colours, for one week only these comfy poufs are reduced from £159 to just £79 with no extra shipping costs.

To claim your offer, visit poufdaddy.co.uk or call 0845 544 3055 and use the code ESFIFTY by March 30.

Loll in comfort at half the price

Chic coffee table for lovers of Art Deco


Pattie Barron

In spring, think ‘staying power’

Play a long game with investment plants you can count on after the paintbox patio flowers fade

Gardening problems? Email our RHS expert at: expert gardeningadvice @gmail.com

For outdoor events this month, visit homesandproperty.co.uk/events

Homes & Property | Outdoors

WHEN spring fever hits we all rush off to the garden centre to grab everything in blossom and bloom. What are

the best buys, though, that offer real investments rather than flash-in-the-pan flowers?

Photinia fraseri Red Robin is a great buy, even though the flowers come second to the foliage. Although this handsome evergreen shrub produces flat, white flowerheads in spring, the point is the new russet-red glossy foli-age, at its most vibrant when the plant is sited in a sunny spot. If space is lim-ited, buy photinia clear-stemmed, as a small tree that is as content in a tub as it is in the border.

Magnolia stellata will give you your magnolia flower fix even if you can only

right now of young strawberry plants for sale, such as weather-resistant Fenella. Three planted up in a hanging basket or deep metal colander, sited in a sheltered spot until May, will deliver a succession of berries this summer.

It’s too early for tomatoes and fruiting vegetables, but you can buy young plants of baby lettuces, rocket, radishes and carrots. Abandon the plastic pots, paint a wine box or three in Farrow & Ball’s delicious soft green Arsenic, Exte-rior Eggshell grade, line with perforated plastic before filling with multi-purpose compost, and have yourself an instant, small-scale kitchen garden that will prove as pretty as it is productive.

offer it a container. The crumpled, star-like white flowers that open from strokable, silken buds are very different from the more familiar goblet blooms, but just as beautiful. This is the finest magnolia for a small garden.

Let delectable dwarf weeping willow, Salix caprea Kilmarnock, transform a lacklustre shady bed. Plant primroses and pulmonarias, with their blue, lav-ender or brick-pink funnel flowers and marbled foliage, beneath the catkin-laden stems and, after mulching the ground with bark chippings, rejoice in your instant woodland glade.

Summer’s soup-plate clematis might be the glamour girls of the family, but the lesser-grown, shorter, spring-flow-ering clematis — the alpinas and mac-ropetalas — have their own charm. Dainty, nodding flowers in shades of deep pink and stunning lavender blues are followed by silvery seedheads that last through summer. As a bonus, they thrive in light shade. It’s worth buying a support such as Gardman’s twisted willow obelisk cone, nearly 5ft tall, at many garden centres, to create a stand-alone display.

Buy bags of bulbs, corms and rhi-zomes to plant in pots that you can sink into the border or drop into containers this summer. Oriental lilies, agapan-thus and begonias all provide great value. If you didn’t plant allium bulbs last autumn, buy potted alliums now in leaf and bud. They will cost more, but the investment will pay off with mauve and purple drumstick heads brightening the border in a month or two. Another high-riser you can find now, and that will multiply over the years, is luscious strawberry foxglove, Digitalis mertonensis.

Dressing the patio in spring finery is simple, given the bouquets of paintbox primulas and cheery-faced violas cur-rently on show, but leave some space for edibles and aromatics. A generous

potful of lavender within arm’s length of a seat is essential. Half a dozen French lavender plants, with their decorative tufted heads, will deliver that pine-infused fragrance redolent of Provençal hillsides and, when the flowers fade, the foliage smells just as wonderful.

