Inside a $15 Million Designer-Done Apartment Within London’s Historic Inverforth House
Set within the leafy boundaries of London’s Hampstead Heath, a spacious manor house originally built in 1807 and dubbed The Hill was rebuilt in the British Queen Anne Revival style in 1895. The imposing and ornately detailed red-brick residence was subsequently altered and added to by William Lever, the 1st Viscount of Leverhulme, who owned the estate from 1904 until he died in 1925. (Lever and his brother formed a soap company that eventually became part of the global consumer goods conglomerate Unilever.)
The Hill was soon acquired by the Scottish shipping magnate Andrew Weir, the 1st Baron of Inverforth, who renamed it Inverforth House. After Lord Inverforth passed away in 1956, the estate was used as a hospital and then, in the late 1990s, was converted into seven luxury apartments and two houses.
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One of the spacious apartments, a designer-done residence of more than 5,400 square feet with another 2,300 square feet of private terrace space, has drifted on the market with an asking price of $15 million. The four-bedroom and four-and-a-half-bath unit, which includes four dedicated parking spaces, is available through Bespoke Real Estate.
Entrance to the richly embellished residence is just off the building’s attended lobby. There are 12-foot ceilings on the main floor, along with Jacobean paneling with elaborate carved ornamentation, hand-laid oak parquet, gilt-trimmed wall details, and geometric tracery ceilings. A regal marble staircase connects the public rooms on the upper floor to the bedrooms on the lower floor.
Fully updated with modern technologies such as a Sonos sound system, the home’s swanky, romantic décor is the handiwork of Sera Hersham-Loftus of Sera of London, whose list of clients reads like a who’s who of London’s beau monde, from Kate Moss and Sadie Frost to David Attenborough and Twiggy. Playful and bohemian, the home’s sumptuously exotic interiors brim with Adamesque period detailing and artisanal finishes.
At 880 square feet, the reception room is ideal for gracious entertaining with a gas fireplace, bespoke light fixtures, and three sets of French doors to an almost 1,600-square-foot private terrace. Elsewhere on the main floor are an informal dining room, a modern kitchen, a snug family room, and a study. There’s also a powder room and a guest suite that’s complete with an alcove seating area and ensuite bath.
At the bottom of the marble staircase are two more guest or family bedrooms, plus the primary bedroom. A bowed window adds curvilinear interest to the main bedroom, while the main bathroom is sheathed in marble. A second terrace lies outside the bedrooms.
Residents of Inverforth House have access to round-the-clock concierge services and are protected by an extensive array of security measures, including guard dog patrol. The communal areas of the manicured grounds offer terraced gardens with expansive lawns and an all-weather tennis court. An 800-foot-long pergola, the vision of Lord Leverhulme and eminent landscape architect Thomas Mawson, borders the gardens of Inverforth’s House. It was originally part of The Hill estate but is now part of the surrounding park.
The Hampstead neighborhood butts up against Hampstead Heath’s 700 acres of parklands, about five miles north of Buckingham Palace. The historic area remains a leafy and affluent enclave long popular with aristocrats, artists, and intellectuals. Past and present residents include Samuel Taylor Coleridge, D. H. Lawrence, Aldous Huxley, Cecil Beaton, Richard Burton, Marianne Faithful, Sigmund Freud, Liam Gallagher, Dame Judy Dench, Ridley Scott, and Stephen Fry.
Click here for more photos of 4 Inverforth House.
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