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Move Over Buckingham Palace! Furious Locals, A Massive Underground Extension, And The Mystery Owner Of London's Most Incredible Home


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HOLA441

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2007919/Move-Buckingham-Palace-Furious-locals-massive-underground-extension-mystery-owner-Londons-incredible-home.html

Soon its name will join the ranks of Britain's great stately homes. Already, in the most elite of circles, it is being whispered in awe: 'Witanhurst. Do you know it?'

.......

Now, the planning issues having been resolved, it is being turned into a modern-day Xanadu, the palatial mansion immortalised in the film Citizen Kane.The glittering 65-room palace will include 25 bedrooms and 12 bathrooms and an imperial walnut-panelled Grand Ballroom.

A vast two-storey subterranean extension will almost double its size, making room for a 70ft swimming pool, sauna, hairdressing salon, massage parlour and a huge cinema suite.

Diggers are carving an enormous cave beneath the house, which will make the property just 2,000 sq ft smaller than Buckingham Palace. Staff accommodation and a 25-space car park will complete the £50million expansion.

A borehole system, driven deep into the ground, will heat the house, using the Earth's warmth.Documents lodged with Camden council show that the main house will remain largely the same, except for the demolition of a 20th-century wing, which will be replaced by a super-sized 'orangery'. Work is due to be finished in autumn 2012.

It looks a massive redevelopment.

I wonder who owns it, they've certainly got some serious money to fund it.

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HOLA444

The Daily Mail article contains the line:

"it is being turned into a modern-day Xanadu, the palatial mansion immortalised in the film Citizen Kane"

This line itself written by one Zoe Brennan, ex Oxford University. I hope she did not read English, otherwise I fail to understand how she can never have heard of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's 'Kubla Khan'. I suppose it could have been worse, she might have referred to the Olivia Newton-John epic file from 1980.

It is, indeed, a pity that the entire Wail output is not interrupted by a person from Porlock.

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HOLA445

The applicant on the planning permission is Safran Holdings Limited

Safran Holdings Limited. PO BOX 139,. 9-12 The Grange,. St Peter Port,. Guernsey,. GY1 3JL.

Only mention of them as that is in relation to this PP.

This says

http://www.edp24.co.uk/news/exclusive_mystery_russian_owners_of_witanhurst_mansion_get_go_ahead_for_contentious_development_1_633328

mystery russian.

Edited by SarahBell
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HOLA446

Nothing mentioned there about getting upset, and why should anyone? Build downwards and no-one else can see it anyway, so where's the issue? The only problem I can think of is going underground might conflict with mineral rights holders, who aren't always the same as the surface owner.

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Nothing mentioned there about getting upset, and why should anyone? Build downwards and no-one else can see it anyway, so where's the issue? The only problem I can think of is going underground might conflict with mineral rights holders, who aren't always the same as the surface owner.

In fact, woeful as the article is, you are correct. This development is less of a problem, at this site, than similar developments in Central London. The developments further in can have greater impact on the neighbours, especially in the grander London Squares.

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HOLA449

"it is being turned into a modern-day Xanadu, the palatial mansion immortalised in the film Citizen Kane"

This line itself written by one Zoe Brennan, ex Oxford University. I hope she did not read English, otherwise I fail to understand how she can never have heard of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's 'Kubla Khan'. I suppose it could have been worse, she might have referred to the Olivia Newton-John epic file from 1980.

It is, indeed, a pity that the entire Wail output is not interrupted by a person from Porlock.

:lol:

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