Exclusive, extraordinary and for sale. There are the homes that just have to be seen - so we've hunted them down for a fascinating and very private view.
This week: The Sugar House, Leman Street, London, E1
What: This used to be the Co-ops 19th century HQ and was also a sugar warehouse but is now 42 luxury apartments
We say: It is easy to imagine how in the mid-19th century the top brass at the Co-op would struggled to believe their board room would ever become a luxury penthouse apartment.
Built in 1887 as both a sugar store and, on the top floor, to house the boardroom of the Co-operative Wholesale Society, as it was then known, its use chimed in with the society’s aims – to collectively purchase goods at wholesale prices such as sugar and in some cases also own factories or farms.
Let's co-operate
Co-operatives societies, and in particular the CWS, were enormously successful throughout the 19th century and the seven-storey property at 99 Leman Street was designed to be the movement’s hub.
But despite the CWS’s admirable and near-socialist philosophy this building’s opulence is easy to spot, particularly now that developer Berkeley Homes has refurbished it inside and out. Stand outside underneath its brick and granite exterior and the most striking feature is the clock, which is a mini-me Big Ben built by the same company which supplied the Houses of Parliament’s.
“That company still exists,” says Piers Clanford, sales and marketing director at Berkeley Homes as we climb the grand stairs into the hallway. "Its engineers tour the world keeping their old and new clocks serviced and in time and that includes this one."
Multi million pound makeover
The most impressive of all the 42 apartments within the building is the 1,850 sq ft duplex penthouse apartment (pictured left and top) at the top called The Provenance; the largest apartments within The Sugar House are named after, inexplicably, Rolls Royce models so there’s a Phantom too.
The penthouse, which has a similar layout to many of the others with bedrooms and bathrooms clustered around an entranceway corridor on the first floor only reveals its extraordinary feature – the kitchen-diner-cum-lounge, until you venture upstairs.
As you climb up, the full glamour of this 36ft long, double-height space is evident for although it includes a large kitchen, huge bling sofa and a baby grand piano, the room feels enormous and it’s easy to imagine the Victorian directors of the CWS arranged around a sold board room table, puffin away on their pipes.
One particular detail that Berkely Homes is to be commended on is the restoration and preservation of the room’s ornate decorative plaster mouldings, which snake around the central roof ‘lantern light’ window as well as the outer wall edge.
But for me one of the greatest appeals – apart from its four balconies overlooking the City, is that it comes fully furnished and ready to party in including, I am told, the baby grand.