Category: Developers

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North Great George’s Street Dublin +

Say More Things

“Dublin is so rich in neoclassical Georgian architecture, overblown and exuberant in its ‘costly magnificence’. The American Federal style was also inspired by the richness of the Irish interior architecture and the boldness of its 18th century furniture. Many fine examples can be found on the East Coast from Boston to Philadelphia.” American art collector and international tastemaker Charles Plante lives and works on either side of the Atlantic.

North Great George’s Street, north of the River Liffey in Dublin, is all about overblown scale architecture and exuberant interior plasterwork. And the owners of the houses would agree it costs a lot to look this magnificent. Since the 1970s, this street has boasted a remarkable group of owners, not least Ireland’s foremost heritage architect John O’Connell. Former Chairman of the Irish bookshop chain Eason and conservationist Harold Clarke lived on the street from the 1960s until the 1980s. The distinguished antiques dealer Willie Dillon was his neighbour at that time.

Thomas McKeown, Chairman of The North Great George’s Street Preservation Society, lives on the street with his wife Adelaide. “In 1767 Sarah Archdall began selling sites to individuals who wanted to build houses on what was then the Mount Eccles Estate. Building started shortly afterwards and North Great George’s Street was essentially completed by about 1800. Then came the Act of Union in 1801 and the relocation of the centre of fashion to the proximity of Leinster House marked the beginning of a slow decline. Indeed, by the early 1900s a group calling themselves the ‘Georgian Society’ was formed to make a historic record of the fine buildings that were apparently already doomed to destruction. This was prophetic and many of the buildings that are documented in their work have long since disappeared.”

“By the beginning of the 20th century a large part of the street was already in multi family tenements and by the mid 1960s some of the houses had been demolished. At this time there was also an increased awareness of the inherent value of our Georgian heritage. On North Great George’s Street, fine houses, needing major restoration, were available for the price of a suburban semi detached. This was recognised by a number of starry eyed individuals who saw the chance to live in a great house – this prize came at the price of much effort, often in the face of official indifference.”

“The result – appreciated by more and more people – is there to see and would probably not have succeeded if a group had not joined forces to form The North Great George’s Street Preservation Society. One of our main objectives has been to have the street designated an Architectural Conservation Area by Dublin City Council. This would prevent excessive development, particularly of the mews lanes. The reinstatement of damaged pavements and the removal of utility wires and cables on the façades is another.”

“The houses on the street are not going to revert to single family homes any time soon, but hopefully there will be a mix of good quality apartments with a limited commercial element that will maintain the vibrancy that has made it the best place in the city centre to live. The Society will continue to strive to attain these objectives and above all preserve the integrity of the street’s great architecture.”

Senator David Norris, renowned James Joyce authority, bought his house in 1978. “What initially attracted me to purchasing a Georgian house was the sense of space and the way in which light poured in through the great windows. I adore the 18th century plasterwork which decorates some of the ceilings. On top of all this, North Great George’s Street is smack bang in the middle of the city. Along the way I suppose the greatest challenge has been finance. In the beginning none of us had any great deal of money and that is when the Society proved a great support. The other thing was finding appropriate craftsmen who were capable of dealing with an 18th century building.”

Architect John Hanley and sculptor John Aboud bought their house in 1987. “Over the next 30 years we gradually turned the house around. We have always enjoyed living here, even in the early years when winter gales would sweep through the rooms. The space and the light, together with the decorative details and the views to the garden, are a constant source of pleasure. The street itself, rising in stately terraces towards Belvedere House, is a magnificent backdrop to our everyday life. And of equal importance is the fact that here we have a close knit village in the midst of the city, where we are surrounded by neighbours and friends who share our pleasure in living here, and our commitment to its future.” The North Great George’s Street Preservation Society celebrated its 40th anniversary in 2019.

