On Monday it was revealed that the Duke, 35, and Duchess of Sussex, 39 – who had been paying back the cash in monthly instalments – announced that they had totally refunded the Sovereign Grant for the redevelopment of five-bedroom Frogmore Cottage on the Queen's Berkshire estate.
'They are 'very relieved and very pleased' to have been able to pay off the debt so quickly,' a source close to the couple told Vanity Fair's Katie Nicholl. 'This has been a pro-active step and something they wanted to do from the outset.
'There was no requirement [from the Queen] for them to pay the money back but it was important to them that they did, and after the Netflix deal they were in a position to do so. I think this is quite a significant moment for them.'
The source added: 'They're now in their forever home, it's the start of their new life and they're very much looking forward to everything that's about to come.'
It comes after sources close to the couple claimed that they would no longer be receiving handouts from Prince Charles as they sought to establish 'financial independence'.
Source : Chloe Morgan For Mailonline
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Last year, the Obamas sold their summer home on the island for $15 million. They are no strangers to the island and spend seven summers there while Barack was President.The sprawling property, otherwise known as Chilmark House;
The Edgartown main residence is just shy of 6,900 square feet. It has 7 bedrooms, so Sasha and Malia have a place to crash, along with several of their friends. It has the obligatory pool, an outdoor fireplace, a chef's kitchen, vaulted ceilings and 2 guest wings. It has incredible views, especially while soaking in the second-floor balcony Jacuzzi.The beachfront is private and comes with a boathouse.
Their new home is on the edge of Edgartown Great Pond, with views of the Atlantic Ocean.
It features predominantly white interiors but is surrounded by emerald-green lawns.
Michelle and Barack will have a lot of space to relax, as the master bedroom opens up to a sundeck.While their daughters will have plenty of room to enjoy long summer breaks there.Malia, 21, is currently studying at Harvard University, while Sasha, 18, has just Sidwell Friends School in Washington D.C.
The Martha Vineyard’s Times reports the Obamas bought the 29-acre property on Edgartown’s Great Pond from Celtics lead owner Wyc Grousbeck for $11.75 million.
A brief history of Highgrove House
The home was built in the late 18th century and was owned by various families until it was purchased by the Duke of Cornwall, Prince Charles in 1980.
In 1987, Prince Charles remodelled the home and grounds, but it retains its original Georgian style.
Where is Highgrove House?
Highgrove House is southwest of Tetbury in Gloucestershire, England. This is the country home of Charles and Camilla who also have a primary residence in London.
Tetbury is a wealthy town inside the Cotswolds district. The area is filled with old buildings and a rich English history. There are many cobbled stone streets and unique boutique shops and restaurants.
Who lives in Highgrove House?
Highgrove House is the home of the Prince of Wales, Charles, and his wife the Duchess of Cornwall, Camilla. The royal couple who were married in 2005 and have lived used Highgrove House as their country home since then.
Their main residence is Clarence House in London. The home is a large royal residence on the Mall just a short walk from Buckingham Palace. However, the couple has been using Highgrove House as their main residence during the Pandemic.
Prince Harry and William also spent time at this royal residence as children when their parents, the Prince of Wales and Princess Diana were still married.
Is Highgrove House open to the public?
Highgrove House is open to the public and many guests flock to the residence to enjoy the stately home's nearly 350 acres of extensive gardens.
The website to book visits states, "The Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall welcome you to join one of their expert guides on a tour to discover the history, inspiration and unique organic management behind the incredible series of gardens at The Royal Gardens at Highgrove."
The House and gardens feature a tea room and a gift shop, but tours are currently cancelled due to COVID-19.
The website for visiting Highgrove House also states that the large, immaculate interlinked gardens are Prince Charle's designs. "Created with imagination and passion by the Prince over the last 38 years, the series of interlinked organic gardens reflect his deep commitment to sustainability, as well as a natural artistic ability. As an important haven for a rich variety of flora and fauna, the gardens have been developed to not only please the eye, but sit in succinct harmony with nature," says the website.
Prince Charles recently took to the Clarence House Instagram page to encourage people to get back into gardening during the lockdown. The Prince sent this message from his garden in Highgrove House.
The inside of Highgrove House is not open to the public. Therefore there aren't a lot of images that show how Camilla and Charles have decorated the property. However, now and then fans can catch glimpses of the interior from their Instagram page.
In Andrew Morton's biography of the Princess of Wales,'Diana: Her true story - in her own words,' Andrew claims that the Prince of Wales asked Diana to be involved in the interior design of the property.
The biographer writes, "During that first weekend Prince Charles showed Diana around Highgrove, the 353-acre Gloucestershire home he had bought in July—the same month he had started to woo her." He continued, "As he took her on a guided tour of the eight-bedroom mansion, the Prince asked her to organize the interior decoration.
