£210m for Britain’s priciest ever house
And it’ll be £700m if Chinese buyer splits it into f lats
A CHINESE property mogul has broken Britain’s house price record by buying a London mansion for a staggering £210million.
The 45-room home in Knightsbridge overlooks Hyde Park and boasts grand state rooms, several lifts, a pool, private spa, gym and underground parking. Billionaire Cheung Chung-kiu is finalising the deal for the 1830s building. Once the sale goes through, it will smash the previous record – £140million paid for a house in Oxfordshire.
Pictures of the palatial property in Rutland Gate show superking-size beds, vintage oak furniture and chandeliers in the study, and a gold-themed bathroom with steps leading up to the bath.
Mr Cheung previously paid £1.15 billion for a London skyscraper nicknamed the Cheesegrater. Born in Chongqing, south-west China, he moved to Hong Kong in 1980 and made his name buying real estate.
His wife, Cecilia, is a budding artist and avid art collector. They have two children. It is not clear whether Mr Cheung will keep the property as a single home or if he will split it into apartments.
It is thought dividing it up could increase its value to £700million.
The property has been up for sale for more than seven years and was once home to former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri, who was assassinated in 2005. Subsequently it became the property of the late Saudi Crown Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz Al Saud.
A spokesman for Mr Cheung said: ‘Rutland Gate is in the process of being acquired by funds advised by the family office of Cheung Chungkiu.
At present, no decision has been made on whether the final scheme will be a single house for private client use, or an ultra-prime multi-unit apartment scheme.’
IT is the super-luxury Highland bolthole of a billionaire financier who counts the royals as friends.
But despite costing more than £20 million to build, the Scottish home of Swiss banker Urs Schwarzenbach has sprung a leak.
With an abundance of turrets, plus marble walls, mosaic floors and handsomely stocked wine cellar, Ben Alder Lodge has been described as the country’s most expensive holiday home.
But the property is now at the centre of a legal battle over accusations that builders botched renovations, with court documents claiming water has been pouring into a basement gym and sauna, as well as a new private chapel and beach turret constructed on the shores of Loch Ericht. Mr Schwarzenbach is fighting over who should pay for the damage.
The 71-year-old snapped up the 26,000-acre Ben Alder estate near Dalwhinnie, Inverness-shire, for £1.6 million around 30 years ago and levelled the lodge to rebuild it to his exact specifications.
Constructed of thousands of tons of granite, the lodge boasts an array of turrets and crenellated ramparts, while the interior comes with its own bowling alley and rooftop glass-floored bar.
Schwarzenbach’s wife Francesca, a former Miss Australia, made a one-off trip from Switzerland by private jet and then helicopter to inspect the curtain fabrics.
In 2007, work began on a fresh raft of luxurious extras: a basement leisure centre featuring a gym, sauna, jacuzzi, massage room and wine cellar; a ground-floor breakfast room; a north-wing extension plus a private chapel with an underground passageway to a turret that looks out over the loch.
The underground development was supposed to be, in effect, a ‘waterproof box’.
However, court documents claim: ‘In August 2009, damp patches became evident in the leisure centre after a period of heavy rain.
‘In November 2009, again when the rainfall was heavy, severe water ingress was experienced in a number of locations, including the leisure centre, the breakfast room and the chapel, causing damage to buildings and finishes.’
Further flooding occurred in 2010, and then again in 2011, even after the original leaks had been plugged and building work had supposedly been finished.
Pumps were installed to keep down the water – but still it kept coming. The turret also suffered from ‘water penetration and damage to masonry’.
In 2015, Agro Invest Overseas Limited – a Guernsey-based Schwarzenbach company which acted as project manager – began legal action against Aberdeen builder Stewart Milne Group (SMG), Dundee engineer Morgan Associates and English architect Robert Trembath.
Agro claimed: ‘The underground leisure centre… had not been adequately waterproofed. While deficient design was a contributory cause in respect of the leaks suffered, deficient workmanship was also a material contributing factor.’
The defenders all denied liability, claiming Agro had left it too late to blame them for the leaks, especially as the pumps had been accepted as a solution to the problem.
However, the Court of Session dismissed those arguments in 2018, with Lord Clark stating that the owner of Ben Alder Lodge ‘was faced with multiple and developing issues of water ingress, the causes of which had not been resolved’.
The case has now come to light after Lord Malcolm published a written judgment in the case in which he threw out an appeal by SMG and Morgan.
Legal teams for the parties are now plotting their next moves.
An SMG spokesman said: ‘This case relates to construction work carried out over 12 years ago. We strongly deny that it breached contractual obligations and that, with a few exceptions, the defects were caused by design and specification issues rather than workmanship.’
Nobody else involved in the case would comment.
Mr Schwarzenbach made his millions trading currency and befriended Prince Charles through their mutual love of polo.
‘Damp patches in the leisure centre’ ‘Legal teams plotting their next moves’