Updown Court folly sold at deep discount as cautionary tale for European banking crisis
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Updown Court, the United Kingdom country estate whose saga highlights the European banking credit over-indulgence, has fallen short of its ambitious expectations.
It has reportedly been snappily sold since listed by receivers in August.
It was initially priced at in excess of £70 million, but its undisclosed unconfirmed sale price was about £35 million, according to the London Sunday Times.
The London papers say the CB Richard Ellis listing agents have not made any public comment on the sale speculation.
The reputed sale comes at a time when sales of London’s expensive homes reached a record as foreign buyers dominated the city’s luxury residential market.
Savills reported the number of houses and apartments that sold for more than £5 million rose to 262 in the first nine months of 2011, a 31% rise on the same time last year.
Overseas buyers make up 65% of the buyers whose purchases remain concentrated in central London neighbourhoods such as Belgravia, Knightsbridge and Mayfair, says Lucian Cook, Savills’s director of residential research.
The international buyers are investing in London homes to protect wealth amid financial or political volatility at home, Savills says.
The sales of homes above the £5 million threshold totalled £3.2 billion in the nine-month period, compared with £2.1 billion a year earlier.
Updown Court was taken over by the Irish government’s National Asset Management Agency when owner Leslie Allen-Vercoe defaulted on the debt he had taken on to finance the property. Allen-Vercoe had paid about £20 million in 2002, and spent another £30 million on the property.
The private lender, Irish Nationwide Building Society, had provided funding totalling about £63 million at the heyday of the credit boom. At one stage the building society even held a board meeting at the mansion.
The building society hit the wall and was nationalised by the Irish government, with Updown Court listed as one of the assets of the newly created agency designed to get as much money as it could from investments unwisely taken on by banks.
After its completion, Updown Court was heralded in 2005 as the first 21st-century stately home in Britain, with grounds larger in area than both the royal residences of Buckingham Palace and Hampton Court.
The 23-hectare estate is located in the picturesque English village of Windlesham in the heart of Surrey.
Its overly sumptuous facilities include five swimming pools, a heated marble driveway, a private cinema, bowling alley, indoor squash court and stabling for five horses. There is also a helipad for private landings and underground garaging for eight limousines.
The accommodation is made up of four principal buildings – the main house, guest accommodation, gate lodge and an estate manager's office.
All up 22 bedroom/bathroom suites are provided as part of a total of 103 rooms. The sweeping double staircase at The Entrance of the main house is a replica of the late Gianni Versace's home in Miami. The main house also contains a panic room in case of terrorist attacks.
Updown Court is 45 kilometres from London.
The estate was rebuilt after being bought in a half-complete state by property developer and entrepreneur Leslie Allen-Vercoe of Rhymer Investments.
The original Updown Court mansion was built in 1924 on 4.8 hectares of land. In 1977 His Highness Prince Sami Gayed, an Egyptian price who held several ministerial posts in Qatar, made Updown Court his home. Updown Court had been abandoned for more than a decade by the prince after fire damage in 1987.
The current most expensive property in the UK is rumoured to have sold for £140 million.
