Classical elegance: the ornate front of the house (Pic: Alamy)
Zoopla, the property website, has just reported that the average house price
in London’s most expensive street, Kensington Palace Gardens, is now £36
million. Not only that, but the number of homes worth more than £1 million
in Britain has risen in the past year by 32 per cent, to 323,684.
“Property values in super-prime areas are astronomically high and have
risen substantially,” says Lawrence Hall of Zoopla. “Even lottery
winners can only fantasise about a home on such streets. Super-wealthy
owners are paying as much for the address and location as they are for the
size and quality of the property.”
Martin Ellis, housing economist at Halifax Bank, agrees. “In London it’s
foreign buyers, who see it as a haven. There are people at the top who still
have money to spend.”
So it’s not hard to see why the home on Hanover Terrace, on sale for £34
million, but potentially worth double that, is causing a stir.
Period piece: one of the 14 bedrooms, which reflect an era of elegant living
Tucked away on a shallow crescent at the western edge of Regent’s Park, this
John Nash jewel is a world away from the shiny new multimillion-pound towers
on the Thames, or the glitzily restored warehouses in Shoreditch.
Commissioned in 1811 by the Prince Regent, the Grade I-listed house was built
by Nash in 1822, and is exemplary of his style. Two Doric wings run either
side of a central building, which is crowned by a statue-adorned pediment.
Look more closely between the pillars and you get a better idea of the
street’s illustrious history. Blue plaques bear the names of the composer
Vaughan Williams, the writer H G Wells and the architect Anthony Salvin, a
pupil of Nash. No plaques commemorate the writer Wilkie Collins or the poet
Sir Edmund Gosse, but they had homes here, too.
The staircase
The literary connections continued until late in the 20th century. “Harold
Pinter used to live in the street. He and Antonia Fraser would visit for
parties,” says Anne Van Lanschot, the property’s current owner, as she
welcomes me into her spacious hallway. Diana, Princess of Wales was another
guest. “She was absolutely charming.” Yet what is most surprising
about the property, given its location and glamorous past, is how homely it
feels. Family pictures cover every surface. Golden retrievers potter happily
around our ankles.
Van Lanschot, from a Dutch private banking dynasty, has lived in the property
for 45 years, since she and her husband bought it soon after they married.
They raised four daughters here, and remained long after the children grew
up. But her husband died last year, and the time has come to move on.
“When we bought it, my only condition was that it had a garden,” she
explains. “His condition was that it had a garage. We were at a party
at Hanover Terrace – the Queen Mother was there too – and noticed a ‘For
Sale’ sign outside this house, and bought it. Crazy, really – just a young
married couple.
A reception room
“But we’ve loved it here. It’s a wonderful house.”
The five-storey property has 14 bedrooms. A mews house and a cottage in the
grounds also have two bedrooms each. The interiors are miles from the slick
hotel-room feel of One Hyde Park, or countless other developments. Faded
avocado carpet covers some of the floors, while “shabby chic”
would be a generous description of some of the wallpaper and furniture.
There are other surprises: in the garage sits a 1937 black Rolls-Royce Silver
Wraith. In 45 years, Van Lanschot’s husband lost none of his passion for
cars.
Stunning (if a bit tired) though the main house is, the real star here is what
lies outside. At the moment it is a charming garden, with a mulberry tree
and a tub full of daisies sitting in the middle of a lawn. For canny
investors, however, the half-acre garden, practically unheard of in central
London, is the source of the property’s potential.
“A house like this is the holy grail,” says Tim Macpherson, the
director at Carter Jonas responsible for the sale. The property is on the
market for £34 million, valuing it at around £2,370 per square foot: average
for houses over £5 million in central London, but low by local standards.
The stylish conservatory, overlooking the gardens
“Homes around Regent’s Park routinely go for more than £4,000 per square
foot,” says Macpherson, “and in one or two extraordinary
properties, more than £5,000.
“Planning permission from the Crown and the council not withstanding, you
could expand the property under the garden, and connect the mews house and
cottage. You could end up with more than 20,000 square feet of living space,
valued at over £4,000 per square foot.”
You don’t need a PhD to work out what that means: the potential for a terraced
house worth up to £80 million. This would make the property one of London’s
most expensive terraced houses, a rival to nearby One Cornwall Terrace,
which sold earlier this year for £80 million.
“People who have been agents for more than 20 years have never seen
anything like it,” adds Macpherson. “Every other comparable
property in central London has already been developed. That’s the key here:
the building is untouched. You can finish it to your own specifications, and
there’s the potential to extend it dramatically.”
The house’s half-acre garden, ‘practically unheard of in central London’
Though the initial outlay of £34 million sounds daunting, not to mention the
cost of the works, which could also run to many millions, it is nothing
compared with the capital improvement you could see. A £40 million
investment that doubles in value is the kind of deal to have many a tycoon
salivating. “We’ve shown potential buyers around every day since it
went on the market,” says Macpherson.
For the departing owner, on the other hand, the sale of Hanover Terrace
represents the end of a long and happy period in her life. “In some
ways I would love to stay here, and I’ll be sad to leave. But it’s too big
for me on my own,” says Van Lanschot. “My children and
grandchildren stay at Christmas and it’s wonderful. Apart from that, though,
it can feel a bit empty, and I miss my husband terribly. It’s silly to have
me rattling around. I hope that it will be bought by a family. Or a couple
with children, who can really make it into a family home, as it has been for
us.
“Of course, I’d also like to sell it for lots of money,” she adds
with a wry smile.
As I leave, the agent shows in a couple of prospective buyers. They bound up
the stairs in expensive shoes, not stopping to chat. He can’t be much over
30, she is even younger. Something about their manner suggests that they
won’t worry too much about the asking price. Nearly 200 years after it was
built, Hanover Terrace still draws a different sort of buyer.
Hanover Terrace is on the market with Carter
Jonas (020 7584 7020)
For sale: terraced houses to tempt you