Move over Buckingham Palace! Furious locals, a massive underground extension, and the mystery owner of London's most incredible home
Last updated at 10:32 PM on 24th June 2011
Soon its name will join the ranks of Britain's great stately homes. Already, in the most elite of circles, it is being whispered in awe: 'Witanhurst. Do you know it?'
The residents of London's Highgate certainly do, for this mammoth property has caused an ongoing row, as planners have repeatedly rejected lavish plans for its development.
The Georgian-style mansion is London's second-largest private residence, after Buckingham Palace.But following a short-lived renaissance in 2002 as home to the BBC's Fame Academy, it had been allowed to decay.
Witanhurst
Now, the planning issues having been resolved, it is being turned into a modern-day Xanadu, the palatial mansion immortalised in the film Citizen Kane.The glittering 65-room palace will include 25 bedrooms and 12 bathrooms and an imperial walnut-panelled Grand Ballroom.
A vast two-storey subterranean extension will almost double its size, making room for a 70ft swimming pool, sauna, hairdressing salon, massage parlour and a huge cinema suite.
Diggers are carving an enormous cave beneath the house, which will make the property just 2,000 sq ft smaller than Buckingham Palace. Staff accommodation and a 25-space car park will complete the £50million expansion.
A borehole system, driven deep into the ground, will heat the house, using the Earth's warmth.Documents lodged with Camden council show that the main house will remain largely the same, except for the demolition of a 20th-century wing, which will be replaced by a super-sized 'orangery'. Work is due to be finished in autumn 2012.
Mystery shrouds the mansion, however. For despite being the size of ten generously sized detached homes, nobody knows who owns it.Indeed, it is said that even Robert Adam, the celebrated architect behind this extraordinary project, does not know who his client is.
He receives his instructions via an intricate web of companies and advisers, designed to give the owner absolute anonymity.So just what is Witanhurst and who is behind it?
It is perched above North London, on the verdant hill of Highgate, an ancient village that is one of the capital’s most sought-after addresses.Overlooking Hampstead Heath, the area once was home to the highwayman Dick Turpin and philosopher Karl Marx is buried in the nearby Victorian cemetery.
Today, celebrities including Sting, Bob Hoskins, Jude Law and Ulrika Jonsson have chosen the area as their base.Witanhurst stands in six acres of woodland, commanding some of the best views in London.
Move over Buckingham Palace: Kate and Wills walk in the grounds the day after their wedding
Built in 1774, the original Georgian residence was called Parkfield. Bought by the well-connected stockbroker Walter Scrimgeour for his wife and eight children at the end of the 19th century, the house became the venue for masked balls attended by the great and the good.
When the family left Parkfield in 1913, it was purchased by Liberal MP and soap and candle tycoon Sir Arthur Crosfield. He sold the family company and ploughed the profit into Parkfield, which his wife, Domini - the daughter of a Greek merchant and a former Swiss ladies' tennis champion - helped him turn into a palace.
Crosfield renamed his home Witanhurst (the old Anglo-Saxon words ‘witan’, meaning a parliament, and 'hurst', a wooded hill). They spent £1 million on the property (£20 million today) replacing the original house with a 40,000 sq ft Queen Anne-style mansion.
A gate lodge welcomed guests into the main house's teak hallway, which was so vast guests gasped in disbelief.Oak flooring and walnut wall panels embellished with gold leaf added to the sense of opulence.
The couple used the four tennis courts to host a charity competition in which their illustrious friends - George VI, Princess Alice, Countess of Athlone, Princess Juliana of Holland and Princess Ingrid of Sweden - played.
Fame Academy: The BBC talent show was filmed at Witanhurst
But tragedy hit the family. Crosfield lost a fortune in a failed Greek mining venture and was then killed falling off a continental sleeper car. Lady Crosfield stayed at Witanhurst and her soirees still attracted celebrities and royals: the young Princesses Margaret and Elizabeth visited.
But when Lady Crosfield ran out of money, the parties stopped and the property was split into apartments. Her plan to give the house to the nation as a residence for visiting dignitaries came to nothing. When Lady Crosfield died in 1963 the house passed to her adopted son, Paul.
He put the house on the market and, for years, the fate of Witanhurst hung in the balance. An attempt was made to demolish the house to make way for flats, but there was public outcry and the house was listed.
