Blair Inc--The Man Behind the Mask

by Francis Beckett

  The rise in the Blairs’ fortunes once they had left office can also be seen from the fact that, a year later, they were able to buy their own ‘Chequers’ – South Pavilion, Wotton Underwood, in leafy Buckinghamshire – then on the market for £5.75 million.

  According to the Land Registry they paid the full price, having fallen in love with the former home of actor Sir John Gielgud, who lived there until his death in 2000. They bought the place from Effie Lecky, wife of budget Canadian airline boss John, with what is thought to be a £4 million mortgage from Lloyds TSB, before the owners put it on the market.

  The grand, seven-bedroom, Grade I-listed mansion is next door to Wotton House, a stately home that opens its doors to the public in the summer. The two houses are located at the end of a secluded country road, with rolling meadows on either side. There are no more than ten detached houses dotted along the road, separated from one another by wraparound gardens and tree borders.

  It’s an affluent area: Robin Gibb, Rowan Atkinson, David Jason – they all have houses round here. If you want to be out of the public eye, it’s ideal, just like Chequers with its tree-lined drive off a public road except, of course, that the road to the house is a public highway.

  Wotton House was restored to its former glory by the actress Elaine Brunner in the 1950s. It had been built at the beginning of the eighteenth century and was almost identical in design to Buckingham House in London – now integrated into Buckingham Palace. In October 1820, the main house was gutted by a great fire, and all that survived intact were the two pavilions, linked to the house by low screen walls.

  In the rebuild that followed, the external appearance of Wotton remained the same – although Sir John Soane, the architect, did persuade his reluctant client, the Marquis of Buckingham, to let him reduce the overall height by 8 to 10 feet.

  Now occupied by David and April Gladstone – David being a direct descendent of Liberal Prime Minister William Gladstone – it was designed as the original Buckingham Palace. A residence fit for a queen occupied by a scion of a PM therefore lies next door – separated now by only a six-foot-high steel fence.

  The Blairs though were not satisfied with the existing building and applied for no fewer than nine separate applications for developments in the next four years. This is despite its having ornamental gardens, a tennis court and a swimming pool already.

  They started with a relatively uncontroversial application reviving a proposal by the previous owners to build a garden studio and a proposal to build a mess room. There were no objections in March 2008 and both went ahead.

  They then moved in July 2009 to extend and refurbish the gardener’s pavilion in the grounds, leading to six objections and one letter supporting the proposal. Enquiries for this book found at least five could be suspect – they all came from the same computer IP address and gave false postal addresses.

  The main objections were that it would set a precedent, could be used as a separate dwelling and shouldn’t be adapted, as it is in the grounds of a listed building. There was also concern expressed that part of the existing kitchen garden would be built over and that the size and nature of the existing building should be preserved. But they were overruled and consent was given after some modifications to the plan.

  The next proposals were more contentious. A scheme to build a new sports pavilion and retain the fencing round the tennis courts in September 2011 led to a condition imposed by the county’s archaeological officer. He warned, ‘This development could cause some harm to the asset’s archaeological interests, but not such substantial harm as to justify refusal of planning permission if the development is otherwise acceptable.’

  They requested that a condition be imposed that no development shall take place ‘until the applicant … has secured the implementation of a programme of archaeological work in accordance with a written scheme of investigation which has been submitted by the applicant and approved by the planning authority.’

  Buckinghamshire Gardens Trust objected to the original plans on the grounds of the impact of the tennis-court fencing, the size of the sports pavilion, its design and how it is proposed it will adjoin the existing historic wall. But this also went ahead after it was modified.

  The Blairs also took advantage of the government’s green-energy scheme by fitting discreet solar tiles to the building, both saving them energy and allowing them to benefit from the Coalition government’s green ‘feed-in tariff’ by selling surplus energy to the National Grid.

  More serious objections rose over plans to chop down a hundred trees and prune others and erect a 6-foot-high, 300-foot-long, modern steel boundary fence between the property and its neighbour Wotton Hall.