PRETTY AND PRODUCTIVEBuild up your potted herb garden with, say, a strawberry pot planted with trail-ing rosemaries as well as low, wide containers of sharp-scented lemon thyme and spicy, felty-leaved oregano. It’s a dilemma whether to keep snip-ping them for the kitchen or to hold off until they are smothered with blue, lilac or pink flowers that bees and but-terflies adore. There is a great choice

White beauty: even in a small garden, you can still get your magnolia fix with compact variety stellata

Brilliant blooms: above left, Pulmonaria makes great groundcover in shady spots; right, Clematis macropetala flowers before its summer cousins

Greet the season: dwarf weeping willow has silken catkins

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FIND IT:

£485,000THIS two-bedroom cottage in Falloden Way, NW11, backs on to a lovely park and tennis courts. Through Godfrey & Barr (020 8012 3232).

To find a home in Golders Green, visit rightmove.co.ukFor more about Golders Green, visit homesandproperty.co.uk/spotlightgolders

Spotlight on Golders GreenTop-notch schools and handsome houses make this classic London garden suburb a magnet for families. By Anthea Masey

£550,000A TWO-BEDROOM flat in Crewys Road, NW2, with two bathrooms, 10 minutes from Golders Green’s shops and restaurants. Call Knight Frank (020 8012 3474).

£599,950MINUTES from Golders Green Tube station, a flat in Woodstock Road, NW11, with two bedrooms and a private drive. Through KFH (020 8012 2470).

ONE OF the quirks of London’s geography is that Hampstead Garden Suburb, one of the country’s best examples

of successful town planning, is not in Hampstead — it’s in Golders Green.

The suburb grew out of a campaign to save part of Hampstead Heath from development and was founded in 1907 by the east London philanthropist Dame Henrietta Barnett, who had a holiday cottage near the Spaniards Inn at Hampstead. Her aim was to create homes for all classes and a healthy and beautiful place to live.

Architect and planner Sir Raymond Unwin, who had already worked on the first garden city in Letchworth, Hertfordshire, was hired and the most fashionable architect of the day, Sir Edwin Lutyens, was brought in to design some of the houses and most of the public buildings. The suburb

£1.85 MILLIONTHIS five-bedroom family house in Armitage Rd, NW11, has a large garden and is close to Golders Green Road shops. Foxtons (020 8432 1444).

GOLDERS GREEN is seven miles north of central London with Finchley to the north, Highgate to the east, Hampstead to the south and Hendon to the west.

remains a beautiful and unique place to live, even if Dame Henrietta’s aim of creating homes for all the classes has long disappeared.

There are roads of big, detached houses in styles from Queen Anne and Arts & Crafts to Art Deco and rustic cottages. The overall impression is leafy, with manicured hedges and grass verges and an impressive central square with two churches and a high-achieving girls’ grammar school named after Dame Henrietta herself.

Leafy charm: magnolia in bloom in Golders Green Crescent

Bread and bagels: Peyman Hakimi of Daniels kosher bakery Taste of Korea: Jin Jung of The Dumpling House, Finchley Rd Healthy bites: Abdul Hannan and head chef Nikolai Ignat at SoYo restaurant

Homes & Property Property searching|


STATS CHECK WHAT HOMES COST

Use our School Checker to find catchment areas and inspection reports for local schools

The best Golders Green shops and restaurants

Local arts, leisure and sport

A guide to local green space — and up-and-coming streets to watch

FOR MORE, VISIThomesandproperty.co.uk

BUYING IN GOLDERS GREEN (Average prices)

One-bedroom flat £404,000

Two-bedroom flat £553,000

Two-bedroom house £713,000

Three-bedroom house £984,000

Four-bedroom house £1.2 million

RENTING IN GOLDERS GREEN (Average rates)

One-bedroom flat £1,346 a month

Two-bedroom flat £1,884 a month

Two-bedroom house £1,973 a month

Three-bedroom house £3,036 a month

Four-bedroom house £3,636 a month

@donnlaw46Le Bon Coin is wonderful. So is Café Also.

@ReadRoper@SuperPropertyUK shout out for Novellino — great food and decent wi-fi. One of our favourite places to hang out and work.

@donnlaw46Ace Hair in Golders Green Road is excellent as are The Book Warehouse and Hummus Bar.

@Century21_N1Delisserie American-style deli-diner for great menu and reasonable prices — yummy.