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Architecture Design Developers People Town Houses

Mountjoy Square Dublin +

Sureness of Style

“Is there a good house on Mountjoy Square?” Desirée Shortt asks mischievously. She qualifies herself, “It’s a rhetorical question!” She is talking about the condition of the houses, not the architecture. Ireland’s greatest living china restorer lives a safe block away in the genteel North Great George’s Street. Her neighbours include Senator David Norris and Grade I Conservation Architect John O’Connell. “Dublin is a very beautiful city,” Desirée qualifies herself even further. “Edinburgh is the only comparable city.”

It doesn’t help that Mountjoy Square shares its name with a fairly infamous prison. Slowly, though, the four terraces facing the green are shedding their shady past and early signs of gentrification are shining through on a sunny winter’s morning. There’s something more impressive about Georgian Dublin townhouses than their London counterparts. The brick is redder, the fanlights wider, the first floor windows taller, the basement areas deeper. It’s all about scale: bigger really is better. Everything’s looking up.

John Heagney writes in The Georgian Squares of Dublin, 2006, “Developed by the Gardiner Estate, Mountjoy Square was laid out in 1791 and built between 1793 and 1818. It has the distinction of being Georgian Dublin’s only true square since each of its four sides measures 140 metres in length. Mountjoy Square earned this tribute from contemporary commentators Warburton, Whitelaw and Walsh: ‘This square, which is now completely finished, is neat, simple and elegant, its situation elevated and healthy … the elevation of the houses, the breadth of the streets, so harmonise together, as to give pleasure to the eye of the spectator, and add to the neatness, simplicity, and regularity everywhere visible, entitling the square to rank high among the finest in Europe.’”

He continues, “But perhaps more than Dublin’s other Georgian squares, Mountjoy Square has suffered the depredations of time: after the 1800 Act of Union, it went into decline and many of its fine buildings became tenement dwellings, while a period of protracted neglect during the 20th century led to extensive loss of houses on the west and south sides of the square. The survival of the north and east sides is due largely to the heroic determination of individuals and families who pledged themselves to its continued existence and have laid the foundations for the future renaissance of Mountjoy Square, while a renewed interest in rescuing and cherishing Georgian Dublin bodes well for the future of this important part of the city’s streetscape.”

A driver’s experience is of a cohesive set piece of urban planning and architecture. A streetwalker’s experience is of the finer grain. Cut granite flags, moulded granite paving plinths, cut stone half arches spanning basement areas, cast iron boot scrapers and lantern standards. And those fanlight doorcases with their leaded umbrella like-spokes, miniature glass lanterns, sidelights, columns and friezes. The typical three bay five storey house on Mountjoy Square has 590 square metres of floorspace. Size matters.

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Camden Park Road + Yester Park Chislehurst Kent

Roll Over Country Life

Long time resident and Secretary of the Chislehurst Residents’ Association from 1966 to 1974, Mary Holt was committed to the architectural research of her local area. In 1991 her definitive study of Chislehurst Conservation Area was published. Two of the most beautiful gated roads in this leafy location are Camden Park Road and Yester Park, both lined with villas designed to induce envy. The former borders Chislehurst Golf Club while the latter forks away to straddle a ridge. This is outer suburbia at its finest.

Mary’s introduction states, “Indeed Chislehurst grew up as a scattered village centred around its various commons, surrounded by large country estates, and did not outgrow its hilltop site until mid Victorian times. After the construction of the railway in 1865, however, it became a fashionable suburb for London businessmen, while in 1870 the French Imperial Court took up residence in exile at Camden Place. Sadly, World War II left its mark on Chislehurst: a surprising number of Victorian buildings and earlier properties were destroyed or damaged by bombs, thus providing the opportunity for more intensive development.”

She comments, “The special character of Camden Park Road lies in the contrast between the undeveloped park-like nature of the golf course to the north and the largely built up backcloth of substantial houses to the south. The road is developed for the major part of its length with substantial detached houses, but on the northern side of the road frontage development stops at No.23. The edge of the golf course is well treed, giving this part of the road a very rural appearance although the housing development continues on the other side of the road. The road has an attractive character of a high class residential area in which the landscaping forms a prominent and important part of the street scene.”

