VERY SOON a London family of six will be moving from a grand, late
17th-century home into another equally imposing early 19th-century property
about two miles away. The Blairs will be shifting their belongings from
Downing Street into the Connaught Square mansion that they bought three
years ago for £3.65 million. This home is to be linked to the adjoining mews
house – which was acquired by the Blairs earlier this year for £800,000 – to
form an eco-conscious and ultra-secure complex fit for a former world leader.
Connaught Square is the latest and probably the last stop on the Blairs’
scramble up the London property ladder from the scruffier side of town to an
elite central quarter. This journey to Connaught Village – which was once
known as Tyburnia after the nearby infamous place of execution – has not
always produced for the family the profits that have been enjoyed by other
middle-class households who have played the market with more skill.
Since 1983, when Tony Blair entered Parliament, the average London house price
has increased from £38,523 to £297,132. But in smart postcodes, the growth
has been much faster – thanks, in part, to the Labour government policies
that have made the City of London a hospitable spot for deals and
dealmakers. City boys use their earnings to invest in real estate in the
smart parts of town.
Since 1997, 1 Richmond Crescent, the elegant Islington property that the
Blairs sold soon after relocating to Downing Street, has appreciated in
value from £615,000 to £1.8 million. At 6.30am, when the City starts work,
the road is less than ten minutes by cab to the Square Mile, or just 25
minutes on the Tube.
When the Blairs bought Connaught Square, the price was widely held to be
“ahead of reality”; in other words, they had overpaid. But Mark Chick, of
Bective Leslie Marsh, the estate agents, reckons that the house plus the
mews must now be worth about £5 million. Another property in the square
recently went under offer for £4.25 million, suggesting that Connaught
Village is slowly starting to catch up with Belgravia and Notting Hill.
Mr Chick believes that the association with the Blairs has raised Connaught
Square’s profile, highlighting its very convenient location: the
health-conscious chief executive can take a ten-minute stroll to the
restaurants of Mayfair, such as Zuma.
Barbara Mansour, of Cluttons, another firm of estate agents, adds that
Connaught Square real estate could be described as a bargain. A
similar-sized house on Lansdowne C r e s c e n t , about a mile away in
Notting Hill, has just fetched £10.5 million. The appreciation in their
home’s value is some compensation for Tony and Cherie’s mortgage
commitments: if, as is thought likely, they have taken out a 25-year,
interest-only loan at 5 per cent on the total purchase price of both houses
(£4.45 million), they would be repaying £18,542 a month. This is about half
the fee that Cherie can command for one speaking engagement.
In 1980 the newly married Blairs moved into 59 Mapledene Road, a three-storey
terrace in the London Fields area of Dalston, East London – then very
down-at-heel, but now fashionable. They paid £40,000 for the house. Anne
Currell, of Currell & Co, the estate agents, says that these houses now
change hands for about £750,000.
In 1986 the growing family sold Mapledene Road for £80,000 and relocated to 10
Stavordale Road, a four-bedroom Victorian house in Highbury, North London.
The purchase price was £120,000. Seven years later, in 1993, the Blairs
saved on stamp duty by swapping properties with the owner of 1 Richmond
Crescent in Barnsbury, one of the grander districts of nearby Islington.
The Blairs agreed to take £175,000 for their house – which Mrs Currell says
would today be valued at about £950,000 – and to pay £375,000 for Richmond
Crescent. In this four-storey Georgian property Mr Blair evolved his
strategy for his next move, to Downing Street.
Anyone aspiring to live in Richmond Crescent would now need to find around
£1.8 million, according to Mrs Currell. The Blairs accepted an offer of
£615,000, having been advised that the bill to install security would be too
high. Mrs Currell picks the Richmond Crescent house as the one piece of
North London real estate the Blairs should have retained, as it has the
largest potential for capital appreciation: “There is such a shortage of
family housing in this prime area of the capital.”
The disappointment over the missed opportunity of Richmond Crescent is said to
be one of the reasons why Mrs Blair invested in two Bristol flats in 2002 –
which turned out to be a poor decision in more ways than one. The
involvement of Peter Foster, a conman who helped to secure a discount for
the Prime Minister’s wife, turned the deal into one of the controversial
episodes of the Blair years.
The new-build apartments in the Panoramic building in the city’s Clifton
neighbourhood cost £260,000 and £265,000. Today they would be valued at
about £275,000 to £300,000, according to Rupert Oliver, of Knight Frank.
The Blairs’ other stake in the property market outside London is Myrobella in
Trimdon Colliery, their home in the Sedgefield constituency. The former
colliery manager’s house cost them £30,000 in 1983; its value is now about
£140,000 – roughly half the price of similar properties in Sedgefield.
Craig Swadon, of the Sedgefield office of Reeds Rains, the estate agents,
says: “The Trimdon property market hasn’t been doing particularly well in
recent years, but it is starting to pick up. George Wimpey is planning a
couple of new developments in the area; this should push up prices over the
next few years.”
Myrobella has played host to some of the great and the good, but the Blairs
doubtless intend to entertain many more of the world’s rich and powerful at
Connaught Square.
However, they must first gain approval for their makeover, which includes
plans for solar panels and a “two-storey void”. Not all the neighbours are
happy. For the Blairs, this is the first experience of the trials and
tribulations that ordinary civilians face when pursuing their grand domestic
designs.
FORMER PM PADS
John Major: left Downing Street for his constituency home, a
four-bedroom house worth about £850,000 at Great Stukeley, near Huntingdon.
Also owns a two-bedroom flat at Vauxhall Bridge, South London, and a
ranch-style house that he built on two acres near the Norfolk coast at
Sheringham.
Margaret Thatcher: bought a £400,000 house in Dulwich after leaving
Downing Street, but never liked it. Lived in a borrowed flat in Belgravia
before buying a ten-year lease on a property in Chester Square for £700,000
in 1991. She still lives there; Roman Abramovich is a neighbour.
James Callaghan: after leaving office lived in a Georgian house in
Hanover Gardens, Kennington, South London. Also owned a farm in Sussex.
Harold Wilson: moved to a small flat in Ashley Gardens, Westminster, in
1976. Also owned a farm in Buckinghamshire and a holiday home on the Isles
of Scilly.
Edward Heath: bought a lease on a Queen Anne property in the cathedral
close in Salisbury for £100,000 in 1985 and eight years later acquired the
freehold from the Dean and Chapter for £250,000.
Harold Macmillan: had a 24-room mansion on the Birch Grove estate, West
Sussex. The house and 700 acres were sold in 1989 for about £5 million. PATRICK
KIDD
