The Wall Street Journal - 20.03.2020

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL. Friday, March 20, 2020 |M9

very unusual to us,” said Mrs. Ka-

galovsky. “When I saw the room

sizes and that there were a lot of

rooms on each floor, I thought,

this house we could live in.”

Mrs. Kagalovsky said that the

ground-floor swimming pool with

french doors leading out into the

backyard clinched the deal with

her husband, 62, a former oil in-

dustry executive. In 2002, the Ka-

galovskys paid $17.85 million for

the house, although they didn’t

move in until 2006, upon comple-

tion of a restoration that cost

around $13.36 million.

Stanley House’s historic status

meant the project was carried out

under the eagle eye of officers

paired, and reused upstairs.

The original wooden staircase,

said Mrs. Kagalovsky, was beyond

repair. It was replaced with a rep-

lica. In the basement, meanwhile,

the house’s flagstones had sur-

vived, as had the bread oven and

inglenook fireplace in the original

kitchen, now used as a television

room.

For design, they called on inte-

rior designer Nicky Haslam. Under

his supervision, playful details

were added throughout the house;

delicate clouds were painted onto

the ceiling of the first floor hall-

way, and trompe-l’oeil Chinoiserie

decoration was added to the pan-

els in one of the ground floor’s

two living rooms.

During the work, Mr. Haslam

found a watercolor painting of

Hamilton seated in the drawing

room. The picture showed the

room with deep pink walls. “He

decided we should use a similar

color,” said Mrs. Kagalovsky.

Mr. Haslam used a mixture of

bespoke and antique furniture,

and layered rich textures and fab-

rics. The house is for sale because

the Kagalovskys are empty nest-

ers. Philip has left home and Mrs.

Kagalovsky said they both feel

Stanley House is too large and

high maintenance for a couple,

particularly since they want to

spend part of the year traveling.

Last year, according to research

by Savills, 35 homes priced at $24

million or more were sold in

prime central London. In 2018, 45

homes in the same price bracket

were sold. And in 2014, when cen-

tral London’s market was rising

strongly, 47 $24 million-plus

homes exchanged hands.

For Mrs. Kagalovsky, the most

important thing to get across is

that, while undeniably large, Stan-

ley House still feels cozy. And al-

though its décor is formal, she

says it works well as a practical

family home. “It is a mixture of

beautiful things but I would never

give up comfort for the look, god

forbid,” she said. “It is all usable.”

from English Heritage—now called

Historic England—Britain’s lead-

ing conservation body. Strict rules

about landmark buildings meant

they couldn’t alter the layout of

the house, and could repair but

not alter its fabric. Fortunately,

Mrs. Kagalovsky said, the rooms

had “perfect dimensions” already.

Centuries of paper and paint

had to be scraped off the house’s

original wood wall paneling, she

said, and its floor-to-ceiling sash

windows were removed and re-

paired. The Kagalovskys were

given permission to install new

timber flooring in the ground

floor but they were required to

have the floor boards lifted, re-

King’s Road, where Stanley House is

located, was originally built for roy-

alty. The 2-mile stretch started life

as a private road to convey King

Charles II (1630-1685) from central

London to Kew Palace.

In 1830, it was opened to the

public, and rapidly gained a reputa-

tion as an upscale shopping street.

In the 1880s, its landmark store,

Peter Jones, which started life as a

drapery store on nearby Draycott

Avenue, expanded to become a sin-

gle department store, one of the

first in the U.K. It is still open, now

owned by the John Lewis Partner-

ship, and the Duchess of Cam-

bridge frequently shops there.

During the 1960s, the King’s Road

was the nerve center of groovy Lon-

don. New boutiques opened, notably

the Chelsea Drugstore, a three-story

complex of cafés, restaurants, and

fashion stores. Buyers were treated

to new heights of service, and girls

dressed in purple catsuits delivered

their purchases home on motor-

bikes. It is now a McDonald’s.

Mary Quant invented the mini

skirt at her shop, Bazaar, and the

King’s Road was also home to the

first Chelsea Girl boutique, and one

of the earliest branches of Laura

Ashley. In the evening, celebrities

like the Rolling Stones and George

Best hung out at the Chelsea

Kitchen (which opened in 1962 and

closed in 2006), while Princess

Margaret, John Lennon, and Yoko

Ono all dined at Club dell’Aretusa, a

hugely fashionable restaurant-cum-

disco that opened in 1967. It is now

a boxing gym.