In the part of Camden Park Road closest to the golf course which was developed first, “Most of the houses here, in the Arts and Crafts style, were built by William Willett Junior who purchased Camden Place in 1890; the architect for several was Ernest Newton, working in conjunction with Amos Faulkner, and reveal the wide range of Newton’s talent.” The Arts and Crafts architect Ernest Newton was a protégé of Richard Norman Shaw. He excelled at residential architecture of ‘near-symmetry’ where the massing is balanced but a window or chimney stack or some other feature will be placed off-centre.

The Architectural Outsiders, a 1984 publication edited by Roderick Brown, includes Ernest Newton. The editor explains it is a study of “outsiders in the sense of being outside the body of designers who have been adequately studied”. Richard Morrice writes the chapter on Ernest Newton, discussing many of his suburban and country houses although Chislehurst isn’t mentioned. He states that the architect’s domestic work demonstrated “the ultimate interchangeability of vernacular and neo Georgian, almost reducing thereby the question of style to irrelevance”.

And on the elevated road: “Yester Park leads off to the west from the upper end of Yester Road through a brick and wrought iron gateway, flanked on one side by Walden Lodge which dates from about 1850. It is a small tree-lined road of interwar years development with large houses, some in contrasting styles on the lower side of the road, set in mature landscaped gardens. The house on the upper side are more uniform, mock Tudor in character with generally open plan front gardens.”

Chislehurst Conservation Area illustrates how the architecture of prominent late 19th century architects like George Devey, Richard Norman Shaw and Philip Webb flowed into the rising industry of premium housebuilding. If there is a common detail that ties most of the half century or so of houses together, it would be black and white Tudor style half-timber boarding.

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Montefiore Hotel + Restaurant Tel Aviv

On Season

You can’t do everything in life but you sure can lunch with style and aplomb in Montefiore Hotel downtown Tel Aviv. It’s housed in a 1920s ‘Eclectic’ style building and was the city’s first boutique hotel when it opened in 2008. A peachy presence peeking through the street fernery of Lev Ha’ir (“Heart of the City District”) gives way indoors to a monochromatic jazzy look. Architect Moshe Lovrinzki designed the original house; architect Gad Halperin restored it in 2000. Eight years later, then husband and wife team Mati and Ruti Broudo opened the 12 bedroom hotel and accompanying street level restaurant. Mati recently told The Times of Israel, “Out of all the cities I have lived in – New York, London, Paris and Rome – Tel Aviv is the most diverse and interesting walking city. It’s probably my favourite city in the world.” We almost agree. It’s our joint favourite as we’re equally loving the oldest and the newest cities in the Holy Land.

The Montefiore Cocktails list is optimistically titled “Spring is Here I Hear”. It includes two non alcoholic beverages and eight signature drinks: Champagne Cocktail, Hôtel le Grand, Madame Rouge, Mai Tai, Oh Fashioned, Puebla, Put It On the Spritz and Tokyo Club. The wine list is extensive with a good Israeli representation including Ayalon Valley, Eliad, Neve Yarak, Noble, Shoresh and Yatir Forest. We opt for a Noble Flam 2013 with its big attitude big flavour. The wine list is in five sections. White: one Georgian, one Portuguese, two Austrian, two German, two Spanish, five Greek, five Italian, 36 French and 19 Israeli. Red: one Portuguese, four Austrian, eight Spanish, 27 Italian, 34 French and 41 Israeli. Rosé: one Italian, four French and two Israeli. Amber and Skin Contact: one Italian, two Georgian and three Israeli. Sparkling: 23 French, one Austrian and one Georgian.

The food is international with a nod to France and a hint of Malaysia. Starter is endive, stilton, red pear, caramelised onions. Main course is Jerusalem artichoke, poached egg, pistachio. Our waiter nails it with, “Do you fancy apricot and almond tart with whipped crème fraîche on the terrace?” The bill comes with tipping suggestions: 12 percent basic service, 15 percent good service, 18 percent very good service and 20 percent excellent service. Maybe it’s the sun or the Madame Rouge (Hendrick’s Lunar, St Germaine, liqueur de violettes, lavender, creole bitter) or simply excellent service but we’re feeling generous. There’s a season for everything, even if it can’t all be done, and this is a time to love.

