House hunters nearly always have to make a compromise to suit their budget – the size of the garden, say, or those dated avocado bathroom suites, or the slightly inconvenient distance from the station. You might think that being a multi-millionaire would exonerate you from such stresses, making finding your dream home trouble-free.
Not so, according to Mike Jatania, the British Asian cosmetics tycoon who reportedly sold personal care brand Lornamead to Li & Fung Ltd for $200 million a decade ago and who regularly tops charts of Britain’s richest Asian people.
‘When the family asked me to come and look at Denham Place, I was totally blown away by it’
‘Back in 1999 and 2000, when my family and I were looking for a London home, the estate agents had taken us to various properties, but we hadn’t found anything suitable,’ says Jatania, who was born in Uganda and arrived in Britain as a young child in the late 1960s.
‘We felt that a lot of what we were looking at meant a compromise, because either the house, or the gardens and grounds, were not right. Then we got to look around Denham Place, and even though at the time it was being used as an office headquarters, we all immediately fell in love with it.’
The large light-filled rooms, the fascinating history of the once stately home and the beautiful views of the gardens, lake and grounds from the various windows convinced them this was the one. ‘We also loved the pretty village with a train station, with direct services into central London on the doorstep,’ he says. It all sounds rather prosaic. But the palatial Grade I listed Denham Place, in Buckinghamshire, a 15-minute drive from Uxbridge, and just 17 miles from Mayfair, is anything but. The 28,525 sq. ft. 12 bedroom-suite pile, set in 43 acres of sweeping parkland designed by Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown has an audacious grandeur and impeccable provenance that could only be matched by a Crown Estate royal palace so close to central London.
Originally a Tudor mansion built in the early 1500s by a High Treasurer to King Henry VIII, Denham Place’s present incarnation is as a classic William and Mary style-manor, built by Sir Roger Hill MP, the High Sheriff of Buckinghamshire, in 1670. Fast forward 160 years, and between 1834 and 1844, Denham Place served as a royal residence for Joseph Bonaparte, the exiled former King of Naples and Sicily, and Jerome-Napoleon Bonaparte, following the defeat of their brother, fallen French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte.
Other high-profile residents would follow, bringing with them that sprinkling of celebrity stardust we do so love in an English country house. American financier and banker J.P. Morgan leased the home as his long-term English country seat during the second half of the 20th century, and in 1930, Denham Place was bought by Lord Robert Vansittart, a senior diplomat, and his wife, the heiress Lady Sarita.
They entertained a roll call of silver-screen and society names, including Merle Oberon, Laurence Olivier, Vivien Leigh and Wallis Simpson. They were also close friends with Hungarian-born film producer, director and screenwriter Alexander Korda, creator of The Red Shoes and The Third Man, who established Denham Film Studios nearby.
Between 1960 and 1977, Denham’s iconic role in British movie history was further sealed when it was leased by Harry Saltzman, co-producer of the first nine James Bond movies. Scripts for the films were reviewed at the mansion, with the library setting as the inspiration for character M’s office in films Live and Let Die (1973) and The Man with the Golden Gun (1974). Albert ‘Cubby’ Broccoli, Sean Connery, Roger Moore and Michael Caine all came to know the house.
By the time Jatania bought it in the early Noughties, however, from the cigarette manufacturer Rothmans, Denham’s glamour was somewhat faded. ‘While the core of the house was there, we knew it would be quite a job to get it restored and returned to residential use, especially to the Grade I Listing required because of its historic importance as a stately home,’ he says.
Fortunately, Jatania’s unlimited resources, excellent taste and a willingness to work with heritage experts at Historic England and the Georgian Group allowed for one of the most painstaking restoration projects Britain has ever seen. Award-winning boutique luxury interiors firm Alex Kravetz Design would spend the next eight years poring over all available archives, studying each room, its past use and unique features, to recreate a home fit for royalty.
‘When the family asked me to come and look at Denham Place, I was totally blown away by it,’ says Alex Kravetz, founder of the eponymous London-based firm, who says if the work was being started today it would have cost about £40 million. ‘It was a true, once in a lifetime legacy project. Fortunately, during its years as a headquarters office building, important period details were just covered up rather than damaged.’
Throughout the state room-style principal entertaining spaces, Kravetz and a team of hand-picked craftspeople – including those who have worked at the Palace of Versailles, La Fenice Opera House in Venice and the Louvre – set to work, before turning their hands to further receptions, 14 bathrooms, two staircases and kitchens and a private chapel. Many of the original materials and decorating techniques used at Denham proved to be so niche that they took years to research and recreate.
The gilded, vaulted ceilings on the lower ground floor, for example, took over three years to complete, and returning silk wall panels to their original glory meant studying the Gainsborough Silk Weaving Company’s 17th-century archives to devise an accurate pattern. In the chapel, panelling believed to have come from Hampton Court Palace had been covered over, but was restored to its original hue by colour matching to a tiny fragment of original paintwork found.
Elsewhere, hand-painted ceiling frescoes and one depicting the village of Denham have been exactly restored, and fresh, though still in-keeping, decorative schemes created. Custom crystal chandeliers were commissioned from lighting designers Saint Louis and, on the first floor, four huge bedroom suites, all with dressing rooms, were inspired by the royal chambers of Versailles.
There is now underfloor heating throughout, AV technology and air-con, with, says Kravetz, the younger members of the Jatania family also catered to. Capitalising on the cool Bond connection, ‘we have styled the cinema room and ‘Golden Eye’ bar as a homage to the movie franchise,’ he says. ‘The final result is very theatrical, yet very homely.’
The Grade II listed grounds have also been exquisitely restored, by aristocratic garden designer Lord Kenilworth, who has focused on finding a balance between gardens, parkland and woodland, with formal sunken and walled areas, a meadow, orchard and lake.
As you’d expect, there are several estate cottages and ancillary buildings, with planning consent in place to transform the Grade II Listed coach house into a health spa, taking in a state-of-the-art gym, sauna, steam room, three treatment rooms and a 15-metre outdoor swimming pool.
This, however, will have to be undertaken by Denham Place’s next owner, with Jatania’s decision to put the estate on the market, for £75 million, having made tax-free Monaco his main base. That asking price includes all the furnishings and fittings too. Instead of keeping it all hushed and off-market, Jatania is clearly happy to show off what he has achieved at the home – and that no compromises will be necessary.
‘We are incredibly proud of Denham Place, and we feel we’ve done the estate justice in our efforts to leave a legacy for future generations,’ Jatania says. ‘As with the residents before us, we feel honoured to have called this wonderful and beautiful estate home, and to have created memories to last a lifetime.’
Denham Place is for sale with Beauchamp Estates (beauchamp.com), Knight Frank (knightfrank.com) and Savills (savills.com); denhamplace.com
Comments