@markpesci100That’s Amore. Franco’s Napoli-born pizza, best in London, at 1031 Finchley Rd NW11. Wow.

@donnlaw46SoYo for delicious salads, soups, sandwiches and frozen yogurts; Pita for best shawarma and falafel; La Fiesta Argentine grill

Photographs: Daniel Lynch

HAVE YOUR SAY: GOLDERS GREENLOCALS TWEET THEIR TIPS

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THE PROPERTY SCENE

CLOSE to the North Circular road, Golders Green is on the Edgware branch of the Northern line. The bus station is next to the Tube station, with National Express coaches in and out of London. This Zone 3 spot is well-served by buses, with the No 82 to Victoria, the No 13 to Aldwych via Oxford Circus and the No 268 to Finchley Road via Hampstead. Brent Cross shoppers catch the No 102 or No 210. Annual travelcard — £1,520.

TRAVEL

THE shining star of Golders Green is Hampstead Garden Suburb, where the most expensive houses are in the “Billionaires Rows” — The Bishops Avenue, Winnington Road and Ingram Avenue. Homes here have either been altered beyond recognition or knocked down and rebuilt to suit the taste of Russian oligarchs and Middle Eastern potentates.

Elsewhere in Golders Green are roads of Twenties and Thirties detached houses and semis. The Childs Hill area has a few streets of Victorian terrace houses, while Ossulton Way, in the Hampstead Garden Suburb extension between

the North Circular road and Falloden Way, boasts a fine enclave of Art Deco houses.

Estate agent Frank Townsend from Savills says most buyers in the garden suburb are upsizing to a house they intend living in for the long-term — or at least until their children leave for university.

■ NEW-BUILD HOMESThe Beaumont on the corner of Finchley Road and Helenslea Avenue is a development of 24 apartments with two, three or four bedrooms. Prices start at £1.25 million. Off-plan sales are launching soon and the scheme is expected to be completed

by the summer. For information, visit thebeaumontNW11.com or call Glentree Estates on 020 8731 9500.

■ HOMES TO RENTSavills rental manager Robert Lerner says Golders Green and Hampstead Garden Suburb are popular with families who want to rent close to local state schools and the private schools in Hampstead and Highgate.

Many of his landlords and tenants are “accidental”, including some owners who have not been able to sell, and others who are temporarily in rented accommodation while they do up their houses as an alternative to selling.

Family choice: Willifield Way, near Henrietta Barnett SchoolVibrant mix: Golders Green is well-to-do and multicultural

Shopping hub: Golders Green Road in the busy town centre

By Sir Edwin Lutyens: The listed Institute and Henrietta Barnett School, Central Square, Hampstead Garden Suburb

Source: Rightmove

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VisitEngland


WHAT’S YOUR PROBLEM?IF YOU have a question for Fiona McNulty, please email [email protected] or write to Legal Solutions, Homes & Property, London Evening Standard, 2 Derry Street, W8 5EE.We regret that questions cannot be answered individually, but we will try to feature them here. Fiona McNulty is a legal director in the private wealth group of Foot Anstey (footanstey.com).

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.

More legal Q&As Visit: homesand property.co.uk

Help me rid my home of eau de fry-up

Q I LIVE in a flat above a café, which I thought would be quite convenient. However, the

café fills my home with cooking odours. I am the leaseholder of the flat and have made a complaint to the local council environmental health department, but have had no reply as yet.

Meanwhile, the freeholder of the building is doing nothing to help me. I would like to seek legal advice but I’m not sure where to start.

A FIRST off, establish whether you have the benefit of any legal expenses cover on your home contents insurance, as

these policies often cover claims of this nature.

You may have a claim in nuisance against the café due to the smell, but that would depend on the terms of your lease, and on other circumstances such as the length of time you have been living in the flat, how long the café has been there, if it was there when you moved in, how long the smell has been a problem,

and whether other neighbours have complained.

Follow up your complaint to the environmental health department to see whether the local authority will take action.