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Architecture Art Design Developers Fashion Luxury

Rothschild Boulevard Tel Aviv + Dreams

What  Matters Happiness is… Saturday afternoons spent on the dreamscape that is Rothschild Boulevard. Happiness extended is… Saturday evenings spent on the moonscape that is Rothschild Boulevard. In the middle of the road is a wide stretch of land for sunbathing, drinking, eating, gossiping, playing bowls, political demonstrating and this being Tel Aviv, racing motorbikes.

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Haworth Tompkins + Theatre Royal Drury Lane London

Going West

Adam, Gilbert Scott, Pugin and Wyatt. Architectural dynasties. Terry and Squire. Current second generation architects. Benjamin Dean Wyatt was heavily involved, among many others, in the design of Lancaster House, built in 1825 to 1840 for the ‘grand old’ Duke of York and subsequently the Duke of Sutherland. This Bath stone pure Regency statement doubles as Buckingham Palace in the Netflix series The Crown. The house is set back from The Mall a few doors down from Clarence House. It’s as big as a whole city plot. Benjamin designed the staircase which is scagliol’d to the nines, gilt to the hilt. Now occupied by the Foreign Office, Lancaster House is hidden from public view. Theatre Royal Drury Lane in Covent Garden is not.

Benjamin Dean Wyatt was the eldest son of the better known James Wyatt. His public venue of 1812 has been comprehensively restored and renewed by architecture firm Haworth Tompkins. A cool £60 million later, the Grade I Listed Building doubles as a theatre and upstairs restaurant serving afternoon tea. There’s another restaurant tucked away downstairs through an archway. Much has been written and rightly so on the rejuvenation of the theatre space itself: this article concentrates on the suite of reception areas fronting the building. A Pantheon inspired domed rotunda flanked by sweeping cantilevered staircases leading to the Grand Saloon and adjoining Ante Room overlooking the portico has all the presence of a grand country house. Combine a stair with the rotunda and you’ll come close to the showpiece of Townley Hall in County Louth.

A theatre has occupied this spot on Drury Lane since 1663 making it the oldest playhouse site in continuous use in history. In 2020 the architectural historian Simon Thurley, former Chief Executive of English Heritage, discovered at a provincial sale a print of Benjamin Dean Wyatt’s original Gothic Revival design for the theatre. The Prince of Wales at the time directed a change of design; not the first time a Prince of Wales has interfered in an architectural scheme. Thanks to Prince Charles’ intervention, Richard Rogers’ modernist designs for the residential redevelopment of Chelsea Barracks were scrapped to be replaced by Squire and Partners’ more conservative mansion blocks and townhouses.

Theatre Royal Drury Lane is owned and operated by Andrew Lloyd Webber’s company LW Theatres. Project Director Steve Tompkins explains, “Drury Lane is the history of British theatre in one building. Much of our task has been to protect and restore its astonishing original qualities. It’s hard to imagine a more complex or more delicate theatre restoration than this one.”

Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber says, “I believe the Lane is now one of London’s most warm and beautiful auditoriums. It’s the most versatile historic theatrical space anywhere in the world.” His lordship has added prominent modern artworks to the period collection including a pair of Shakespearean paintings in one of the staircase halls by American artist Maria Kreyn: Lady M and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Upstairs in the Grand Saloon, afternoon tea with cakes by baker Lily Vanilli is being served.

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Stockwell Park Crescent + Stockwell Park Road + Lorn Road + Slade Gardens Stockwell London

Pilaster to Post

Heading south from Kennington Park, sandwiched between the road to Clapham and the road to Brixton, lies Stockwell Park Conservation Area. Designated in 1968, it includes speculatively built residential development dating mainly from the late Georgian to mid Victorian periods in a sylvan setting. The streets around Stockwell Tube Station may still be a bit dodgy; the Conservation Area avenues are not. Flat conversions of the 20th century have gradually been amalgamated back into full houses. Recent infill apartment developments have been designed to resemble their neoclassical neighbours in a spot the difference competition. Bridget Cherry and Nikolaus Pevsner describe Stockwell Park Conservation Area in in their 1983 guide to South London as being “a pleasant enclave of restrained stucco villas and terraces”.

