CHARTERS is not for the modest. When I first visited, it was the elegant headquarters of De Beers diamonds. Now it is back to what it was intended to be: the ultimate in super-modern luxurious living.

The house, near Ascot, Berkshire, was built in 1938 with motorised curtains and a centralised vacuum system operated from numerous points around the building. Now a portable touch screen control panel allows you to arrange every aspect of your life. Your car will be delivered to your front door. You can inspect the menus of the best local restaurants and have meals delivered to your all-glass dining table. Personal trainers, beauty therapists and masseuses complete the on-site pampering. Heathrow is 20 miles away, although a door-to-door helicopter service is offered to “destinations throughout Europe”.

Charters was designed for the Dyson of the day, the engineer-entrepreneur Frank Parkinson. Not for him the bright white concrete of the International Modern Style. His whole house was clad in Portland stone. The latest aluminium windows were not enough – his were of bronze edged in teak. All have been expertly restored. Long bands of windows open concertina-fashion to turn living rooms and bedrooms into open-air balconies with vistas over acres of landscaped grounds. Even from the upper floors there is not a building to be seen over a sea of trees continuing several miles in almost every direction.

This is leafy Sunninghill and Sunningdale, where houses are lost in pinewoods or hidden along rhododendron-banked drives. Charters has the added attraction of spreading lawns and a chain of small lakes. I had the feeling that if I went for a walk I would never a see another resident. If they weren’t in Aspen or Cape Town they would they would be reclining in front of the plasma-screen televisions provided in every room or enjoying the spa.

Certainly you will not hear your neighbours. John Morris, the developer who has transformed Charters, cannot abide noise. Even the air-conditioning (or rather conditioned air, for it comes both hot and cold) is completely silent, gently convected from distant chambers as in an opera house. There’s no Norman Foster minimalism here: walls and floors are massive.

Sabre Developments, Morris’s company, is focused on grand listed buildings. Its conversions include Siegfried Sassoon’s Heytesbury House, in Wiltshire, and Bedwell Park, near Hatfield. After Frank Parkinson’s death in 1946 Mrs Parkinson played the merry widow in Attlee’s austerity England. The Duke and Duchess of Windsor came to stay for three weeks in 1947. Charters was then sold to Sir Montague Burton, who ran his tailoring empire from the roof terrace. From Burton it passed to Vickers and then De Beers, by which time it was surrounded by extensive laboratories and production facilities.

Morris has swept these away, creating two new ranges of apartments, The Court and the Garden House. His aim is to create a seamless harmony between the 1938 house and the extensions. His leitmotiv is the tall, slender square column beloved by 1930s Classicists. Parkinson used them on a freestanding colonnade of the lawn. Morris has introduced a witty line in keystones. Each is different and one is nothing more than an indentation, looking as if the builders have failed to fill it.

How often will the new residents, one wonders, use their Gaggenau cooking appliances and steam-assisted ovens. Or their “cold to the touch” induction hobs. “You can put a £5 pound note under a saucepan and it won’t burn,” Morris explains with relish.

You can impress your guests by turning the mirror over the fireplace into a giant screen for the rugby international or lie in the bath watching a television set above the taps. The glass-fronted bathroom cabinets become mirrors at the touch of a button.

Morris has hit on a highly successful formula. One purchaser has already insisted on combining two apartments in the main house, to be linked by an elegant half oval stair that he is installing. This new duplex also contains Charters’ ultimate showpiece – Mrs Parkinson’s frilly baroque pink alabaster bathroom. Morris understands his buyers’ concern for security: he took on the team that had managed the estate for De Beers for 20 years. An even better assurance than the portable security cards, CCTV surveillance and car number plate recognition systems that come with the property.

Join Marcus Binney and peek over Britain’s best private parapets at: timesonline.co.uk/marcusbinney

FACTFILE

WHAT YOU GET: Luxurious two and three-bedroom apartments in 20 acres of landscaped grounds. Flats range from 1,330 sq ft to 2,700 sq ft.

WHERE IS IT: Windsor is 15 minutes’ drive, Heathrow 20. Trains to Waterloo from Sunningdale take 54 minutes.

SCHOOLS: The Marist Schools, Sunninghill; Wellington College; St George’s Ascot

WHERE TO EAT: Fat Duck or Waterside inn, Bray, Berkshire.

PRICE: Fourteen flats are still for sale, ranging from £1.65 million to £3.5 million, including two in the mansion. For details contact Savills, 01344 876668, www.chartersuk.com

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