Poking up at regular intervals, thrusting outwards from their moulded openings as if performing a salute to passers-by, are lines of angled conveyor belts. Slowly rumbling away, they reach high above the trees, pouring a continuous stream of rubble into the cradles of awaiting skips. You would be forgiven for thinking that the residents of the royal borough have established a kind of coal-mining cottage industry. Or maybe they're digging for gold?
"It is an absolute disgrace," says one elderly resident, out walking her freshly coiffed miniature poodle in between the rows of hoarded-off skips. "It feels like they've turned Kensington into a war zone."
The reason for all this quarrying is not the discovery of a coal-rich seam beneath the Wrenaissance streets, but the local enthusiasm for subterranean development. Over the past four years, this local authority alone has granted planning applications for more than 800 basement extensions, refused 90, and has a further 20 outstanding. It is the most densely populated borough in the country, with no room to build outwards, and no permission to build upwards – so the only way is down.
But this desire for digging isn't to everyone's liking. Last week a furore erupted when plans were released for a four-storey basement beneath a 19th-century schoolhouse in Knightsbridge, for Canadian former TV mogul David Graham.
Tripling the size of the property, this gargantuan pleasure cave would house a ballroom and swimming pool, with hot tub, sauna and massage room, as well as 15 bedrooms, seven bathrooms and 20 toilets, plunging deeper into the earth than the height of neighbouring homes.
"These plans are absolutely monstrous and unnecessary," said one neighbour, the Duchess of St Albans. "It's just absolute greed. No one needs that much space. Quite apart from that, the commotion is going to be dreadful."
"This is totally out of keeping with the relatively small size of other houses in the area," agreed a spokesman for the nearby Milner Street Area Residents Association. "Why should we all suffer just so one man can indulge his fantasy?"
Such fantasies are not restricted to this one man alone. The past five years have seen sprawling underground leisure lairs excavated across west London, from Knightsbridge to Belgravia, Fulham to Notting Hill. They contain playrooms and cinemas, bowling alleys and spas, wine cellars and gun rooms – and even a two-storey climbing wall. It is leading to a kind of iceberg architecture, a humble mansion on the surface just the visible peak of a gargantuan underworld, with subterranean possibilities only limited by the client's imagination.
"Houses in this part of London are trophy asset purchases," says Peter Preedy, associate director of residential property at Jones Lang LaSalle. "People don't want to move out, so they have to find a way of bringing everything they want into their homes. These mega basements are not about increasing the value of property – they are very personal things, which might in fact prove difficult to sell on."
One of the most personal plans – which itself set the precedent for this recent burrowing frenzy – dates back to 2008, when Foxtons founder Jon Hunt received permission for the most audacious basement of all, a colossal cellar to trump even the swankiest Beverley Hills crib.
Having bought a palatial villa on Kensington Palace Gardens, the most expensive street in the country, he was not to be outdone by his neighbours. Lakshmi Mittal's nearby "Taj Mittal" already featured an underground complex of Turkish baths and a pool lined with marble from the same quarry as the Taj Mahal. A few doors down, property mogul Leonard Blavatnik had bought up three former Russian Embassy buildings and since added an underground swimming pool, gym, private cinema and extensive garaging.
In a surreal competition of keeping up with the Joneses, billionaire-style, Hunt went one step further into the realms of fantasy. He proposed to dig a 22m-deep hole beneath his garden to house a tennis court, pool and gym, as well as a private museum for his collection of vintage Ferraris. The cavernous chamber would be illuminated from above, through the glass floor of a glistening rooftop infinity pool.
by Oliver Wainwright, The Guardian | Read more:
Illustration: Ben Hasler