Stockwell Green to the south of the Conservation Area became a popular address for wealthy merchants in the 18th century. The Conservation Area land was farmed until the early 1800s. Regency townhouses were followed by ‘rus in urbe’ detached and semi detached villas with long rear gardens. Stockwell Park Conservation Area is an important example of this early form of suburbia. The layout of Stockwell Park Crescent is shown on an 1841 map. St Michael’s Church fronts onto Stockwell Park Road and backs onto Stockwell Park Crescent. Its stone spire pierces the sky above the residential apron. The Pevsner guide (his name stuck) states that William Rogers’ pinnacled spire is “rather spindly”. The architect made additions to the medieval St Mary’s Church to the north of Stockwell on Albert Embankment, now the Garden Museum.

The largest public open space in the Conservation Area is Slade Gardens, named after the family who purchased nine hectares in the Manor of Lambeth in 1804. Just over three decades later, much of the land was developed for housing. After World War II, the London County Council began buying up properties to create a new public open space. The steeply pitched gables of the pairs of mid 19th century Gothic meets Tudor brick houses on Lorn Road peer over the trees of the park. The Pevsner guide calls them “fanciful Gothic villas”. Isolated on an island site surrounded by the verdant stretches of Slade Gardens is a row of white flat roofed two storey modernist houses on the cul-de-sac Ingleborough Street.

Osbert Lancaster’s 1938 ‘pocket lamp of architecture’ Pillar to Post illustrates styles of architecture starting with Egypt and ending with 20th Century Functional. The cartoonist declares, “Architecture, therefore, by reason of its twofold nature, half art, half science, is peculiarly dependent on the tastes and demands of the layman.” At least three of Osbert’s categories feature in Stockwell Park Conservation Area: Regency, Gothic Revival and Kensington Italianate.

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Boutique Hotel Awards + Sun Street Hotel Shoreditch London

It Rises Again

The Boutique Hotel Awards are the first and only organisation exclusively dedicated to recognising unique excellence in boutique hotels. All entrants are personally evaluated by independent and experienced judges.

Last year’s winners were selected from over 300 nominations across 70 countries. There are 15 international categories including World’s Best New Hotel (The Carlin Boutique Hotel in Queenstown, New Zealand); World’s Best Design Hotel (Akademie Street Boutique Hotel in Franschhoek, South Africa); World’s Best Chic Hotel (Hotel TwentySeven in Amsterdam, Netherlands); World’s Best Honeymoon Hotel (Drake Bay Getaway Resort in Osa Peninsula, Costa Rica); World’s Best Beach Hotel (Velaa Private Island in the Maldives); World’s Best Family Hotel (Rockfig Lodge Madikwe Game Reserve in Madikwe, South Africa); and the top prize World’s Best Boutique Hotel (San Ysidro Ranch in Santa Barbara, California).

There was only one international category winner in Britain last year: Sun Street Hotel in London was awarded World’s Best City Hotel. The judging panel recorded, “Head Chef Stuart Kivi-Cauldwell’s salmon comes from the oldest smokehouse in London, his wagyu from chocolate fed cows in Ireland, and his catch of the day from the best boat that’s just come in.”

Stuart has created a modern British cuisine menu complemented by an extensive wine list. Dinner highlights include chalk stream trout and black truffle and burrata tortellini. Food and drink are served in the Orangery and adjoining 40 cover restaurant opening onto the courtyard as well as a suite of reception rooms facing Sun Street. There’s also the welcome glass of Marlin Spike blended aged rum served in the entrance hall.

Designers Bowler James Brindley have used a rich palette of period hues – aubergine, olive and teal – accompanied by lively wallpapers as a backdrop to luxuriously comfortable interiors. And the best velvet cushions and lozenge-shaped poufs in town. Vincent Cartwright Vickers’ birds from The Google Book and water and earth zodiac signs are just some of the decorative themes. There are 41 bedrooms including seven suites. Every bedroom has a king size bed with Oxford pillows, an Illy coffee machine, Penhaligon’s Quercus range bathroom goodies, and twice daily maid service.