Historic Former Home of Camilla Parker Bowles Lists in Wiltshire, England
A commanding and historic stone manor house complete with a tennis court, a swimming pool and a royal connection has come to the market in the village of Allington, in Wiltshire, England.
Listed at the end of May,2020 for £3.75 million (US$4.77 million) with Savills, Bolehyde Manor was once the home of Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, and her ex-husband Andrew Parker Bowles, who reportedly purchased the property in 1973.
The Duchess’s now husband, Prince Charles, was reportedly a frequent visitor to the estate, along with the late Diana, Princess of Wales.
Here's a property with a long line of royal affairs—literally. This English manor is where Prince Charles once wooed a young Princess Diana. It was also where Charles later had an affair with Camilla, now the Duchess of Cornwall, while she shared the home with her then-husband Andrew Parker-Bowles. And now the grandiose property, which is also allegedly haunted, is on the market for £3,750,000 ($ 4,238,572.96 USD).
The eight-bedroom, four-bathroom property dubbed Bolehyde Manor is located in Allington, Wiltshire. While the interiors are quite divine, it's the grounds that are beyond captivating.
Outside, visitors will find a swimming pool, a tennis court, a treehouse, guest lodging, cottages for the staff, a stable, farm buildings, and an array of formal and informal gardens across 80 acres of lush farmland.
Inside, the home has a reception hall, a drawing room, wine storage, and eight bedrooms. Dark oak paneling, large open fireplaces, as well as ornate carved staircases can be spotted throughout. The home is estimated to be about 700 years old.
The Daily Mail reports that Camilla believed the property was haunted, but not in a way that made her felt endangered in her home. She become aware of the apparition's presence when she was watching TV and the ghost would sit beside her and change the channels. According to her biographer Penny Junor: "She never saw it, but she could feel it next to her and she would laugh about how she and the ghost always wanted to watch different programmes."
Ray Mill House;Lacock, Wiltshire
The Duchess' Grade-II listed property, Ray Mill House, in Lacock, Wiltshire, has only one close neighbour, The Old Mill, owned by Phil Clayton. The two estates
share a private lane.
The council approved the plans last month, while stipulating that care should be taken with 'the use and routing of heavy plant and vehicles, and the control and removal of spoil and wastes.'
Ms Parker-Bowles bought the Raymill property in 1996 for £850,000 with the proceeds of her divorce from Andrew Parker Bowles. It is a welcome respite from the pressure cooker of Highgrove, which is only a 15-minute drive away.
One source said: 'At Ray Mill she can sit down with a big G&T, kick of her shoes and watch Coronation Street, which Charles loathes.
She also doesn't have to bother about how the place looks – Charles is so fussy about tidiness, while she leaves her stuff all over the place. She doesn't need her cushions plumped all the time.'
This tranquility is sure to be spoilt by the building work going on next door.
The rear of The Old Mill, which is due to greatly expand in the coming months
The original plan to transform the property was withdrawn after the Duchess and other neighbours wrote to the council expressing concerns about the flood risk and that Clayton was trying to turn the garage into living quarters.
In a letter of complaint, the Duchess said the renovations could have a 'negative affect on the flow of water from the river during any periods of flooding… this should therefore be subject to a detailed survey by the Environment Agency.'
She added: 'I am concerned about the proposed garage. The design is not conducive to a normal garage.'
When a new planning application was submitted in April and approved just over a month ago, the Duchess did not object, though other residents were still concerned about the flooding risk.
The building work includes transforming the main house on two floors, increasing the size of the bedrooms, lounge and dining room, as well as building a separate extension wing with a breakfast room and sun room.
The main house and extension will be linked by a glass passageway. It also means demolishing the current conservatory.
Mr Clayton bought The Old Mill from long-term owner Ralph Adams, who died last year. He was also involved in a spat with the Duchess over her overgrown hedge back in 2006.
The bush was so out of control that bin men refused to reverse down the narrow private lane to collect the rubbish, and residents were told to drag their bins to the main road, which infuriated some.
Mr Adams, a retired sand merchant, complained: 'Walking 400 yards is hard for me but she can get a flunky to do it.
'It might not be a problem for her, but I'm 83, with arthritis and collapsing discs. She needs to cut the hedge. It sticks out about three feet further than it should.'
In the same year, it was revealed that the taxpayer was footing a £1.8 million security bill at the house, with the area being dubbed by the Daily Mail as 'Camillashire'.
Berkshire bargain!
