Fed up with the unreliable London weather?
If you are, and also happen to own an unremarkable five-bedroom terraced house in Chelsea, you might consider swapping it for… Barry Manilow’s Malibu Beach house.
An American website reveals that the singer’s home has a courtyard and a massive deck overlooking the Pacific Ocean.
The LA weather forecast for the rest of the week is very boring: sunny and warm, with temperatures between 27 and 31 degrees.
Manilow originally offered his pad for $12.6 million (£8.1 million) and then cut the price to $8 million. He will now accept less than $7 million.
If you’d rather live where Sandra Bullock does, her home in Austin, Texas, with three bedrooms and three bathrooms is yours for only $2.5 million. And a Dallas house on the street where George W Bush lives is available for just over $1 million complete with Secret Service guards.
So don’t all rush at once.
Gold medal for Russians?
More news about City View, the garish new apartment block with gold cladding in Kensal Green, which has outraged residents.
Now readers of architects’ bible Building Design have nominated it for the magazine’s annual Carbuncle Cup competition to find the worst building in Britain.
Building Design quotes City Spy’s original story from two weeks ago, as it explains why the apartment block, built by Newcastle builder Bellway, has been picked for its virtual hall of shame.
Readers agree. Says one on the BD website: “It is not just the vulgar colour of the cladding that I find objectionable but also its aggressive domination of the surrounding three-storey Victorian streets.”
Another writes: “I live just up the road from this one. What the photos don’t show is that the cladding is irregular in places and many of the joints look poorly formed.” It gets better. A third architectural aficionado notes drily: “It may be a bit naff to Western eyes, but this building provides entry-level housing to meet the aesthetic needs of people from the former Soviet Union.” It certainly looks that way.
*SABMiller boss Graham Mackay’s pay package of £5.9 million included £111,000 of perks. These included the company car, medical insurance and a “beer allowance”. When asked, the brewer says “Graham gets the same beer allowance as all other UK-based employees, which is 336 bottles per year”. Given Mackay’s total package equates to 1.4 million pints of Pilsner Urquell (at inflated London prices) does he need the allowance?