General Manager Jake Greenall, formerly of Beaverbrook, a luxury country house hotel in Surrey, says, “Sun Street is a hotel with a heartbeat, a place where guests are treated like part of the family, not just a room number. It’s a home away from home for our guests, with the added benefits that a luxury five star hotel can bring.”

The hotel fills six Georgian brick terraced houses designed by George Dance the Younger at the turn of the 19th century and is part of the development One Crown Place. This revival of a full urban block includes the hotel, The Flying Horse pub, Wilson Street Chapel, a new office building and two multi-use prismatic towers (28 and 33 storeys respectively) designed by Kohn Pedersen Fox.

George Dance the Younger succeeded his father as supervisor of planning and building in the City of London upon George Dance the Elder’s death in 1768. He excelled at a streamlined neoclassicism; his most famous pupil Sir John Soane would be even more radical in his interpretative and idiosyncratic use of the classical orders. The Flying Horse pub is slightly newer that the abutting terrace: it was built in 1812 and remodelled 53 years later. The ground floor pub is a large squarish space with dark panelled walls.

A plaque on the façade of Wilson Street Chapel states, “Erected Anno Domini MDCCCLXXXIX,” and confirms Jesse Chessum and Sons as builders and Hodson and Whitehead as architects. A sign next to the plaque reads, “We preach not ourselves but Christ Jesus the Lord, II Corinthians 4:5.”

New York City architectural practice Kohn Pedersen Fox has designed major international urban schemes including Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles, California; Abu Dhabi Airport in United Arab Emirates; and Dongdaegu Transportation Hub in South Korea.

Aiman Hussein, Director of MTD Group who delivered One Crown Place, comments, “We are thrilled to have Sun Street Hotel at One Crown Place. Led by the esteemed Bespoke Hotels team, it forms a key ingredient for making One Crown Place a desirable destination where the City of London and Shoreditch come together.”

This year, the Boutique Hotel Awards are revealing their favourite picks in a new book The Ultimate Collection of Boutique Hotels celebrating 13 years sampling the best boutique hotels in the world. The publication features the best international boutique properties from luxury villas to regal chateaux to far flung islands. The front cover star is Isla Sa Ferradura in San Miguel, Ibiza. It will be an essential coffee table and reference book for all avowed luxury travellers.

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Architects Architecture Design Developers People Town Houses

Chatham + Rochester High Street Kent

House Rules

It’s curious that the phrase for keeping schtoom includes the word ‘chat’ in it. Almost the first house visible coming out of Chatham Railway Station is the blue plaqued former home of Charles Dickens. He lived with his family in Ordnance Terrace from age five to nine. The aspiring writer may have seen nearby Gibraltar Cottage being erected in 1820. This quaint weatherboarded building is now partly obscured by a spaghetti of road signs, traffic lights, lampposts, bus shelters and telephone wires. Down the hill and onto the seemingly never ending 2.75 kilometre High Street linking Chatham to Rochester and a smorgasbord of heritage thrills awaits.

Chatham Memorial Synagogue is an eclectic loosely Byzantine building designed by Hyman Henry Collins, City of London District Surveyor. He was also the architect of St John’s Wood United Synagogue (one of eight he designed in London and the only still surviving) and Park Row Synagogue in Bristol. The stone street front is broken into distinct massing elements: a central two storey gabled block with a projecting loggia containing a glazed entrance porch is flanked on one side by a single storey gabled wing and on the other by a square tower supporting a steeple.

In place of a fanlight over the entrance doors a lunette shaped plaque states: “5629 = 1869. This freehold land was bought and this synagogue was built, endowed and presented to the Jewish community by Simon Magnus a native of Chatham as a tribute to the memory of his much lamented and only son Lazarus Simon Magnus who died 9 Tebeth 5625 = 7 January 1865 aged 39 years.” Records suggest a Jewish community being established in 12th century Rochester until expulsion in 1290 and then Jews started settling in Medway towns again in the 17th century.