  A Mrs Evans of Lower Green, Westcott, objected to the tree felling, saying, ‘There is no need for the trees to be felled, and the works could destroy the atmosphere surrounding the South Pavilion and could be detrimental to the village.5

  Buckinghamshire Gardens Trust, the Georgian Group and English Heritage also objected to the boundary fencing.

  Buckinghamshire Gardens Trust expressed concern about the utilitarian modern design. ‘They said they hope the fence could be screened by planting but do not see how it could be guaranteed. They consider a pattern to stimulate historic ornamental. Fencing within the mansion grounds would be more appropriate.’6

  The Telegraph reported that the Trust wrote a letter to the council saying, ‘We are concerned that the severely utilitarian modern style of the proposed fence damages the historic character of this area of designed landscape.’7

  The Georgian Group said that a condition should be applied requiring the removal of the railings when the current occupant no longer occupies the building.8

  English Heritage was concerned too, saying Blair’s plans, which included chopping down a hundred trees, would damage the special character of the house. In particular, English Heritage disliked Blair’s plan to put roof lights in the sports pavilion.

  However the new railings went ahead in 2012 after concerns, agreed by English Heritage, that the then-boundary fences were not secure, a council report describing them as ‘too weak and too low’ to ‘prevent trespass’ on Blair’s private property. In return, two trees had to be protected and a large number of laurel and holly bushes were planted to obscure the boundary fence and add to the privacy of the Blairs.

  BLAIR’S CHILDREN’S HOMES AND CHERIE AND EUAN’S BUDDING PROPERTY EMPIRE

  The go-ahead in 2012 for all these schemes marked the end of the Blairs’ ‘improvements’ to the property. They had now turned to providing homes for their children and family.

  Euan, their eldest son, had bought his first property in May 2008 for £462,501 from Patrick Boyle, a Paris-based trademark lawyer. The spacious two-bedroomed garden flat in Liverpool Road was in upmarket Barnsbury not far from the Angel and Upper Street, Islington. It was, however, on a busy road, used by traffic to avoid the jams on the main road between the Holloway road and the Angel. He got a mortgage from Lloyds and sold it nearly two and half years later, in September 2010, for £496,000, making a £33,499 profit.

  Cherie Blair stepped in to allow him to move to a much grander property in Shouldham Street in May 2010 in the coveted W1 postal district and within walking distance of the Blairs’ London home in Connaught Square. So, with Cherie’s help he jumped from a £500,000 flat to a £1.29 million home jointly owned by him and his mother. The property was also secured with a Lloyds TSB mortgage.

  The estate agents, York Estates at the time, waxed lyrically about the attractiveness of the property, though they have since, we suspect after representations from the Blairs, removed details of the property from the Internet. At the time they emphasised that it was a rarely available freehold in central London. ‘This 4-storey Georgian house has planning permission to extend at lower ground and ground floor levels. Alternatively the house can be occupied in its current condition. It has three bedrooms, a study, two bathrooms, a garden, and both a drawing room and a recept
ion room.’

  The property became the centre of a planning row after a neighbour suggested that Euan was subletting the property, and the Blairs were forced to change some alterations they had made to the Georgian home. Euan was helped again by his mother months before he married his longstanding girlfriend Suzanne Ashman. She is the daughter of motor-racing entrepreneur Jonathan Ashman and was educated at the private St Paul’s Girls’ School in west London. She later read philosophy, politics and economics at Trinity College, Oxford, and went on to work at the Tony Blair Faith Foundation.

  The grand, six-bedroom Georgian townhouse in Marylebone, purchased in September 2013, shows that Euan intends to follow his father’s lifestyle. Months afterwards, in March 2014, the one-bedroom mews house that backs on to the property was also purchased so the two properties could be amalgamated in a replica of Tony and Cherie Blair’s Connaught Square home – enough for both a home and an office.

  The entire cost of purchasing both properties came to £4.825 million but neither of them is owned by his wife Suzanne Blair. Instead the main home is jointly owned by Cherie and Euan and the house that backs onto it by Cherie alone. Both properties have a mortgage from Lloyds Bank.

