Holland Park

Bought from Richard Branson, the next owners let their imaginations fly on this Holland Park villa, building a 3 storey basement leisure complex the length and breadth of it’s extensive garden.

The owners could also enjoy the squash court, sauna, spa, steam room, his and hers changing rooms and gym, all designed in the style of a Chinese village. At the touch of a button, the floor of the pool raised to convert pool room to ballroom. In one of the ante rooms, a large staircase led to one of the two Chinese garden rooms.

The house contained numerous, similar flights of fancy like the 2-3 meter bespoke lights in the two main receptions, giant stone spheres and sinks, or the bespoke stone kitchen and it’s separate stainless steel commercial kitchen for parties.

When the new owner took this on, it was to be a back to brick refurb so the volume of kit we recycled was exhaustive in scope. Everything in the images was stripped from the house and garden to create a blank canvas for the refurbishment, even the trees. Our involvement produced perhaps the most significant saving in waste to date.

Learning the stories behind buyers’ new uses for the items is often interesting. The Chinese village with it’s 7M high staircase and all the limestone recovered from around the pool walls is now gracing a pool in Berkshire, while one of the two Chinese garden rooms is now being used to house prized micro pigs in Lancashire (originally intended as a pony stable but then the pigs were won in a pub card game!). The other is now used as a wedding venue backdrop in Essex.

Someone who bought one of the three enormous reception room lights  (around 2.5m diameter) loved it so much that despite having low ceilings in a small terraced house, simply had to have it. The induction hobs from the commercial kitchen were bought by Heston Blumenthal for the Fat Duck for more of his famed experimentation.