Bucklebury Farm Park, owned by Rupert Hartley-Russell, is thought to have gone under offer... with Pippa Middleton and James Matthews its potential new owners - the 72-acre site is a relative bargain because it doesn't have a family home on site
A four-bedroomed detached house for sale in nearby Stanford Dingley has 23 acres and is currently on the market for £1.5million, offering only a third of the land the Middletons might own if their sale goes through for roughly the same price.
The 72-acre rolling fields, which had a 'wedding tractor' to celebrate the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge's marriage in 2010 and is currently home to a 44-acre deer park, cafe, glamping pods and children's play area, could accommodate the ultimate new-build country pile.
Originally on sale at £1.5 million, agents Knight Frank have confirmed it is under offer, but refused to comment further citing client confidentiality.
However, the agent has confirmed that further development is a possibility on the site, saying there's 'scope for redevelopment of the property for other uses'.
Presently, there's also livestock on the farm alongside deer, should the couple want to continue the land's history of farming.
A spokesman for James, 45, and Pippa, 37 – younger sister of the Duchess of Cambridge – described the potential purchase as no more than a ‘business opportunity’ for Mr Matthews, denying the couple had any plans to move there.
But Bucklebury has been awash with speculation ever since Farm Park was put up for sale in October then suddenly withdrawn after less than a week.
A villager living in neighbouring Stanford Dingley commented: ‘We heard that the site had been offered to the Middletons before it went on the market.’
And at Bucklebury’s interior design store, Lynda Tillotson said the rumours hadn’t just ‘come out of thin air’. ‘It makes sense that Pippa and James would want to be close. It’s the perfect location for them to build a family home,’ she added.
And it would no doubt delight the Middleton parents, Carole, 65, and Michael, 71, to have Pippa, James and their two-year-old son Arthur on their doorstep.
BUCKLEBERRY family-friendly farm and deer park
13 December 2020
Shrewd Pippa Middleton and James Matthews could make millions if they build a country pile on the 72-acre tourist attraction they're set to snap up for just £1.5m
Former 'pick your own' farm in picturesque Pang Valley, close to the Middleton family home, has caught eye of Pippa Middleton and husband James Matthews.
72-acre site, which currently runs as a family-friendly farm and deer park - with glamping pods - has gone under offer after being on the market for £1.5million;
Average price of a semi-detached home in Bucklebury sells for around £750,000 making the land a bargain price for a potential new-build country home.
Couple currently share a £17 million six-bedroom home in central London
Mr Matthews' spokesperson has said the couple and their son Arthur, two, have no plans to move to the land should they buy it.
ippa Middleton and hedge-fund billionaire husband James Matthews may well have made the property deal of the year, as the couple prepare to snap up 72 sprawling acres of land in leafy Berkshire for just £1.5million - in a village where a detached house with a garden already costs close to that price.
The couple, who currently reside in a £17 million six-bedroom home in London, are thought to have grand designs for Bucklebury Farm Park...an apparent bargain in the midst of the picturesque Pang Valley.
While no plans appear to have yet been submitted to the local council's website - the last being made for a staff log cabin at the tourist attraction earlier this year - there's certainly plenty of room for a rural abode on the former 'pick your own' farm should the couple decide to move west from the capital.
Pippa's parents, Carole, 65, and Michael, 71, live close by in a £5million home, a price tag that is much more indicative of what a discerning buyer might expect to pay for a country home.
Montecito mansion can be rented out
Harry and Meghan's new Montecito mansion can be rented out for $700 an hour, DailyMail.com can reveal.
The rental website Giggster offers up the Duke and Duchess' home as the backdrop for photo shoots, music videos or other engagements and can accommodate a crew of 15 people and private parking for 50.
It appears the listing was first posted before the ex-royals bought the home this summer for $14.7million, but it is still active and reveals never-before-seen photos of the interior before the couple moved in with baby Archie.
The mansion is listed as an 'Italian Villa' and can be rented for a minimum of 10 hours. According to the listing, there is no smoking, no pets, no cooking and no alcohol allowed and 'adult filming' is banned.
Harry and Meghan's new Montecito mansion can be rented out for $700 an hour, DailyMail.com can reveal.
The rental website Giggster offers up the Duke and Duchess' home as the backdrop for photo shoots, music videos or other engagements and can accommodate a crew of 15 people and private parking for 50.
It appears the listing was first posted before the ex-royals bought the home this summer for $14.7million, but it is still active and reveals never-before-seen photos of the interior before the couple moved in with baby Archie.
The mansion is listed as an 'Italian Villa' and can be rented for a minimum of 10 hours. According to the listing, there is no smoking, no pets, no cooking and no alcohol allowed and 'adult filming' is banned.
The Italian-style villa has impressive archways and greenery all around.
The interior shots reveal dark wood accents and some outdated furniture. It's believed Harry and Meghan have added their personal touches since moving in this summer.
