Mellor’s fury at developers over smashed porcelain pugs
FORMER Tory Cabinet minister David Mellor is known for giving as good as he gets, as at least one taxi driver can attest.
But the Classic FM presenter is now involved in his most abrasive battle yet, over the fate of the historic home he shares with his long-term companion Penny, Viscountess Cobham.
American private equity group Blackstone owns St Katharine Docks near Tower Bridge, where Mellor, 69, lives with Lady Cobham, 64, in the magnificent Dockmaster’s House.
Blackstone decided to carry out renovations to the Eighties block next door, Devon House, which have allegedly caused damage to Mellor’s home, including smashing exquisite 18th-century porcelain ornaments.
‘In hammering away at the linked walls, three porcelain pug dogs, dating from the beginning of English porcelain, fell off a shelf, which wasn’t even on the boundary wall,’ Mellor tells me. ‘Two were smashed.’
The couple’s remaining belongings are now being put into storage.
‘They’re turning our house into a warehouse, denuded of its content,’ says Mellor, who has lived there for 23 years. ‘These people have no finer instincts. They have no values beyond money-grubbing and treat anyone who gets in their way with contempt.’
Blackstone’s billionaire co-founder and chief executive, Stephen Schwarzman, trousered a scarcely credible £572.4 million last year alone.
His company tried to sell St Katharine Docks for £435 million in 2017, three years after acquiring it for £185 million. When the re-sale proved beyond even Blackstone, it decided to renovate Devon House.
Blackstone’s engineers said the two properties were not joined. However, the couple have reports showing that 12 steel tie-bars run the width of their home, attaching it to Devon House.
This failed to convince Blackstone, as Mellor explains: ‘They did exploratory work, which they now ludicrously say we asked them to do. We didn’t; we told them there were tie-bars and they refused to believe us.’
Blackstone will say only: ‘ David Mellor has the right to claim against the insurance which is in place.’ Perhaps Schwarzman could rummage through his loose change for some compensation?