Contact the café owner to see if there are any measures they could easily take to mitigate the situation —

for example, by moving fans or their bins. If the café owner is in breach of the terms of their lease, you may be able to get the freeholder to take action.

If you do not have any legal expenses insurance cover, you should consider instructing a local solicitor to advise you.

Q MY MOTHER died a number of years ago and left her half of the house to me and my brother. Our father then remarried and has since written a new will, which gives us our

mother’s half, with the other half split three ways. My concern is that my father is 86 years old, 10 years older than his new wife, and if she survives him and ends up going into a home where the cost of her care will have to be paid for out of the sale of the house, we could lose our inheritance.

A FROM what you say, it seems your mother and father each made wills leaving the house to you and your brother on the death of the surviving parent. In that case, on your mother’s death her

share would have automatically passed first to your father if, as is most common, your parents owned their home as joint tenants rather than as tenants in common.

If they owned the house as tenants in common your mother could have left her half-share of the property to you and your brother in her will.

However, as it seems that your father now owns the whole property outright, this suggests there was a joint tenancy, with him making a will leaving you and your brother the half of the house she intended.

On your father’s death, you and your brother will be entitled to that half-share in the house, split between you.

Presumably, you mean that the other half of the house is to be split between you, your brother and stepmother. If that is so, your stepmother will inherit a one-sixth share of the house, so the rest of the property will not be available to pay for her care as it will be owned by you and your brother.

Fiona McNultyOUR LAWYER ANSWERSYOUR QUESTIONS

Homes & Property | Ask the expert

“discuss”


MONDAYThis ski season I’m already averaging nearly 1,000 miles a week handling client visits and meeting developers, so it’s a good thing the new company car arrived this morning. Snow tyres, four-wheel drive and a panoramic sun-roof are necessities when viewing properties around the Alps.

First stop is to meet a developer in Val d’Isère. We have a chalet client with an £8 million budget being flown to the resort at the end of the week and the developer will pilot the helicopter. I will be praying for good weather. We need to discuss the floor plans because the client wants a pool and cinema in the basement — a fairly standard request these days. Before I start the next jour-ney, to La Rosière, we have lunch in the new Fondue Factory underneath some flats we’re selling in the village centre.

TUESDAYWaking up in La Rosière, about three feet of fresh snow has fallen. It snowed just about everywhere in the Alps last night, enough to see most resorts through until Easter.

The first job of a day is to rescue a colleague who has mistaken a narrow piste for a road. Fortunately for him he chose his hire car well, and we make it down the piste unscathed. Everyone

is noticeably twitchy during the morn-ing’s viewing. Deep snow and blazing sunshine beckon and after a few subtle nods to the developer we hit the slopes for some of the best off-piste we have ever skied.

WEDNESDAY Today I’m travelling to Châtel, a resort that has become extremely popular with British buyers. Châtel is one of just a few resorts in the Portes du Soleil where you still come across old farming chalets that have cows living down-stairs and people living upstairs. Prices are still competitive here, too, at around £5,120 per square metre for ski-in ski-out property — Val d’Isère is £19,700 plus.

My appointment is with a client who wants to check on the progress of her penthouse, part of a new project adja-cent to the slopes. The viewing is going well, when she slips in that she wants her grand piano to fit into the apart-ment. There’s enough space but the

building is now watertight. When she sees the costs for removing part of the roof and the crane rental, she will prob-ably decide to settle for an upright piano instead.

THURSDAY “I don’t want a new build,” says the wife of a client as we stand on the plot of a new apartment project in Chamo-nix. The husband reserved six months

ago, but this is her first visit. I stand back and let him debate the subject for me. “Older properties require expen-sive renovations and the buying costs are double.” But his reasoning falls on deaf ears. He apologises and they leave. Just before I call head office in London to relay the bad news, I receive a text from the husband saying he will con-vince her, he just needs time.

It’s not the first time this has hap-pened. With mortgage rates so low and buyers acting quickly to secure their dream home in the Alps, it’s surprising how many people move forward with a purchase without giving their spouse the full picture.

