Thursday, August 6, 2009

Tom Ford's Former London Townhouse For Sale


SELLER: formerly by Tom Ford
LOCATION: Gilston Road, London, UK
PRICE: £8,500,000
SIZE: 3,705 square feet, 2 bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: A unique semi-detached house (circa 3,705 sq ft) which is set back from the road and securely positioned behind a high wall and double gates. The property has recently been modernised and decorated to the highest standard, in a modern contemporary style using the finest materials.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Thanks to Linda Lovestosnitch Your Mama has learned that the louche London townhouse formerly owned by dirty minded darling of the fashion world Tom Ford has recently been listed with an asking price of £8,500,000. According to our bejeweled abacus, that figure converts to a knee buckling $14,463,650 at today's rates.

Although we do not usually care to discuss properties formerly owned by famous folks, previous reports reveal that the current owner for Mister Ford's former four floor townhouse who picked up the property five years ago has not changed the sleek and cooly sensual interiors except, we presume, to swap in his and/or her art collection for Mister Ford's that includes works by American graffiti artist turned painter Barnaby Furnas and polemical YBA Marc Quinn who, among other artistic endeavors such as making a self-portrait of himself using his own blood, makes gorgeous but disturbing sculptures of amputees and women pretzeled in ways that highlight their hoo-hoos.

The 3,705 square foot townhouse includes just 2 bedrooms and 2.5 pristine poopers plus a teensy-weensy studio style staff apartment adjacent to the gore-may cooker on the lower ground floor that includes a separate entrance from the front garden, a private pooper and a wee kitchenette. We do not know if he is still in Mister Ford's employ, but Your Mama imagines this is where the fashion design diva once installed his live-in Scottish butler who, like one of his dogs, is named Angus. In addition to Mister Ford, his dogs and Angus the butler, it's probably safe to assume Mister Ford's man-mate of 20+ years Richard Buckley also called this tautly designed house home. For what it's worth and for anyone who might care, despite Mister Ford's obvious and admitted fascination with all things x-rated, he and Mister Buckley claim to have a monogamous relationship. Hard to believe perhaps, but that's what they say.

Mister Ford, who affects the most marvelous and insanely pretentious post-coital squinty-eyed smolder at all times, renovated the period property in Chelsea to his most meticulous and exacting standards. While the original architectural details of the house have been preserved on the exterior, the interiors were all did up and done over in a hedonistic, provocative and practically pornographic self conscious style that is pure Tom Ford for Gucci circa 2001 with powerful lines, an overt sexuality and sleek surfaces that include lustrous marble floors, glossy glass walls and enough stainless steel to require two full time minimum wage gurls to keep the place finger print free.

The former Ford crib occupies a corner lot on quietly glam Gilston Road in the Boltons Conservation Area and has been walled and meticulously hedged for privacy and security. The front gate opens into a narrow front garden where a short and wide staircase leads to the ground floor entrance hall where sinister black glass walls and a virginal white alabaster staircase sets the mood for the entire house which oozes with a cool humidity, rigid carnality and a turgidly calculated intermingling of supremely confident and concupiscent interior design druthers.

To the right of the entrance hall on the ground floor is a large study and on the left a squarish dining room with ebonized walls and ceiling, a white marble floor and two big bay windows, one of which opens to the rear garden. The dining room has been furnished with a monolithic and chunky, white square table for eight, a small round table for two and a seating area with a built-in sofa perfect for lounging with a post-dinner digestif. One flight down is the powder pooper and a generously sized guest bedroom with a walk-in closet and private bathroom. Opposite the guest bedroom is the streamlined and somewhat sterile morgue-like kitchen which has no overhead cabinetry (there is a prodigious pantry for cabinet comestibles) and includes a breakfast table tucked into yet another bay window. The entire back wall and lower cabinets have been done in stainless steel and the sink and dish washing equipment has been placed in a long, winter white work island

On the first floor, which we Amereecanos would call the second floor, two drawing rooms, which we Amereecanos would call living rooms, flank the stair hall. One is paneled with richly striated Makassar wood and features a fireplace, a couple of black sofas, and a black beaver fur area rug that we're sure has the folks at Peta sweating with indignation and mortification. The other is wrapped impressively but somewhat impractically in stainless steel. Now listen children, iffin Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter ever wanted to drive our cheeky and dictatorial house gurl Svetlana off the deep end, all we would need to do is lock her in this room with our long bodied bitches Linda and Beverly (who put their wet noses on everything), a small child with dirty hands and three square of terlit paper.