Surrounded by lush green gardens and overlooking the sea, the home has been described as a 'hidden paradise'. One estate agent who spent an hour inside said it was 'designed for someone who never wants to leave home'.
The pair have been holding many paid virtual engagements from the comfort of the home, offering glimpses of the decor, including their neutral tones in the living room.
The Duke and Duchess' home
Just this week, Meghan appeared at Fortune's Most Powerful Women Next Gen Virtual Summit - an online event that was reserved for invited guests willing to pay a $1,750 fee.
In October alone, Meghan has made six digital appearances, from serving as a speaker at this latest virtual summit to her first podcast over the weekend to a pre-recorded conversation with Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai.
Since stepping down from their roles as senior royals, both Meghan and Prince Harry have become increasingly outspoken about a range of hot-button issues, including Black Lives Matter and vote suppression.
Harry and Meghan moved to Montecito after staying at Tyler Perry's $18million, 12-bedroom, eight-bathroom Beverly Hills home following their move from Canada, after stepping down as senior royals in March.
According to a source close to the royals, they were 'really grateful to Tyler Perry for his kindness' after he provided them with a 'safe haven during a complicated time.'
Their new home sits on 5.4 acres of land and immaculately clipped hedges border the estate's stone-pillared entry gates.
Property listings say the home took nearly five years to build and included a library, office, spa with a separate dry and wet sauna, a gym with a stripper pole, game room, arcade, theater, wine cellar and five-car garage.
The entrance to the property opens onto a wide lane paved with hand-cut Santa Barbara Stone that leads through a grand archway of trees to the main residence, according to Zillow.
The estate has sweeping lawns, tiered rose gardens, tall Italian cypress trees, blooming lavender, century old olive trees, a tennis court, tea house, children's cottage and a pool.
It also boasts a two-bedroom, two-bath guest house, perfect for Meghan's mother Doria, who is acting as one- year-old Archie's nanny. Doria has reportedly already been to the house;
The home is around a two-hour drive from downtown Los Angeles and almost every house in the multi-million dollar neighborhood is designed for privacy, with long driveways and large gates
The home's seller is thought to be Russian tycoon Sergey Grishin who bought the 'palatial' mansion for more than $25million in 2009 and had tried to sell the home for up to $34million before eventually accepting a loss.
Grishin is also the former owner of a different California estate - known as the Scarface mansion because it appeared in the 1983 Al Pacino movie - which sold for a similarly cut-price $12million in 2015.
Estate agent Brett Buschbom said: 'I went through this house and an hour later I'm coming out like 'wow', the whole bottom floor felt like a resort with steam room, massage room, sauna, Jacuzzi, full bar, arcade and one of the most amazing wine cellars and that was just the basement.'
While it is unknown if the couple have plans to transform their new home, the Duke and Duchess previously worked with interior designers to achieve the perfect look.
Last year, Meghan was understood to have enlisted Vicky Charles, former Global Head of Design at Soho House and a favorite of A-list celebrities, to work her magic on Frogmore House.
Speaking previously, Ms Charles has noted her Soho House interiors brought together the 'grit and the glamour.
Young couple turn ageing church into divine new home and are now mortgage-free
ABC Riverland/ By Sam Bradbrook Posted Wed 27 Apr 2022
The Pinnaroo Methodist Church had been empty for 10 years before Campbell Michell bought it
For six years, he and his partner Caroline Forster have been renovating it into a home
The community has rallied around the couple who say they've saved a piece of the town's history.
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A young couple have transformed a decaying country church into a new home, with locals ecstatic a piece of their history has been restored
Campbell Michell had only renovated a couple of small rooms before he found the Pinnaroo Methodist Church, about two hours east of Adelaide near the Victorian border, in 2016.
The 110-year-old building was in a state of disrepair after the congregation moved out a decade earlier and storms had caused further damage.
It was being considered for demolition and the church committee was ready to pay $45,000 to have it torn down.
But that's when Mr Michell was visiting family in the town and put in a bid of $26,000 to purchase the church and save the building.
"When I first walked into the big hall here, I could just see how cool it was with the light shining in and I wanted to build a home that kept that feel," he said.
"But I also wanted it to be a modern thing with a lot of stairs and a fun English-manor kind of vibe.
Ms Forster has taken the lead on much of the interior design since she came into the picture.
"There was so much work to do and I did underestimate how much there was to do," he said.
"It was hard because the cracks were pretty intensive, the original foundations weren't up to modern standards and had deteriorated pretty badly over 110 years.
"It took a while of sweat and blood to chip at the old stuff, put the new stuff in and get it done."
Town supportive of transformation
The church was opened in 1912 and served as a town hall and meeting place during its early days.
The large hall out the back was built to cater for the burgeoning Sunday school, which was attracting more students than the local area school.