FRIDAYMy prayers on Monday for good flying weather today have gone unanswered. “A bit choppy” is how the developer/pilot describes conditions. The client has already had a very bumpy ride into Chambéry and it takes around 30 min-utes for the developer to convince her the helicopter transfer to Val d’Isère will be fine. I wonder how anyone could fly a kite in this, let alone a helicopter.

Flying by chopper cuts the transfer time from two hours to 25 minutes, but by the time we land the client is a gib-bering wreck. Luckily, as we arrive on the plot and start discussing the plans the sun comes out, the view across the village does the legwork and the flight is quickly forgotten. An hour later a price is agreed and we all shake hands on the deal. A great end to the week.

Diary of an estate agent

Get that grand piano into an alpine chalet

Charles-Antoine Sialelli is the French Alps manager at Athena Advisers (020 7471 4500).

Homes & Property | Inside story

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The accidental landlord

Remember, you’re my tenant — not my BFF

Victoria Whitlock explains why it’s best for landlords to keep their business and friendships separate… unless they’re happy to be hit in the pocket

A LANDLORD I know is bitterly regretting becoming friendly with her tenant after the relationship turned sour.

The tenant was already renting the flat in south-east London when my acquaintance bought it from another landlord several years ago.

The pair met up and they got along well. “I thought she was a nice lady, so I let her stay and I didn’t put up the rent even though she was paying a lot less than the flat was worth,” the landlord told me.

Over the following years, she didn’t increase the rent because, as she puts it, she didn’t want the tenant to think she was a typical “London landlord”.

“The flat was my pension. I had invested for the capital growth and didn’t expect to make a lot of money from the rent,” she said. As long as the rent was covering her costs, she was happy.

Fast-forward to last year — her business took a dip and she needed some money, so she put the flat on the market. She was hoping to sell to another landlord who would be happy to let her tenant stay.

However, the low rent put off other investors. The only offer was from a

first-time buyer who wanted vacant possession. The landlord accepted the offer and gave her tenant notice.

However, the tenant refused to budge. She ignored the Section 21 notice to quit, forcing the landlord to go to court to seek a possession order.

It was then discovered that the letting agent who had found the tenant for the previous landlord

hadn’t protected her deposit. As you can’t evict a tenant if you are holding an unprotected deposit, proceedings had to be halted. The agent had to return the deposit to the tenant before a new Section 21 notice could be issued, which delayed the court hearing by 10 weeks.

At a subsequent hearing, the tenant was ordered to leave within two weeks, but she still refused to go. It seems the local council, which was paying her rent, had advised her to stay, saying it wouldn’t rehouse her if she left as she would be deemed to have made herself homeless — even though she had been issued with a court order to leave.

The landlord now has to go back to court to apply for the tenant to be evicted by bailiffs, which will take another four to six weeks.

It has been stressful for the landlord and expensive for both parties. The landlord has spent around £1,000 in legal fees and the tenant has had to pay court costs of £300.

“Basically, I made the mistake of getting too friendly with her,” my acquaintance told me. “Once I’d got to know her I didn’t feel I could increase the rent, but I shot myself in the foot because when I came to sell

the flat, the figures didn’t stack up for other investors. I should have increased the rent by a small amount every year, then another landlord might have bought the flat and let the tenant stay.”

She also felt let down by the agent who had failed to protect the deposit. “It was so unprofessional of them and the delay to the court hearing cost me money. Now I don’t have a deposit

and I’m worried the tenant will leave the property in a mess, but the agent is refusing to help.”

She admits the flat has been a good investment, but says she was wrong to befriend the tenant. Sad — but true.

Victoria Whitlock lets four properties in south London. To contact Victoria with your ideas and views, tweet @vicwhitlock

£530 a week: a smart one-bedroom furnished flat is available to rent in Flask Walk, Hampstead, above, moments from pretty Heath Street and only four minutes’ walk from the Tube station. Through agents Parkheath (020 8012 1886).