  The six-bedroom property was put on the market for £3.695 million – and was sold to Cherie and Euan for £3.625 million. Estate agents described it as a ‘bright, modernised property [that] benefits from beautiful high ceilings, floor to ceiling windows and wooden floors. The accommodation comprises of a master bedroom with en-suite bathroom, five further bedrooms, two further bathrooms, two spacious reception rooms, kitchen, utility room and guest cloakroom.’

  No sooner had they bought it than they applied for planning permission and listed-building consent (it is Grade II-listed) to both improve and repair it.

  Among the problems they discovered was a large crack in the West flank wall. Their architects commented,

  We understand from neighbours that this West flank wall has always caused concern to the previous owners, with a large vertical crack mid length extending as far as the second floor. The previous owners had cosmetically restored (render only) before the sale of the property, and it is only now that we are aware of the situation, and we seek to remedy the recurring problem.

  It shows you that, even at the luxury end of the market, it is still caveat emptor: buyer beware.

  The biggest changes involved developing the basement or old vaults below the ground floor. This included swapping the kitchen and utility room and creating a bedroom and a playroom for a future Blair generation. The plan for a mega £100,000 kitchen on the ground floor did not meet with Westminster Council approval and had to be substantially reduced in size. Other proposals met with more approval from Westminster as Euan has sympathetically restored some lost features.

  More gigantic works were needed for the £1.2 million, one-bedroom mews house that backs onto the main house, which at the time of going to press had not yet been approved by Westminster Council. These included digging out a basement and creating a courtyard between the two homes.

  It is described by estate agents as,

  A unique period cottage laid out over two floors and located in this charming mews off Marylebone High Street … The accommodation features open plan ground floor space refurbished in a ‘Cape Cod Style’ with light timber flooring and large skylight. A gentle spiral feature staircase leads up to the upper floor which comprises of a spacious and light double bedroom with exposed beams and a recently fitted shower room with skylight.

  Cherie has more ambitious plans for her son with outline planning proposals submitted in August to substantially enlarge the property. Work is going ahead in January 2015 to build the basement, as this did not require planning permission.

  It was probably only fair that the Blairs helped Euan buy a grand house. Only the year before, they had bought expensive properties for both daughter Kathryn and son Nicky, both within walking distance of each other and not far from Connaught Square.

  Kathryn had a £975,000 upper-floor maisonette just off Regents Park and very close to Baker Street. She owns it jointly with Cherie and there is no mortgage.

  Nicky was bought a very nice mews house – again, jointly owned with Cherie – in Marylebone, close to the station and near to a private hospital. This, too, was bought for cash. It was a three-storey freehold home with three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a very useful garage and a sun terrace, and cost £1.13 million. It is now owned by a wealthy Punjabi politician and orthopaedic surgeon.

  Nicky moved in 2012 – to a new home bought for £1.35 million – a stone’s throw from his sister near Baker Street and Regents Park and within easy walking distance of Peter Mandelson’s home inside Regents Park. The estate agent’s pictures of the home show it has been extensively modernised with a sunny patio garden, expensive kitchen and bathroom. It has three bedrooms and a superb 24-foot reception room with views to the front and back of the house.

  That leaves just one other family property purchased by the Blairs, purchased for Tony Blair’s sister for £600,000 in the village of Wotton Underwood in Buckinghamshire, a walk away from the Blairs’ home, South Pavilion. Again this is jointly owned by Cherie Blair and bought for cash.

  Cherie and Euan Blair have also obtained a new role as private landlords. Two blocks of flats have recently been purchased in the Manchester area. One – 31 and 33 Gloucester Road, Urmston – was bought for £650,000. They have set up a new company, Oldbury Residential Ltd, based at Cherie’s offices in Great Cumberland Place, London. The ten flats are within two adjoining double-fronted Victorian houses that had been on sale for some time. Described by the estate agent as an ‘excellent buy-to-let investment’, the property was originally on the market for £850,000.

  The Daily Mail reported in October 2014, ‘Sources close to the Blair family said they plan to renovate the flats and rent them out to young professionals.’ The estate agent’s blurb said, ‘This prestigious development consists of nine luxury apartments and a simply spectacular and utterly unique luxury penthouse apartment. These apartments are currently tenanted, achieving a rental return of £4,650 per month.’9

  Since then they have purchased another block of 14 flats: 2–8 Higher Hillgate, Stockport SK1 3ER.