In 1971, the property was sold for £1.3 million to a firm called Pamilion Properties and for the next three decades Witanhurst passed from one developer or mysterious foreign owner to the next.
In the early Eighties, the lower section of the estate — now known as Highfields Grove — was sold for the construction of 24 houses.The house itself, however, remained untouched and the locals were distraught to see the building fall into disrepair. They tried to trace its owners, to no avail. It has for years been on the English Heritage 'buildings at risk' register.
Guests: The Royal family were frequent visitors to Witanhurst, seen here sitting in the roped-off enclosure on the right-hand side
In 2002, Witanhurst became home to the BBC's Fame Academy talent show. But producer Endemol wasn't allowed to continue filming there after Camden council planners said it had caused 'irreversible damage' to the listed building, by installing a gym and hot tub without consent.
Witanhurst has also been the setting for costume dramas including Tipping The Velvet, Dorian Gray (starring Colin Firth), Nicholas Nickleby and The Lost Prince. The council made it clear that it wanted someone to restore the house to its former glory. In 2007, it seemed that day had come.
Local developer Marcus Cooer bought Witanhurst for £32 million from an Arab family, vowing to spend millions on restoration and put it back on the market for £150 million.
Months later, it was back on the market, untouched, for £75 million. Then matters took a more mysterious turn. When the house was sold again three years ago, the new owners put in plans for an ambitious overhaul, including a three-storey glass pavilion. These were initially rejected, but amended plans were allowed on appeal. Locals have strenuously objected, claiming it will ruin the character of the neighbourhood.
Some councillors at Camden called the subterranean scheme 'immoral', because of the amount of environmental disruption it will cause. One committee member, Michael Hammerson, said: 'We don’t want limos with smoked windows and men in dark glasses with bulging breast pockets, and the place surrounded by CCTV. That’s not Highgate.'
Fate: The future of Witanhurst has long been a contentious one
Nevertheless, the bulldozers and cranes moved in 18 months ago, and Witanhurst has become a building site once more. The site is now known locally as Ground Zero, with up to four articulated trucks an hour rumbling through the narrow lanes of leafy Highgate for the past six months.
As the main thrust of the renovation is downwards, they are removing tonnes of earth. Some 15,000 square metres are being excavated to form the vast two-storey basement which will double Witanhurst's size.
Who is behind the renovation, then? In 2008, it was reported that Yelena Baturina, the wife of Yury Luzhkov, the former mayor of Moscow, and a billionaire in her own right, had bought the property for £50 million. She denies this.A controversial figure in Russia, the construction tycoon has also fought off accusations of corruption.
He added that the vast new wing called the Orangery - despised by locals - is necessary as it would offer smaller living quarters, should 'the family fancy a simple night in with pizza and a beer'.
Baturina, 48, who already has a home in London’s Holland Park, which accommodates her extensive art collection, is known for grand schemes.When she failed to find a school for her two daughters, Elena, 19, and Olga, 17, she built her own, complete with state-of-the-art security.
Despite being the richest woman in Russia, she denies owning Witanhurst and has launched legal proceedings against a newspaper story that claimed otherwise.
In March, Mr Justice Eady at the Court of Appeal opened the way for Baturina to proceed with her libel case.
What is not in dispute is that Witanhurst was bought by the offshore firm Safran Holdings, registered in the British Virgin Islands.
David Franklin, from Safran Holdings, says the owners have a vision for the house. He says: 'We have said that if the appeal was successful we will get working on restoring Witanhurst to its former glory.'
He added that the vast new wing called the Orangery - despised by locals - is necessary as it would offer smaller living quarters, should 'the family fancy a simple night in with pizza and a beer'.
He also defended the need for the huge underground extension: 'These are the things someone spending this type of money expects in their homes.' The construction team has said that the new owner is a 'wealthy European family looking for a permanent base in London'.
It could be that we have to wait for the house-warming party to discover who has moved into the capital’s grandest private pile. One thing is certain: they’ll have plenty of room to entertain their new neighbours, that is if any of them deign to accept an invitation to tea.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2007919/Move-Buckingham-Palace-Furious-locals-massive-underground-extension-mystery-owner-Londons-incredible-home.html#ixzz1QFST6SDr
