‘Monstrous and unnecessary’: Canadian millionaire angers U.K. neighbours with proposed four-storey basement

Tristin Hopper | Nov 7, 2012 9:49 PM ET
More from Tristin Hopper | @TristinHopper

The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea Canadian multi-millionaire David Graham’s mansion in London. Graham purchased the property, a former magistrate’s court, in 2000, moving in with his family shortly after.

 

A plan by Canadian cable mogul David Graham to dig a sprawling underground lair beneath his U.K. mansion is prompting the residents of one of London’s most posh neighbourhoods to decry the project as overly-extravagant.

“These plans are absolutely monstrous and unnecessary … no one needs that much space,” the Duchess of St Albans, a neighbour, told the London Evening Standard.

In mid-October, Mr. Graham’s contractors went before officials at the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and presented the blueprints for a gargantuan underground addition descending four storeys into the ground.

Carefully hidden beneath Mr. Graham’s 19th-century home and its manicured rear garden, the addition would include servants’ quarters, wine cellars, a ballroom and a 14-by-8 metre swimming pool.

As for parking, Mr. Graham would simply pull onto a car elevator adjacent to the home’s front door and descend 15 metres into a subterranean three-car garage.

By tripling the living space on the property, the project would provide “additional … residential accommodation required for contemporary living without compromising the architectural quality of the existing building,” reads a planning statement.

The property is occupied by the Old Court House, a four-storey brick structure that was built around 1840 as a school for infants before it was converted into a magistrate’s court.

Mr. Graham bought the property 12 years ago and, after a few minor renovations to the court house, moved in with his family.

An Ottawa native, Mr. Graham, 75, made his fortune building telecommunications systems throughout Britain and North America, including the now-defunct Canadian company Cablecasting Limited.

For four years in the 1980s, he was the third husband of Barbara Amiel, the current wife of media baron Conrad Black.

“The owner of the Old Court House having made his vast fortune burying cables underground in Canada now decides he wants to live underground too!” wrote The Dame, an anonymous neighbourhood blogger who was among the first to report on the plans.

“What is it about Commonwealth media tycoons … especially the Canadian variety: They seem to think their money gives them carte blanche to ride roughshod over people,” she wrote.

The Dame is among a number of nearby residents, including famed Irish novelist Edna O’Brien, who have stepped forward to decry the “commotion” that Mr. Graham’s undertaking would cause.

Crews would need to extract more than 1,000 truckloads of earth, crowding the neighbourhood’s narrow cobblestone with truck traffic — not to mention the noise and vibration it would inflict on a high-end restaurant that shares a wall with the Old Court House.

What is it about Commonwealth media tycoons … especially the Canadian variety: They seem to think their money gives them carte blanche to ride roughshod over people

According to planning documents, Mr. Graham settled on going underground only after he was unsuccessful in finding a larger home in London that could “suit his family’s needs … as required by today’s contemporary living.”

Mr. Graham’s home country, after all, is packed with some of the world’s largest average homes.
In the cramped cities of England, meanwhile, even the Prime Minister makes do without a front lawn.
As England’s second-wealthiest borough, Kensington and Chelsea has been dubbed “the village of palaces” by real estate agents even though the “palaces” in question are simply luxurious row houses.
“This is totally out of keeping with the relatively small size of other houses in the area,” a spokesman with the Milner Road Area Residents Association told the Daily Standard.

“Why should we all suffer just so one man can indulge his fantasy?”

National Post