  All this leaves the increasingly wealthy Blairs with a formidable property empire for themselves and their family. They have all three of their children within walking distance of their London home and both Peter Mandelson and Benjamin Wegg-Prosser live nearby. It can only be a matter of time before Leo Blair, born in Downing Street, also acquires a £1 million home.

  The Blairs’ ever-expanding property empire

  £265,000, BRISTOL: Two flats bought in 2003 by Cherie with help of conman Peter Foster. One since sold for £260,000. The other was up for sale but in January 2015 appeared to have been withdrawn from the market. It is worth £265,000 as of January 2015.

  £3.65 MILLION, LONDON: Five-storey Grade II-listed Georgian townhouse bought in 2004. Original mortgage £3.47 million. Thought to be worth £8.4 million as of January 2015.

  £5.75 MILLION, BUCKINGHAMSHIRE: Grade I-listed manor house bought in 2008. Original mortgage estimate £4 million. Thought to be worth around £8 million as of January 2015.

  £800,000, LONDON: Mews house immediately behind townhouse, bought in 2007 with mortgage, since paid off. Mews houses were selling for £1.8 million in that street as of January 2015.

  £1.29 MILLION, LONDON: Four-storey Grade II-listed townhouse bought for Euan Blair in 2010 with mortgage. Now sold.

  £975,000, LONDON: Three-bedroom maisonette in Georgian house bought for Kathryn Blair in 2010 for cash. Said to be sold for £1.45 million in 2014.

  £1.35 MILLION, LONDON: Four-storey Georgian townhouse bought for cash for Nicky Blair in 2012. Worth £1.8 million as of January 2015.

  £600,000, BUCKINGHAMSHIRE: Three-bedroom cottage bought for cash for Sarah Blair (Tony’s sister) in February 2013.

  £3.625 MILLION, LONDON: Six-bedroom tow
nhouse jointly owned by Cherie and Euan for him and his wife Suzanne with a mortgage in September 2013. Worth over £4 million as of January 2015.

  £1.2 MILLION, LONDON: One-bedroom mews house backing onto the six-bedroom townhouse bought by Cherie Blair with a mortgage for Euan and Suzanne in March 2014.

  £650,000, MANCHESTER. Ten flats, purchased in 2014, owned by a new company set up by Cherie and Euan Blair.

  £1.3 MILLION (ESTIMATE), STOCKPORT: 14 flats, purchased in 2014, owned by a new company set up by Cherie and Euan Blair.

  Notes

  1 http://www.zoopla.co.uk/property/29-connaught-square/

  london/w2-2hl/25001801

  2 Daily Mail, 30 June 2007: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-465370

  /The-ghostly-history-Blairs-new-home-

  Connaught-Square.html#ixzz2hd5nU8oM

  3 http://beakstreetbugle.com/articles/view/31/

  unsung-heroes-the-agency-producer

  4 Daily Mail, 25 June 2006: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/

  femail/article-392345/Cheries-fixer-dumps-lover-

  married-lawyer-whos-Tory.html

  5 http://publicaccess.aylesburyvaledc.gov.uk/

  online-applications/files/8BFBB735D306045106EC07166D67D550

  /pdf/11_00928_ATP-DELEGATED-1009746.pdf [page no longer available]

  6 http://publicaccess.aylesburyvaledc.gov.uk/

  online-applications/files/81DA36B7B7977843311C38E10C82F48C

  /pdf/11_02700_APP-DELEGATED-1058069.pdf [page no longer available]

  7 Daily Telegraph, 14 January 2012: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/

  news/politics/9013969/Tony-Blair-is-accused-of-

  damaging-character-of-his-countryestate.html

  8 http://publicaccess.aylesburyvaledc.gov.uk/online-

  applications/files/81DA36B7B7977843311C38E10C82F48C/

  pdf/11_02700_APP-DELEGATED-1058069.pdf [page no longer available]

  9 Daily Mail, 3 October 2014: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/