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Wow. Seriously impressive stuff.
D'ya need a garden if you're gay, possibly never going to have kids and have that view?
At last, a proper [i]grand[/i] design...
Easily my fave episode/house ever.
I still have a soft spot for Francis and Peel Castle; he took on English Heritage and won saving a fabulous building in the process
[url= http://peelcastle.co.uk/granddesigns/granddesigns.html ]Linky if you missed it[/url]
Yes, but only if it's uphill. Great building.D'ya need a garden if you're gay,
That was stunning!
Funny but I was going to start a 'what's your favourite grand designs project' thread and the Peel Tower easy does it for me. Tonight's project was unfathomable but it was still a vanity project.
Don't really like it. Admire the ambition and drive but the guy's a tool with little sense of design or taste. He seems to have built a soulless 4 bedroom modern hotel with shocking decor. Only saving grace is that view and even then I'm with Kevin - "but it's in London".
Well its definitely grand!
My mind can't contemplate the enormity of the project though. Things like the 6 storey lift shaft, the huge sliding glass front on the cube, even just furnishing & decorating the place just is just mind boggling. I meant they must have spent hundreds of thou on just fixtures & fittings.
How on earth they'll repay the debt before the end of their days is beyond me too. Unless they plan to live there for 15/20 years or so then sell for a huge profit.
Awesome....just awesome.
They were going to have a garden but due to the plot it would be one of them expensive vertical ones and they didn't want all the up hill gardening jokes 😐
Might ride past tomorrow and have a gander
I wouldn't particularly want to live there, but a very impressive build. Fair play to them.
impressive, eccentric, but just a souless impractical vanity project.
why have massive sliding doors to look out at some unsightly yard and wall in Lambeth. too disconnected - I reckon you'd end up living in just one part of the 'house', probably the cube thing. the lift is kind of pointless as you still have to use a load of stairs as well. 6 bathrooms?
I can ride up the hill near me and get a better view of London and it doesn't cost £2m.
I hope the pigeons reclaim it.
I suspect there isn't much of his buy-to-let portfolio left after that. Massive views, but not very practical to live in. Great to see someone bring in a building on time, and adding more builders when needed instead of stringing a project out.
Yes but you don't own the hill. It's their place, their view, their legacy.
One of the him's is a property developer. Can you think of a better advert for a property for sale in the near future ?
Impressive but impractical building in a pretty ropey bit of london, although it is moving up in the world.
do we need to have a whip round to pay the ransom?
Nah - I'll escape by Sunday, but thanks. I'm in this....
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but the weather isn't that good right now!
You couldn't exactly wander around with no clothes on could you ?
Or are they magic windows?
Like him or loath him same with the building that is all personal taste, what is not in doubt is a wonderful building restored very well. Personally I loved it.
I would have loved to have seen a lot more of the conservation work and of the build in progress; this one could easily have filled another half hour. Incredible conversion although, like others have said, totally impractical as a [i]home[/i].
Good investment though. Got to be worth several million.
Good investment though. Got to be worth several million.
Not convinced, who is the market?
Recorded it, not watched it yet, went to see [i]Looper[/i]. Really looking forward to it now, having read the comments.
Good investment though. Got to be worth several million.
Not convinced, who is the market?
In (relatively central) London, and as unique as that, with that kind of view, there would definitely be a market. Nice, but totally bog-standard 3 or 4 bed Georgian terraced town houses 500 metres from that building sell for £1.2 million. There are enough people with £3-£4 millon to spend who either live in London or want to own a house in London that it wouldn't be a problem to sell it. A lot of rich people like flashy, particularly it seems Middle-Eastern, Asian and Russian rich people, and there are a lot of those in and around London at the moment. I'd imagine if you just had the room at the top and a kitchen underneath there'd be at least 10 people interested in buying it for £3 or 4 million just for showing off, entertaining or meetings.
Didn't Nick Ross's house in a fashionable bit of London sell for 30+ million?