In the 1970s, the King’s Road got

gritty when Malcolm McLaren and

THE ELGIN MARBLES

KING’S ROAD

liament vindicated his conduct and

Lord Elgin was able to sell the El-

gin marbles to the British Museum

for roughly $43,000. The marbles

remain at the museum, despite re-

peated efforts by the Greek gov-

ernment to retrieve

them. In 2014, Unesco

offered to mediate the

row, according to a gov-

ernment research brief-

ing, but the offer was

turned down by the

British Museum in

2015. An opinion poll
      done by YouGov found
      that 37% of British peo-
      ple supported the mar-
      bles’ return to Greece;
      23% opposed it.

neighborhood, attracting huge au-

diences. But many in Britain were

horrified and newspapers and pub-

lic figures, including the poet Lord

Byron, denounced Lord Elgin as an

art thief. However the British Par-

The casts of sculptures displayed

in Stanley House have a dubious

origin. They are replicas of the El-

gin marbles, 2,500-year-old sculp-

tures and friezes. The removal of

the ancient originals from Greece

has been a source of controversy

for two centuries.

The architect of what some

consider their theft was a Scot-

tish nobleman, Thomas Bruce, the

seventh Earl of Elgin, a soldier

turned diplomat who was sta-

tioned in Constantinople (now Is-

tanbul) in 1799. With a keen inter-

est in classical art, Lord Elgin

persuaded the Turkish sultan to

allow him to record and remove

Greek antiquities. He claimed this

would protect them from damage

in the continuing conflict between

the Turks and Greeks.

Between 1802 and

1812, Lord Elgin re-

moved a hoard of

sculptures dating from

the fifth century from

the Parthenon in Ath-

ens (which was then

under Turkish domina-

tion) and transported

them to England.

Initially, he displayed

the marbles at a rented

house in the Mayfair

Vivienne Westwood, front left,

and Malcolm McLaren, front

right, at SEX boutique in 1985

Bazaar, Mary Quant’s boutique

VANESSA BERBERIAN FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL (3)
Plaster casts of the Elgin marbles, above, below and bottom, were a gift to Stanley House’s former owner,
William Hamilton, private secretary to Lord Elgin, who took the marbles out of Greece in the early 1800s.

Dame Vivienne Westwood opened

their SEX boutique and defined the

look of the punk movement—torn

T-shirts and bondage trousers. But

during the 1980s, the King’s Road

became less edgy as Sloane Rang-

ers—a movement inspired by Prin-

cess Diana—moved in and the road

became a playground for the young

and wealthy.

Sloane Ranger is a term that

was popularized by the writer Pe-

ter York in his 1982 book “The Offi-

cial Sloane Ranger Handbook,”

which detailed the habits and cus-

toms of wealthy, privately educated

young men and women who lived

and socialized in Chelsea. The

Rangers’ closest North American

comparison is the preppy.

In the ‘70s and ‘80s, King’s Road was the epicenter of London’s punk scene. FROM TOP: DAVID MONTGOMERY/GETTY IMAGES; HABANS PATRICE/PARIS MATCH/GETTY IMAGES; UNIVERSAL IMAGES GROUP/GETTY IMAGES

LUXURY ESTATE

14 BINGHAM HILL CIRCLE

RUMSON, NJ

This property is listed for sale by Bruce Germinsky (LIC # 0675636), Broker-Owner with BG Realty Services(LIC # 1112528), PH: (732) 963-9813. Elite Auctions is a marketing service provider for auctions and is not a

licensed real estate broker. The auction services referred to herein are not available to residents of any state whereprohibited by applicable state law. Elite Auctions, its agents and affiliates, broker partners, auctioneer, and sellers do

not warrant or guarantee the accuracy or completeness of any information and shall have no liability for errors oromissions or inaccuracies under any circumstances in this or any other property listings or advertising, promotional

or publicity statements and materials. This is not meant as a solicitation for listings. Brokers are protected andencouraged to participate. All bidders are required to pre-register for each property auction in accordance with the

Terms and Conditions. Equal Housing Opportunity.

PREVIEWS EVERY WEEKEND

SAT & SUN | 1-4 PM

BEGINNING MARCH 14

AUCTION WITHOUT RESERVE

THURSDAY, APRIL 2 | 11 AM

844.94.ELITE

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