This cutting-edge new terrace has links with the birth of Brit Art, writes Lucy Alexander
WANTED: an elegant family house, spacious, detached, in a smart part of London, with period features, a private garden, mod cons and garage. Wishful thinking indeed, in today’s market, where such houses are a rarity and even the very rich have to compromise. Those in the latter category who are prepared to go so far as to consider a terraced new-build development should investigate The Collection, in St John’s Wood. It is a new street of 15 three to five-bedroom houses built on the site of the birthplace of Brit Art, the original Saatchi Gallery.
Prices in St John’s Wood are typical of the runaway prime Central London housing market. The dearth of properties for sale in the nicest parts of the capital has pushed prices up by 33 per cent in a year, the fastest rate of growth since 1979, according to Knight Frank. Prime Central London prices are now rising at three times the rate of the rest of the UK. The result is that one in every 20 households in London is now worth more than £1 million. Add to that the much quoted fact that 4,200 City workers took home more than £1 million in bonus money on top of their salaries last year, and the £2.5m to £4.45m price tag for houses in The Collection seems almost reasonable.
The former gallery where Hirst and Emin found fame in the 1990s was bought by a developer, Vanderbilt Properties, two years ago. The site is tucked behind the houses and shops lining the north side of Boundary Road, just on the Camden side of the boundary with Westminster. St John’s Wood Underground station, two stops from Bond Street on the Jubilee Line, is a 15-minute walk south along Abbey Road, past the American School in London on Waverley Place, where US expats send their offspring.
The Collection comprises three three-bedroom, eight four-bedroom and four five-bed-room houses along a private, secure cul-de-sac. Seven have already been bought and completion will be at the end of August. Michael Eggerton, the director of Vanderbilt Properties, is certain that The Collection will appeal to those who want the individuality and quality of a period house but cannot find such a property. “It’s very hard to buy a nice house with lots of space in London, and this is a genuine alternative to a period home in terms of proportions, detail and quality. It has none of the compromises of normal new-build,” he says.
The attention to detail is immediately apparent in the show house, provisionally entitled “Emin” (each house is named after a Saatchi artist). The tall front door is made of walnut with bronze panelling, floors are tiled in a glowing golden stone, tiny lights illuminate the skirting boards and the ceilings are high. I found that similarly fine details in the living room, such as decorative grooves in the door-frame, were overshadowed by a panoply of electronic protuberances: spotlights, speakers and air-conditioning vents stud the ceiling, touchscreens to control temperature and music flank the door and the inevitable enormous flat-screen TV takes pride of place over the fireplace (although this can apparently be covered with a panel).
Eggerton is an unapologetic fan of gadgetry: “We have to install all this because the sort of modern person buying here is gadget-orientated.” Indeed, he is positively enthusiastic, having thoroughly modernised his own Victorian house in Trevor Square, across the road from Harrods. “I don’t live in Fulham, like most people,” he says, “I really live the modern life.” He has even personally road-tested the camber of the garages to ensure that they don’t scrape the undercarriage of his Porsche.
The rest of the house is equally extravagant: leather cupboard doors in the bedroom, marble bathrooms with double sinks, a huge double-height space in the kitchen with chandelier, a pop-up extractor in the island hob in the kitchen, two terraces with room for outdoor dining. Should you so choose, you can have a spa tub installed on the roof. Crucially, every room has a window – which may not sound much, but it’s all too common for half the rooms in a new urban development to be airless subterranean boxes. The layout is also radical – rooms arranged over a bewildering series of half-levels look down through glass walls on to private courtyards. This is not your average two-up, two-down.
The sorts of people likely to buy here may well be concerned about security. Residents will be identified at the gate by fingerprint recognition, and not even the postman will be allowed to pass through the hallowed portal. Simon Barry, of Knight Frank, which is handling the sale, admits that this will appeal particularly to international buyers, “because they come from countries where they’re used to living behind high walls”. Interest has also come from City workers and those who are fed up with living in draughty Edwardian houses. However, it may not be the liveliest street: “No one who buys here will have it as their only home,” says Barry. “They will have two or three.”
The Collection is certainly unusual, in terms of its size, quality and location. Not many developers build houses when selling high-volume flats is so lucrative. Consequently the price of prime Central London houses has risen 10.2 per cent so far this year, compared with only 7.5 per cent for flats. The situation is particularly extreme in Westminster (which includes most of St John’s Wood), 75 per cent of which is a conservation area and therefore protected from development. Knight Frank says that completions here fell from 1,315 residential units in 2000-01 to 503 in 2004-05. New houses are therefore like gold dust, so The Collection, like its Brit Art predecessors, could prove a valuable investment.
www.thecollection-nw8.com, 020-7173 4999
For more ideas on where to invest in luxury bricks and mortar, go to timesonline.co.uk/luxuryproperty
FACTFILE
The average price of a property in St John’s Wood has risen 22 per cent in five years, to £656,560, HBOS says.
75 per cent of sales in St John’s Wood were above the £250,000 stamp duty threshold in 2006 compared with 51 per cent in 2001 (HBOS figures).
St John’s Wood is famous for Lord’s cricket ground and the Abbey Road Studios, where the Beatles recorded. Sir Paul McCartney still has a home locally.
Kate Moss was recently seen at a meeting of the St John’s Wood group of Westminster Safer Neighbourhoods to discuss local issues including street lighting and cycling on the pavement.
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