That place would make at least 10 million I should think, maybe more as just south of the river is becoming more fashionable?
"Darling! Just look at the view!"
*ding dong*
"Ah balls."
Remember the game when you were a kid and you rang the bell and ran away... 😆
You'd have to be even fitter than a STW cycling warrior to live there with all those stairs.
Chap door run is what we, rather unimaginatively called that game. Hoewever, I think, though I never saw them fitting it (and they came out into the street to greet Mr McLoud at the end), that they'd have taken the trouble of fitting a video intercom in that building. You get them in bog-standard new-build flats nowadays, so I'd think if they were spunking £35000 a week on this(note - that figure is not including the owner's undoubtedly massive weekly cocaine bill) they'd install an intercom on each level.
It was an inspiring project. With a fabulous building at the end. I wouldn't like to live in it or where it was located but it was a Grand Design. Crazy money (I had a friend that leant me £0.5M to keep going!) in all ways.
What will it be worth. Well £3-4M easily. When you see some of the fairly ordinary properties here (North Downs) that make £1-2M, then £3-4M is no bid ask for that market.
How the hell do you clean those windows??
Self cleaning glass.
What I didn't get was he kept referring to it as his and not 'ours'. I couldn't work out if they both owned it or it was just the attention seekers?
impressive phallus.
impressive phallus.
Thats what I thought. I wouldn't mind the scrotum part overlooking some rolling hills, mind you.
You couldn't exactly wander around with no clothes on could you
Given what a showman he appeared to be, I don't think he'd think twice about standing at the double height windows naked, scratching his marble bag.
And as for value - I am sure some simple redesigning of the interior access and he could make it into apartments - the top floors, with that view, would command £3-4k a week surely?
What I didn't get was he kept referring to it as his and not 'ours'. I couldn't work out if they both owned it or it was just the attention seekers?
Sky info billed them as 'a couple', which they clearly were but it didn't look like a very equal relationship. He, the developer, came across as very narcissistic and needy of attention. His partner came across as being very much the balancing force in his life.
I can imagine that without him, the developer chap would easily slip into self destruct or depression or something.
What I was surprised at was how someone like him had managed to tame his incredible energy and total lack of focus and planning (he looked to be 'P' on the Myers Briggs - someone who got things done in a haphazard way without a lot of careful planning and control) and turn it into such a successful property development business. He obviously had a strong creative eye, but man he was all over the place!
I think I'm going to transfer to 'Amazing Spaces'
I'd be more inspired by something I can afford
He, the developer, came across as very narcissistic and needy of attention
He did remind me a bit of Patrick Bateman from American Psycho.
I imagine he will make his money back but I can't see the massive profits because my limited experience of high rollers is not many of them want to live in Kennington/E&C despite it being very central. They prefer Knightsbridge. Historically it is a place MPs live and people wanting to live centrally with modest means.
Locally you can buy beautiful Georgian Terrace houses for £1.5 million, not so much of a statement, but considerably cheaper per sq foot, have a garden and are not in the middle of modern development of flats but a lovely garden square. Just think the market is smaller than envisaged, the high end is very location specific and at present i don't think this is such an area. May change over the next 10 years as they redevelop E&C.
That said, there is another statement home on the market in the area for £4.5 million, which equates to just less than £1,000 per sq ft if they achieve it. Not sure what the square footage of that house is.
Just me, or could the guy last night make a few quid playing a Lionel Messi lookylikey?
It had a roof garden on top of the cube bit didn't it?
Program seemed so rushed.. That build needed a couple of hours.
Truly worthy of the Grand design title but also utterly impractical. The views from the tank were just amazing but I couldn't understand why they didn't put a second kitchen and maybe the office up there - even just somewhere to make a cup of coffee and pour a drink. I can't see how it's going to get much use otherwise - up in a small lift to the 6th floor then another few flights of stairs.
doesn't have a garden
but the roof of the new block was a decent sized roof terrace. Area is on the up and it's 15 minutes from the city. Gated development, garage.