The somber and somewhat malevolent feeling black and white master bedroom sits on the top floor with gleaming mirror-like black glass walls that surely reflect every twist and turn of the body at all the most inopportune and un-sexy moments. A thin and well lit dressing room with a chatoyant chest of drawers and a couple of built in cupboards where Mister Ford kept his trademark black suits and white shirts (worn only half buttoned to better show off the manicured hair on his chest) leads to the sleek, all white private pooper that includes a separate tub and shower as well as his and his sinks and vanities for practicing and mastering Mister Ford's famously flirtatious come hither gaze.

The gardens have been done in the same spare manner as the rest of the manse with a patch of grass where Mister Ford's pooches probably piddled and pooped, a small square of concrete with some hostile looking black patio furniture and wrapping around the front and side of the house is a deck painted the blackest of blacks which is somewhat softened by the thick green hedge and a what appears to be a somewhat incongruous miniature Japanese Maple tree. The children will not the surveillance equipment affixed to the house which ensures that any potential intruder or unwanted looky-loo is filmed.

For anyone who might have a time time qualifying for an eight and a half million pound mortgage, the property is also put up for lease at £5,500 per week, a rate a few flicks of the well worn bead of our abacus tells us amounts to 37,331.80 American dollars per month at today's rates.

Mister Ford and Mister Buckley have undoubtedly shared many dee-voon domiciles over their long association including a most marvelous apartment in Paris which we don't think they own any more. In Los Angeles they own and occupy a stunning Richard Neutra designed spread next door to Meg Ryan in Bel Air and in New York City they stay at The Carlyle where we once remember reading they have booked the exact same room more than 15 years. We've also read, but can not confirm, the couple have a place in Austin, TX which seems odd but there are stranger real estate stories out there. In 2006, after a long fight with the community, Mister Ford finally received permission to erect an approximately 15,000 square foot compound on a 10-acre hilltop site overlooking Santa Fe, New Mexico, where he was raised, and he also owns a 24,000 acre ranch in Galisteo, NM where it reportedly takes 30 minutes to drive from the front gates to the Tadao Ando designed house.

31 comments:

pch said...

Don't love the furniture, but that doesn't matter. This is a seriously cool house. I could move in without wanting to change much.

StPaulSnowman said...

It would make my day if Linda and Beverly could get at that quasi-greek key carpeting and do what I know dachsies love to do when left to their own devices. From the street this place is a jewel box. The interior shots look more like a swank dental office to me.

Anonymous said...

Is that a teeny-tiny windowless staff bedroom on the "lower ground floor", which we Amereecanos call basement? Looks like it is equipped with a teeny-tiny galley kitchen, so that the house gurl does not go to the master kitchen for a glass of water... nice.

Madam Pince said...

Tom Ford is ten pounds of crazy in a five-pound bag, but he & Mr. Buckley masterminded a very nice townhouse. I'm with PCH -- I wouldn't have to change much to move here.

Anonymous said...

mama, have you had your limit of g&t's for today? i believe the weekly lease would come to around $9350? no? but thanks for the wonderful tour.

SID DELUCA said...

Mama, Mr. Ford was born in Austin, Texas. That may explain why he has a home there. He really does have nasty filthy fabulous sex written all over him, doesn't he. Whew!

stolidog said...

Looks like the Nip 'n Tuck Cast has moved film sets again.

Anonymous said...

Interesting interiors but I detest the artwork. Is that Elizabeth Montgomery in the dining room?

Tracy said...

If that's what the interior looks like on a bright sunny summer's day, I'd hate to imagine how it'll look during a rainy December afternoon.

What are the little lines in many of the rooms of the floorplan? Are they supposed to indicate wall outlets?

Rich said...

Looks like Randolph Duke moved to London.

lucy said...

I can appreciate the sleek style, but it doesn't seem like a comfortable space to be in for a long time.....too sterile. Maybe I'm missing it.

I want a breakfast nook that encourages lingering, and I don't want to sit stiffly upright all the time at my own home, in private.

Anonymous said...

BRRRRRRRRR...it's cold

Anonymous said...

He still owns a house in London. I remember reading an article [Architectural Digest?] about him buying a property on a Georgian terrace which he refurbished & done the interiors all white [the opposite of his Neutra] due to London being more gloomy .. He ended up not liking it & refurbished again & had all the interior done in blacks/charcoals etc.. like his LA home.