The Pinnaroo Methodist Church
Local historian and church member Max Wurfel said Mr Michell and Ms Forster had saved what was an important building to the town's residents.
"As a congregation it was something we still had to maintain even though we weren't using it," he said.
"So to have someone come along and take it over was really good for us and the committee. It's really nice that it's still there.
"I'm pleased that they were able to get it and really do something with it."
The couple recently held an open day so locals could walk through and see the transformation to the building where many of them worshipped, were married and gathered with their friends.
A bathroom with a shower, sink and stained window.
The couple tried to incorporate features like the stained-glass windows wherever they could.
"The town has been so supportive and it's been amazing to do a final reveal for them and have them walk through the house," Ms Forster said.
"Lots of them were married here and had funerals and baby showers here.
"They're all really happy with the progress and are just happy to see it being used instead of it going derelict."
Leaving their own mark
Ms Forster added the renovation had educated the couple about the town they now called home.
The large stained-glass windows that rise up inside the main hall bear the names of the town's early residents, each with a story their descendants have been keen to tell.
The couple have added their names to the windows, signifying a new era for the church.
Now mortgage-free and ready to begin the next chapter of their lives, Ms Forster said living in the church felt like a "dream".
"Waking up in the morning to the church still doesn't feel real," she said.
*Follow Campbell and Caroline's renovation journey from start to finish in the new series of Restoration Australia, coming to ABC TV and iview later in 2022.
Boris’s ugly ghost town at Nine Elms is a London colony of China’s property bubble
New town on the south bank of the Thames feels more like one of provincial China’s obscure metropolises than a high-end London development
It was dubbed “the final piece of the jigsaw”, in typically modest style by the then-Mayor of London, Boris Johnson.
And what better way to complete an unlovely area of the capital, previously home to rows of grim warehouses, distribution depots and run down council houses, than a 230-hectare riverside new town of 20,000 homes stretching from Vauxhall Cross to Battersea Power Station on the South Bank of the Thames.
The brains behind what was sold as the biggest regeneration project Europe had ever seen came up with the most fitting of names: Vauxhall Nine Elms Battersea. Where elm trees once swayed on the breeze off the river would one day stand a brand new concrete jungle.
That was the plan at least. Yet seemingly like every ambitious vision that captivates our Prime Minister, the reality is so far falling short in quite spectacular style.
The noble goal behind regeneration projects such as Nine Elms is to inject new life into forgotten corners of cities. With the appropriate application of capital - inevitably often foreign and speculative - the arrival of new residents and businesses is meant to sow communities and real growth on even the barest of earth.
In 2012 Boris described Nine Elms as “the greatest transformational story in the world’s greatest city”. This was his grandiose vision, eagerly backed by David Cameron in Number 10, for how London would look as it emerged miraculously from the ashes of the financial crisis.
Cosmopolitan Vauxhall would be a symbol of a revived, vibrant international city. The whole shebang would be turbocharged by overseas cash, especially from our wealthy friends in China.
Better still, by devoting large swathes of the complex to affordable housing, it would be a modern egalitarian utopia where rich and the poor lived side by side in stylish apartments.
Both would be served by attractive riverside dining and bars, pop-up food markets and a wealth of other amenities, all of an aspirational yet attainable model of recovering Britain.
It was a mirage. Instead, an ugly ghost town of half-empty tower blocks has popped up in a densely packed cluster that gives a crushing sense of claustrophobia from street level and the 40th floor.
Nine Elms feels more like one of provincial China’s obscure metropolises than a high-end development within walking distance of the mother of parliaments.
The emerging carbuncle is such that British developer bosses don’t really like to talk about their role in it. The Tangshan-chic architecture may have fans but you will struggle to find many of them in a city of nine million souls. The worst of Nine Elms is only underscored by its best.
Boris’s ugly ghost town at Nine Elms
The restoration of Battersea Power Station may be much delayed and miles over budget for its Malaysian backers, but it is a work of eternal beauty set against the disposable hideousness that surrounds it.
Take Nine Elms Square, the centrepiece of the entire scheme. A £3bn joint venture between developers R&F and CC Land, two beneficiaries of the Chinese property boom that now appears to be a deflating bubble.
R&F has lost more than half its valuation on the Hong Kong stock market this year since May, as the crisis gripping Evergrande has sparked broader concerns about debt-fuelled speculation. It is among those that have come under growing pressure from the Chinese government to rein in its borrowing.
Yet in a sign of how keen Beijing is to keep the show on the road, the company and CC Land have secured £430m of fresh loans from a club of lenders, including a Chinese state-backed bank, so that it can complete the first phase of construction at Nine Elms.