I'd be surprised if they lost money on it. The 37th floor penthouse in Strata building (the building they moved out of) is [url= http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-33410842.html ] on for £1.6m[/url]. Probably a lot more practical but only 140m2. Could easily go for some millions.
Self cleaning glass.
Self cleaning glass doesn't [url= http://www.pilkingtonselfcleaningglass.co.uk/how-it-works/maintaining/ ]*never* need cleaning[/url]
What I didn't get was he kept referring to it as his and not 'ours'.
That was odd. Obviously a couple and the money was very obviously coming from one of them (you don't make millions in building conservation) but you'd still expect it to be 'ours'.
Read on the internet that it was really designed to be a hotel. I've not seen it yet so can't comment on it.
Anyone know why its not on 4od?
Best knock a door run target ever!
[i]Anyone know why its not on 4od? [/i]
that's weird it was this morning, not there now 😕
Watching it now, extraordinary building, glad it's been saved, and I'd love to live there.
Just got to the end. Jeeze, what a building! It's staggering, and I love it to bits. I really could live there, the view from the top is unbelievable, and in London, priceless. I could never tire of looking out of those windows, just magical.
A spacial design consultant and a city trader developing a grand basement - oh **** off!
It's going to be interesting.
From the sublime last week to the utterly ridiculous this week so far...
My head just exploded trying to fathom wtf is going on with the plans 😯
"I'm not going to talk about money".
Sounds embarrassingly expensive already
We don't discuss money, fair do's.
An example of hubby bank rolling a project money no object.
Kind of detracted from the real world and the reality of life
..and WTF does "spatial design consultant" mean?
..and WTF does "spatial design consultant" mean?
Air head
She's going to get on my
The space is colossal.. looking forward to the results 🙂
Ooh, blurred-out names on contractor vests - usually means problems....
The Roman Bath is the only thing I've wished I had so far........ Mmmm Roman Bath !
Is it me or have we come into a half finished project already???
Poncey and pompous in my honest opinion, and blimey isn't she a bit..... Well you'd like to make her part of the foundations wouldn't you???
Well you'd like to make her part of the foundations wouldn't you???
Fair play, she's accepted defeat graciously.
This is going to be one big money pit.
She is a nightmare, seems to be a major rule on this programme.
Get a good architect, get the plans drawn up, get a good site manager then piss off and leave the builders to it
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She needs to through a few scatter cushions at it. That will improve it no end.
Brilliant stuff so far 😆
1k per m² for the glass. I love it.
£1000 per square m for glass . . . bonkers.
what the hell is that thing?
LOL @ the kitchen ... now when she cooks the people upstairs get the oily air ... nice moisturiser ... 😆
"I have never considered Geoffs opinion"
well that says it all really
That just looks like a high end show house. Not somewhere to live
well that says it all really
What does it say? Apart from him being happy to indulge her, and have the means to do it.
Interesting project but I couldn't see myself living in a home that looks like a hotel.
She "likes to resolve the problems"
Really means - shout and whine at a window fitter, because she didn't manage her own suppliers properly and didn't think about the wiring
Marble was nice, but overall nothing special - still a pokey basement in holland park that's over priced and at risk of flooding if your neighbours pipes burst
"hewn out of the living rock"
c*ck
a bit echo-ey.
FCOL 🙄
Vanity project of the year surely?
It shouts [b]LOOK HOW RICH I AM [/b] love the [s]design by her[/s] paying huge amounts of cash to designers/specialists
Well, I liked her; knew what she wanted to do, got rid of the original site manager when he tried to dominate the 'little lady', and proved that she knew what she was about with the finished product. OK, a huge amount of money poured into a hole in the ground but I bet they'd still be on the right side if they sold... just! I wouldn't want to live there though.
where oh where is all their stuff?
Are there any windows to open?
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