How to build a mega-basement without infuriating the neighbours?
London’s super-rich have taken to burrowing under their homes in order to extend them, but the work can involve years of disruption and draw objections from neighbours, writes Karla Adam
Even by the lavish standards of west London’s numerous multimillionaires, Jon Hunt’s plans for a new basement went way beyond extravagant.
A resident of Kensington Palace Gardens – the most expensive street in Britain – Hunt planned a five-storey basement that would house a car museum, a tennis court, an elevator, a swimming pool and a rotating Ferris wheel for the vehicles.
Citing her diplomatic rights under the Vienna Convention of 1961, Hunt’s next-door neighbour, the French ambassador Sylvie Bermann, took legal action. She lost a battle at the High Court last year, but is now launching a legal challenge at the Court of Appeal.
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Ambassadors from Saudi Arabia, Japan, Lebanon, Russia and India – not known for backing each other – also live on the street and have opposed the construction. They all signed a recent letter of protest sent to the Foreign Office and the Crown Estate, the property company that owns the land.
London is often a battleground for clashes between big-splash projects and old-school sensibilities. There has been much hand-wringing over London’s changing skyline, for instance, and worthies such as Prince Charles are apt to pipe up with unsolicited opinions.
But this row – concentrated in one of London’s swankiest neighbourhoods – has property owners wrestling with a problem unique to the ultra-rich: how to build a mega-basement without infuriating the neighbours.