The willingness of major lenders to provide fresh funding to a challenged Chinese property developer is all the more puzzling given the underwhelming demand for expensive flats in Nine Elms Square and other neighbouring blocks within the scheme.
Less than 90 of the apartments planned for a venture marketed as a luxurious "residential, cultural and business” hub have been sold in the first year of marketing - equivalent to around just one in 15 of the total planned. The developers argue that only 20pc of the homes have been marketed so almost one in three were sold, and deny that if there had been greater demand they surely would have offered more for sale.
Figures for neighbouring buildings aren’t much better. Agents estimate that many of the buildings only have occupancy rates of around 25-30pc.
R&F and CC Land insist sales levels are strong and it is business as normal, playing down any suggestions that their commitment to the scheme might be waning.
But surely all the financial projections have been obliterated by the pandemic. There can’t be many people queuing up to live in a high-rise in Vauxhall just so they can be closer to the office. And the longer that apartments remain unoccupied the less desirable they become.
With so many properties at risk of lying permanently empty, hopes of creating what some creative agents have described as a “15-minute city” - a suburb containing everything people want and need within a 15-minute walk - are increasingly hard to take seriously.
Regeneration done right is an essential part of “levelling up”, “building back better” and all the rest of Johnson's ambitions these days. Investment and foreign capital are always welcome in the world’s greatest city.
But there is a real risk that London will be stuck with a white elephant, a monument to the hubris of post-crash Britain and its desperate courting of China.
Boris’s ugly ghost town at Nine Elms is a London colony of China’s property bubble
New town on the south bank of the Thames feels more like one of provincial China’s obscure metropolises than a high-end London development
Boris Johnson in 2015 remarked that work began on the Northern line extension to Battersea and Nine Elms.
It was dubbed “the final piece of the jigsaw”, in typically modest style by the then-Mayor of London, Boris Johnson.
And what better way to complete an unlovely area of the capital, previously home to rows of grim warehouses, distribution depots and run down council houses, than a 230-hectare riverside new town of 20,000 homes stretching from Vauxhall Cross to Battersea Power Station on the South Bank of the Thames.
The brains behind what was sold as the biggest regeneration project Europe had ever seen came up with the most fitting of names: Vauxhall Nine Elms Battersea. Where elm trees once swayed on the breeze off the river would one day stand a brand new concrete jungle.
That was the plan at least. Yet seemingly like every ambitious vision that captivates our Prime Minister, the reality is so far falling short in quite spectacular style.
The noble goal behind regeneration projects such as Nine Elms is to inject new life into forgotten corners of cities. With the appropriate application of capital - inevitably often foreign and speculative - the arrival of new residents and businesses is meant to sow communities and real growth on even the barest of earth.
In 2012 Boris described Nine Elms as “the greatest transformational story in the world’s greatest city”. This was his grandiose vision, eagerly backed by David Cameron in Number 10, for how London would look as it emerged miraculously from the ashes of the financial crisis.
Cosmopolitan Vauxhall would be a symbol of a revived, vibrant international city. The whole shebang would be turbocharged by overseas cash, especially from our wealthy friends in China.
Better still, by devoting large swathes of the complex to affordable housing, it would be a modern egalitarian utopia where rich and the poor lived side by side in stylish apartments.
Both would be served by attractive riverside dining and bars, pop-up food markets and a wealth of other amenities, all of an aspirational yet attainable model of recovering Britain.
It was a mirage. Instead, an ugly ghost town of half-empty tower blocks has popped up in a densely packed cluster that gives a crushing sense of claustrophobia from street level and the 40th floor.
Nine Elms feels more like one of provincial China’s obscure metropolises than a high-end development within walking distance of the mother of parliaments.
Chief City Commentator
The Nine Elms Square scheme
The restoration of Battersea Power Station may be much delayed and miles over budget for its Malaysian backers, but it is a work of eternal beauty set against the disposable hideousness that surrounds it.
Take Nine Elms Square, the centrepiece of the entire scheme. A £3bn joint venture between developers R&F and CC Land, two beneficiaries of the Chinese property boom that now appears to be a deflating bubble.
R&F has lost more than half its valuation on the Hong Kong stock market this year since May, as the crisis gripping Evergrande has sparked broader concerns about debt-fuelled speculation. It is among those that have come under growing pressure from the Chinese government to rein in its borrowing.
Yet in a sign of how keen Beijing is to keep the show on the road, the company and CC Land have secured £430m of fresh loans from a club of lenders, including a Chinese state-backed bank, so that it can complete the first phase of construction at Nine Elms.
The willingness of major lenders to provide fresh funding to a challenged Chinese property developer is all the more puzzling given the underwhelming demand for expensive flats in Nine Elms Square and other neighbouring blocks within the scheme.