Anonymous said...

I knew he would have his own coffee table book on display. I just knew it.

Anonymous said...

And Mr. Ford is quite generous. He set his sweet little Texas cousin up with a nice trust fund so she could be an artist in Tuscany. Unfortunately she's also a born again Christian who is intent in saving her gay Italian gallery-owning friend from eternal damnation. All true.

Rebecca said...

I have never understood the English habit of putting a toilet in a room by itself. If they're going to split it all up, it makes so much more sense to put the sink with the toilet rather than the shower. 1st, because it's easier to wash your hands afterward and 2nd, then you have an extra powder room if you need it - not that that's relevant in this situation.

Also, do people still cart meals up and down stairs these days? In a house without an elevator, or even so much as a dumbwaiter, that seems a little archaic. Although I guess anyone who doesn't balk at living in a windowless area would mind complain about that either.

Sheesh.

The yard, though, doesn't seem that small for London. Would you really call it a patch? It's a lot more than you'd get in almost any house in Mayfair.

Anonymous said...

Damn! Between you and the Comics Curmudgeon, mama, I had to look up three words today! abbatoir, polemical, concupiscent. Love your writing, love your sensibilities.

Anonymous said...

I guess a suite of stainless steel appliances just isn't enough for some people.

Mars said...

Soul-less Chilling. Ick.

Anonymous said...

Any negative comments by me about this home would be petty criticisms. TF has designed this house flawlessly; it's very dramatic, visually stunning and a real show place. Style is subjective and this home, in my opinion, speaks volumes - it doesn't look like anybody actually lives there.

Anonymous said...

"I have never understood the English habit of putting a toilet in a room by itself. If they're going to split it all up, it makes so much more sense to put the sink with the toilet rather than the shower"

What? I have never seen such a thing & I live in London! A "W.C" for guests will always have a toilet & sink. Then all other bathrooms will have toilet/sink/shower/bath ... Don't generalize just because the floorplans of this property show such a thing!

Also, you can't really compare this part of Chelsea with Mayfair ... Mayfair is slap bang in the middle of London. This property is in the far western edge of Chelsea.

chris said...

A really beautiful home, in a really gorgeous area (chelsea) - but only if you are very rich!

Anonymous said...

Is that a house or Bernie Madoff's London office?

Ed said...

I respectfully disagree with most of the children.

While the house does have a very cool (as in cold) palatte of gray, black and white, it's done mostly with very warm (and tactile to use Mama's word) materials. There are velvet sofas, and fur rugs, suede walls, and in the rooms with the coldest envelopes there is wall to wall carpeting. And there is actual art and books. You may not like the art, but it's actual art and not some piece of generic wall trash

The kitchen looks quite spare, but try to picture what it looks like with actual things in it that people live with like toasters and fruit bowls and a bucket of wooden spoons, all of which are probably there in "real" life.

This ain't my style at all (I prefer something a little less crisp and more colorful), but I'd bet this house feels a lot "warmer" that these photos allow.

Anonymous said...

"I have never understood the English habit of putting a toilet in a room by itself. If they're going to split it all up, it makes so much more sense to put the sink with the toilet rather than the shower"

Maybe he has seen it in Moscow. Called 'separated bathroom'.

Yeah, just another reason I am not in love with this house.

Anonymous said...

Good points, Ed. Thanks.

Anonymous said...

Moat beautiful house I've EVER seen! I'm so in love.

Anonymous said...

the decor is ugly and dark. one would expect more from a designer. the wall treatments are awful. he ruined the house.

Anonymous said...

Wait-I thought Tom Ford was considered "the gayest straight man you'd ever meet." Not true?

Anonymous said...

The house maybe in the slighly less expensive SW10 as oppose to prime SW3 Sloane Square locations but the point is its in the 'Boltons Coversation Area' which has always been one of the most expensive areas of Chelsea. George Micheal owned a house there during the 1990's which sold a few years ago for £15m. Hugh Grant also lives nearby, its also a semi- which is usual for Ldn and offers more privacy.

I like the decor, but where are all the orginal features? It is the same Elle's house in Notting Hill which is still on the Market. AS for the toilet being separate from the bathroom it is quite common in the UK. Not a fan myself but it does mean that if Tom unrelish a great big turd his boyfriend can still have a bath in other room without the smell!

Anonymous said...

This house belongs to Jonathan Lourie of Cheyne Management. ..