LOCATION: London, UK
PRICE: £12,000,000
SIZE: 5,131 square feet, 4-5 bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms
YOUR MAMAS NOTES: We have Our Man in London to thank for sniffing out the open market listing for a Grade II listed terrace house just a few short blocks off Portobello Road in London's Notting Hill nabe that's up for sale with an £12,000,000 price tag and owned by pixie-haired synth-pop/New Wave music pioneer and legend Annie Lennox. (Your Mama's rusty but trusty currency conversion contraption shows that the current guide price—that's U.K. real estate speak for listing price—of £12,000,000 equals $19,581,4000 at today's rates.)
Scotland-born Miz Lennox, for those of y'all who weren't around in the early 1980s, was one-half of the duo Eurythmics. In the 1990s Miz Lennox lit out on a successful solo career and, as best as we can tell from our research on the internets, she's got seven BRIT Awards, three Grammys, and both a Golden Globe and an Academy Award for a pop ditty (Into The West) that she co-wrote for The Lord of the Rings. She's also got scads of awards, titles, recognitions for her extensive charity work and international humanitarian efforts.
That Miz Lennox might want to sell her swank house in London isn't such a great surprise since newly wedded rich and/or famous folk often buy a new house to set up home and, in case you missed the gossip glossy reports, 58-year old Miz Lennox recently hitched her love wagon for the third time to Harvard-trained, notably philanthropic, and South Africa-based gynecologist Dr. Mitch Besser.
As far as we can tell, Miz Lennox paid £4.4 million—that's $7,179,830 at today's rates—for the five-floor, Regency terrace house that listing details show was designed by architect and topographical illustrator Thomas Allom and built in 1853.
The raised ground floor has impressively high ceilings, espresso-toned wide plank wood floors and elaborate ceiling moldings and window trims. The T-shaped foyer and stair hall open to an unusually spacious powder room, a roomy open-concept center island kitchen/family room, and a separate formal dining room with fireplace, bay window and a fab oval-shaped Eero Saarinen tulip table and chairs with multi-colored cushions.
The lower ground floor—that's U.K.-speak for a basement—comprises a wee bedroom for staff or guests, a closet-lined gym, and a small office. There's also a laundry room, kitchenette and tiny three-quarter bathroom. At least two of the rooms open to sub-street level patios, the larger of which provides convenient exterior access to a quartet of storage vaults under the sidewalk.
The first floor—that's the second floor for all us Americanos—has a trio public rooms: sun room with fancy tile floor, a snug/library with marble-manteled fireplace and a baby grand piano, and a roomy drawing room fireplace and with three sets of transom-topped French doors that open to a slender, wrought iron-railed wrap around balcony.
The master suite occupies the entire second floor with super-sized sitting room, cozy bedroom, and, in between, a commodious bathroom with frosted glass windows for privacy, a sitting area, steam-equipped shower stall, and a sleek, two-person soaking tub set right in the middle of the room. Two more generous, if somewhat oddly shaped bedrooms on the uppermost level share a hall bathroom with double sinks, bathtub and separate shower.
Although private outdoor space is somewhat limited to a couple of small balconies and a not particularly private subterranean wrap around patio on the lower ground floor, Miz Lennox's London' digs offers direct access to the communal (yet private) Stanley Gardens South as well as access to the also communal (and also private) gardens of Ladbroke Square.
Your Mama confesses we're not aware of Miz Lennox owning any other property but we'd be somewhat surprised to learn she didn't and we assume without any intel whatsoever to base our supposition that she and her third new Mister—Dr. Besser—maintain a luxury residence in Cape Town (South Africa).
listing photo and floor plan: Pereds