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By David Spittles

Mayfair style in the country

Buy in Aldgate, get free Tube travel for three years

SMART AND prosperous Hadley Wood is a hinge between town and country. The north London “super-suburb” lies in Zone 6 on the

edge of the green belt. It has a tennis club and a renowned local golf course with a Georgian clubhouse set on a hill surrounded by parkland.

Large, detached early 20th-century houses and grand Edwardian villas in this neighbourhood are popular with celebs and Premiership footballers — Arsenal FC has a training ground here — who value the close proximity to central London. Into this world

has arrived Renaissance, a Mayfair-style scheme of grand apartments with the hallmarks of a house: up to 2,693sq ft of space, high ceilings, underfloor heating, air conditioning,

Visit our online luxury sectionHomesAndProperty.co.uk/luxury

From £1.75 million: apartments at Miriam House, Hadley Wood

IT’S A short walk to the Square Mile skyscrapers from Aldgate Place, above, a swish scheme of 463 flats, but buy a home there and you get a free three-year all-zone travel card from developer Barratt.

This new E1 “quarter” has a hotel, cafés and restaurants, communal gardens and a fitness centre. Prices from £745,000. Call 0844 225 0032.

Meanwhile, Camden Council is making its debut as a house builder. Plender Street Apartments in Camden Town are the fruits of a Community Investment Programme that is bringing more than 3,000 new homes to the

north-west London borough. By selling off land and bulldozing old estates, Camden is raising more than £400 million for reinvestment in new neighbourhoods, with a mix of public and private homes. Profits from private sales are ploughed back into new social housing, green space and community facilities.

Plender Street has 31 new flats across two blocks. Prices from £515,000. Call Savills on 020 7075 2832. Other private sale projects under way or in the pipeline include Maiden Lane Estate at King’s Cross, Bourne Estate, Clerkenwell, Tybalds Estate in Holborn, and Abbey Road, just north of St John’s Wood

Homes & Property New homes|

THE TRUE MARQUEOF PRESTIGIOUS LIVINGSHOW APARTMENT NOW OPEN

205 Holland Park Avenue offers a rangeof 2 & 3 bedroom luxury apartments whichare ready to move into now.

Located in the desirable Royal Boroughof Kensington & Chelsea

Excellent transport links, 8 minutes fromBond Street & 18 minutes from Kings Cross

Benefit now ahead of changes in stamp duty

Prices from £1.275m

redrow.co.uk/205hollandparkavenue

TO BOOK A VIEWINGPLEASE CALL 020 3538 1891


SOAK UP THE SEA VIEW SOUTHEND APARTMENTS

SITES for homes along the capital’s extensive canal network are still being discovered in relatively central areas. The Batten, left and right, is part of a new neighbourhood being built on the site of the former Packington council estate, in a prized position beside Regent’s Canal in gentrified Islington.

It’s moments from City Road canal basin, Camden Passage, Upper Street bars and cafés, and Angel Tube. Boris Johnson, a local resident, cycles to work at City Hall and Westminster.

Launching next week, prices start at £515,000 for a one-bedroom flat. Call Hyde Homes on 0845 606 1121.

REGENERATION isreaching into Essex where, despite its Thames Estuary industrial legacy, 70 per cent of the county is countryside, with many historic and pretty villages and some of the country’s best schools.

Southend-on-Sea, right, known for its pleasure pier — the longest in Europe — is the biggest town in Essex and a regional business centre, being revitalised by expanding Southend airport. The train commute to Fenchurch Street takes an hour.

Weston Homes has created affordable homes including Highbanks, left, with sea views, 75 flats in a 12-storey former office tower and 23 more in a new block alongside. From £155,000, with Help to Buy available. Call 01279 873300.

state-of-the-art home entertainment systems and dressing rooms. Set behind gates, there is secure underground parking, CCTV and concierge. Prices from £2.3 million. Call Statons on 020 8441 9555.

The same agent is selling Miriam House, above and above left, a boutique scheme of six luxury apartments set back from Cockfosters Road in Hadley Wood. Prices from £1.75 million.

Bike to work with Mayor Boris from a canalside flat

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