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You don’t need to climb far up the housing ladder these days to have a master
bedroom with ensuite, but at Updown Court, in Windlesham, on the
Surrey-Berkshire border, the term takes on a new meaning. We are not talking
bathroom here, but ensuite swimming pool – 12 metres long, with a proper
deep end, reached by a glass lift that can whisk you there straight from
your four-poster.
Extravagance? If you’re spending more than £70m on a house, you expect
something special. So it has another four pools, a glass-walled squash
court, a private cinema and a two-lane bowling alley in the basement. Oh,
and several sitting and entertaining rooms, 13 bedrooms, 20 bathrooms and 43
lavatories, all set in 11 acres of landscaped gardens and 46 acres of
woodland.
Spanning 50,000 sq ft – bigger than Hampton Court or Buckingham Palace, and
the equivalent of 30 average houses – this neoclassical mansion, completed
at the end of last year, is by far the most expensive country pile on sale
in Britain.
So, what better place to start a new series, in conjunction with Times Online,
on the country’s most exclusive homes? Over the next months, we will take
you to country mansions and sophisticated city pads. After reading about
them, visit timesonline.co.uk/luxuryproperty
for more pictures and a video tour.
Updown Court certainly has the ideal location for the billionaire plutocrat:
central London is 28 miles away, Heathrow a 20-minute drive. Worried about
the local schools? Eton College is within easy reach. The road from
Sunningdale, the nearest railway station, is lined with sets of high gates
concealing the kind of country houses beloved of City bonus-earners.
Drive through Updown’s own ornate wrought-iron gates (electrically operated,
of course), onto the heated marble driveway – said to have cost £3m to lay –
and the house looms up suddenly in front of you. It looks like something out
of Bel Air or Palm Beach – not surprising, since most of the work of John
Scholz, the original architect, has been for the super-rich of America.
For all that money, you might expect a longer driveway. There is also too much
noise, from the road outside and from the M3, a few miles away, which even
the gush of water from the 40ft fountain cannot completely mask.
Open the huge oak front door (with a small, ordinary-looking key on a plastic
tag) and the first sight is of the triple-height reception area, the size of
an average Victorian semi, dominated by a pair of sweeping staircases
leading up to a galleried landing, modelled on the late Gianni Versace’s
villa in Miami.
The sheer expanse of shiny marble – an estimated 250 tons of it has been used
in the house – has visitors reaching for their sunglasses. As Leslie
Allen-Vercoe, chairman of Rhymer Investments, the property’s developers, put
it: “If Elton John were a house, he’d be Updown Court.” Although the singer,
who lives in nearby Old Windsor, probably couldn’t afford it.
Starting at the top, the second floor is divided into two two-bedroom
penthouse suites, one in the west wing, one in the east – perfect for
visitors, or ideal for a granny flat, so the matriarch can marvel at her
offspring’s success. Despite the opulence of the bathrooms (more marble),
the bedrooms are cosy rather than spacious. Both, nevertheless, offer views
of the infinity pool on the terrace.
The floor below has eight more bedrooms, each with its own ensuite bathroom
and walk-in wardrobe the size of a bedsit. No two rooms in this house are
the same, nor are any of them rectangular – not great for furniture, but,
then again, if you have that much money, you can probably go bespoke.
The master bedroom, surprisingly, is on the ground floor. It boasts a walk-in
dressing room and an 850 sq ft double ensuite bathroom. Two panels either
side of the bath – clearly designed to be shared – have been left blank for
his-and-hers mosaics. A panelled library, a study and a clutch of other
rooms complete the east wing.
The west wing has a family room, breakfast area, private sitting room and
banqueting hall. The last of these is surprisingly small, with space for two
dozen diners at a pinch. Fill all those bedrooms with guests and you will
struggle to feed them all at one sitting. Finger buffet in the hall,
perhaps?
Here is also the second of the two indoor pools, an altogether larger affair,
with ladies’ and gentlemen’s changing rooms, a sauna and a massage room.
Worried about the damp air and whiffs of chlorine spreading to the rest of
the house? No need. Entry to the pool area is via a high-pressure glass
chamber that traps the air inside.
Besides the cinema, the squash court, the bowling alley and a wine cellar for
300 bottles, the basement contains the main kitchen, a walk-in strongroom
and a granite-floored garage with the words Updown Court carved in it,
presumably in case the owner forgets which of his many residences he is
visiting.
Here, too, is the James Bond-like control room, from which it is possible to
manage the £6m worth of heating, air conditioning and other high-tech kit,
all of which, thanks to the internet, can be adjusted by the owner as he
floats through the Caribbean on his yacht. It also contains a battery of
video cameras that allows you to monitor and track intruders. Too many
barbarians at the gate? Then make use of one of the two escape tunnels, or
retreat to the panic room, also in the basement, and wait for reinforcements
to arrive.
Yet such features alone do not sell a house, especially not one as expensive
as Updown Court, which has languished unsold since coming onto the market in
2004, despite a boom that has seen the price of top country houses rise by
more than 20% over the past year.
Although growing amounts of wealth have become concentrated in the hands of
the world’s mega-rich, £70m is a huge sum of money, especially when the
buyer will have to spend millions more decorating and fitting out what, in
many respects, is still a glorified shell.
The most expensive country-house sale in Britain was Park Place, a 30,000 sq
ft pile near Henley-on-Thames, which changed hands last month for a mere
£42m. To find anything more expensive, you would have to go to London, where
Sheikh Hamad, the foreign minister of Qatar, reportedly paid £100m this
spring for a penthouse overlooking Hyde Park. In another entry for the
record books, it was announced last week that a 29-bedroom,
three-swimming-pool mansion in Beverly Hills, which once belonged to the
publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst, is on sale for £82m – the most
ever asked for a house in America.
So, why has nobody bought Updown Court? Is it the eccentric layout, the road
noise and the lack of privacy? Or is the whole thing simply too over-the-top
for the British market?
Mark Parkinson, a director of the top-level buying agency Property Vision, who
has shown a client around the house, says the problem is the small number of
potential buyers. “There are probably only 20 people in the world who would
buy it. The owners are just waiting for one of them to want a house in the
UK,” he says. “It appeals to four types of buyer: Russian, Hong Kong
Chinese, Indian or Middle Eastern. It is definitely emerging money, ‘look
what I achieved’ sort of money.”
Savills is clearly hoping that, as the market continues to rise, the price tag
will cease to look quite so excessive. Crispin Holborow, director of
Savills’ country department, which is selling the house, is sworn to
secrecy on the identity and number of buyers who have viewed Updown Court,
but insists that all could afford it. “There is a tight screening process in
place before anyone is allowed in,” he says.
The price tag, Holborow suggests mischievously, might even be too modest:
“With such growing confidence and the market increasing, perhaps we ought to
be asking more.” Any takers?
Savills; 020 7409 8881, www.savills.com;
Hamptons; 01483 572864, www.hamptons-int.com
Updown breakdown
INSIDE
- Eight bedroom suites
- 2,650 sq ft master wing
- Two penthouse apartments
- Two indoor swimming pools
- Squash court Bowling alley
- 15 reception rooms
- Nine private balconies
- Kitchens and storerooms
- Garaging for seven cars
- Panic room
- Security control centre
OUTSIDE
- Two escape tunnels
- Guest lodge
- Gatehouse
- Staff quarters
- Stables
- Summer houses
- Three outdoor pools
- Floodlit sports court
- 40ft fountain
- 11 acres of manicured gardens and lawn
- 46 acres of woodland