Less than 90 of the apartments planned for a venture marketed as a luxurious "residential, cultural and business” hub have been sold in the first year of marketing - equivalent to around just one in 15 of the total planned. The developers argue that only 20pc of the homes have been marketed so almost one in three were sold, and deny that if there had been greater demand they surely would have offered more for sale.
Figures for neighbouring buildings aren’t much better. Agents estimate that many of the buildings only have occupancy rates of around 25-30pc.
R&F and CC Land insist sales levels are strong and it is business as normal, playing down any suggestions that their commitment to the scheme might be waning.
But surely all the financial projections have been obliterated by the pandemic. There can’t be many people queuing up to live in a high-rise in Vauxhall just so they can be closer to the office. And the longer that apartments remain unoccupied the less desirable they become.
With so many properties at risk of lying permanently empty, hopes of creating what some creative agents have described as a “15-minute city” - a suburb containing everything people want and need within a 15-minute walk - are increasingly hard to take seriously.
Regeneration done right is an essential part of “levelling up”, “building back better” and all the rest of Johnson's ambitions these days. Investment and foreign capital are always welcome in the world’s greatest city.
But there is a real risk that London will be stuck with a white elephant, a monument to the hubris of post-crash Britain and its desperate courting of China.
Ben Marlow
Princess Diana's first flat gets a blue plaque: English Heritage recognises Earl's Court apartment royal shared with three friends before marrying Prince Charles
•Diana is now among six women honoured with an English Heritage blue plaque
•Placed on Earl's Court flat she lived in before wedding to Prince of Wales in 1981
•Former flatmate, Virginia Clarke, said Diana would have 'really liked' the plaque
By Monica Greep For Mailonline
Published: 13:06 BST, 29 September 2021 | Updated: 07:49 BST, 30 September 2021
Princess Diana's memory was honoured today with an English Heritage blue plaque on the Earl's Court flat she lived in before her wedding to the Prince of Wales in 1981.
The architectural accolade to Diana, who would have been 60 in July, is in honour of her 'devotion to charity work' and will mark out the late royal's first home - gifted to her as a coming-of-age present by her parents - for tourists in the city.
Her former flatmate, Virginia Clarke, revealed today as the plaque was unveiled that she and Diana 'had actually driven around London talking about blue plaques, so I knew that she would have really liked it'.
The plaque reads 'Lady Diana Spencer later Princess of Wales lived here 1979 to 1981'.
Princess Diana's Edwardian flat at Coleherne Court was given to her in 1979 as a coming-of-age present from her parents, they bought for 50,000 pounds.
She shared it with three close friends for two years - some of the happiest days of her life, she once said - until moving to Clarence House the night before her engagement in February 1981
Where Do The Richest Americans Live?
5. Larry EllisonWorth: $49.3 billion Home: Woodside, California
Oracle executive chairman Larry Ellison, 72, has an extensive real estate portfolio. He has bought up large parts of whole neighborhoods in Malibu and around Lake Tahoe. He owns a $70-million Beechwood Mansion in Newport, Rhode Island; a garden villa in Kyoto, Japan; and 98% of the land of Lanai, Hawaii's sixth-largest island, which he purchased in 2012 for $500 million, according to published reports.
His estate in Woodside, California, with an estimated value of $110 million, is modeled after 16th-century Japanese architecture, complete with a man-made 2.3-acre lake.
6. Michael BloombergWorth: $45 billion Home: Manhattan, New York
Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, 74, has more than a dozen of properties worldwide. He spends most of his time at his Upper Estate Side townhouse, but he also owns estates in the Hamptons in New York, as well as in London, Bermuda, Colorado and Florida.
Mr. Bloomberg’s townhouse, located at 17 East 79th St., spans five stories with a limestone exterior. During his three terms as mayor, Mr. Bloomberg lived in the townhouse instead of Gracie Mansion. However, he apparently has a plan to turn it into a mega-mansion. Since 1989, he has been gradually buying up units at 19 East 79th St., the townhouse co-op that’s right next door to his current residence. Out of the six units in the white 1880 Greek-revival-style building, Bloomberg now owns five of them, according to The New York Observer.
Here, take a look at the residences the six richest moguls call home:
1. Bill GatesWorth: $81 billion Home: Medina, Washington
Mr. Gates, 60, spends most of his time at his 66,000-square-foot Medina, Washington, mansion, nicknamed Xanadu 2.0 after the title character's estate in Citizen Kane. The mansion overlooks Lake Washington. It took Mr. Gates seven years and $63.2 million to build this house, which is filled with lots of high-tech features. He purchased the lot for $2 million in 1988, but it's now worth an estimated $170 million, according to public records.
2. Jeff BezosWorth: $67 billion Home: Medina, Washington
Mr. Bezos, 52, in the process of building his e-commerce empire, scooped up a vast amount of real properties over the years, earning him the No. 26 spot on The Land Report's list of America's largest landowners last year. In terms of residences, he has a 165,000-acre ranch in West Texas, a waterfront house in Washington state, three linked apartments in Manhattan's Century Tower, and a 12,000-square-foot Beverly Hills estate that boasts Tom Cruise as a neighbor, according to Forbes.
His home at Medina, Washington, close to Amazon’s headquarters, boasts 5.35 acres and about 29,000 square-foot of living space. Aside from the main home, there’s also a caretaker’s cottage and a 4,500-square-foot boathouse on Lake Washington.
3. Warren BuffettWorth: $65.5 billion Home: Omaha, Nebraska
Although the shrewdest investor on earth holds multiple real estate investments, Mr. Buffett, 86, is known for living humbly.
His home sits on a corner in Omaha, Nebraska, which he bought in 1958 for $31,500. Mr. Buffett has lived there ever since. The house, originally built in 1921, underwent several expansions to make it a cozy and comfortable 6,500-square-foot home for the man who has a net worth of over $65.5 billion.
Although the shrewdest investor on earth holds multiple real estate investments, Mr. Buffett, 86, is known for living humbly.
His home sits on a corner in Omaha, Nebraska, which he bought in 1958 for $31,500. Mr. Buffett has lived there ever since. The house, originally built in 1921, underwent several expansions to make it a cozy and comfortable 6,500-square-foot home for the man who has a net worth of over $65.5 billion.
4. Mark ZuckerbergWorth: $55.5 billion Home: Palo Alto, California
The youngest richest entrepreneur docks most of his wealth in schools, health and other philanthropies. His real estate portfolio include his home in Palo Alto and a 9.9-million pied-a-terre near Dolores Park in San Francisco.
Mr. Zuckerberg, 32, purchased his first Craftsman-style 5,000-square-foot home in Palo Alto in 2011 for $7 million. He snapped up four of the houses surrounding his home in the following years for about $43.8 million to better keep his privacy. But his plan to tear down and rebuild those four homes has been stalled.
Elvis graceland and family fortune
THE LAST THING Priscilla wanted to do when she became a co-executor of the Presley estate was open Graceland to the public. She was a Southern Californian, but Graceland was still the family home. Some of Elvis’ relatives lived there, and Lisa Marie might choose to move in someday. Priscilla recoiled at the idea of visitors trampling through the house, stealing pieces of wallpaper and dripping ice cream on the carpets.
“Graceland was the only thing Elvis and I had that wasn’t (on public view),” Priscilla says. “To open up your home was like being robbed.”
Elvis bought Graceland and 13.8 adjoining acres in suburban Whitehaven in 1957 for slightly more than $100,000. By the time of his death at age 42, the house had been expanded to 23 rooms, including eight bathrooms, a den with a soda fountain and three TV sets placed side by side on a wall and another den--the Jungle Room--decorated in what has been described as Tahitian Provincial.
Priscilla and Hanks realized just days after Vernon Presley’s death that opening the house to the public was the surest way to raise money. For almost two years, however, Priscilla explored alternatives. Maybe, she hoped, merchandising would raise enough money. Maybe the record royalties would rise again. Maybe . . . .
But in the end, there was only Graceland. The final blow came in 1981: The federal government, taking into account the money made since Elvis’ death, reappraised the estate at $22.5 million, up from $4.9 million, and slapped on a $10-million inheritance tax.
In the fall of 1981, Priscilla visited famous houses and museums around the country. “Hearst Castle was the one that impressed me the most because there was nothing (commercial) on the grounds. It was kept exactly the same as when people had lived there. That’s what I wanted, too, so that if Lisa wanted to move in right now, she could go in with a toothbrush and that’s it.”
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PRISCILLA Presley’s life with Elvis was a little like a modern fairy tale. Elvis--the prince of rock ‘n’ roll--spotted his 14-year-old Cinderella in 1959 while stationed with the Army in West Germany. A much-traveled Air Force brat, Priscilla was living in Germany because her father, a captain, was on duty there.
After returning to Graceland in 1960, Elvis missed Priscilla and eventually persuaded her parents to let her come live with him so that she could finish high school in the United States. They married in 1967, and Lisa Marie was born in 1968. A few years later, Priscilla began to want a life of her own, something apparently impossible in Elvis’ world. They divorced in 1973.
Life with Elvis was unpredictable, but the one thing Priscilla didn’t expect was money problems. Even knowing Elvis’ spending habits, she always thought Lisa Marie would, financially speaking, live happily ever after. It was impossible to think of the world’s most popular entertainer being in financial trouble.
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