There’s minimalism - ie not putting in much furniture - and then there’s minimalism by the legendary architect John Pawson CBE. His minimalism is both primitive and futuristic and a fine example of how effective it can be is in this house he designed for the original owner, American art collector Doris Lockhart Saatchi, Charles Saatchi’s first wife.
An unnamed American buyer has now bought the £6.75 million white stucco three bedroom house in Hay’s Mews, after the deal was fast-tracked in order to avoid the Autumn Budget’s rise in Stamp Duty for overseas buyers. The house was the last sale in Mayfair before the budget.
As part of the Autumn Budget the Government implemented their already announced intention to increase the Stamp Duty surcharge on overseas nationals buying UK residential property from 2 per cent to 3 per cent.
By exchanging and completing on the property on the 29th October the buyer avoided having to pay £125,000 in Stamp Duty tax.
Agents Wetherell said that both the vendor and purchaser’s lawyers “burned the midnight oil” before Budget day on the 30th. The team from Wetherell even spent the 28th and 29th physically taking out furniture from the house and carrying it across Mayfair to the Wetherell office on Mount Street for storage.
Dedication to the cause!
Until last week, the three storey house in Hay’s Mews was the home of American financier and art collector Ralph I Goldenberg. It was built/reconfigured in 1987 by Pawson from Saatchi’s commission and was quickly acknowledged as a masterpiece of minimalist design.
Offering cool uncluttered living spaces with dark-grey stone slab flooring, the dramatic interiors are illuminated by oversized full height windows on the ground and first floors. The house includes two spacious reception rooms, designed to showcase important works of art, a custom designed Pawson kitchen and a study.
The house features Pawson designed items that are now iconic sought-after design classics including a contemporary handle-free front door, font-like white marble Pawson Saatchi basins in the bathrooms and banks of white folding cupboards designed to keep spaces and surfaces clutter free.
The remarkable artistic house is complete with an internal garage, ground floor patio garden and a 30 ft long rooftop terraced garden.
In 1987, when Doris Lockhart Saatchi split from her husband Charles Saatchi, she moved to the Mayfair house in Hay’s Mews. The home’s pure white spaces were the perfect way to showcase her contemporary art, which included works by Damien Hirst and Angela Bulloch.
In October 2000 the Hay’s Mews house was purchased by prominent Chicago financier Ralph I Goldenberg who was the co-founder of financial clearing firm Goldenberg, Hehmeyer & Co. Ralph I Goldenberg was a collector of contemporary art so in the Mayfair house he displayed works by artists including Willem DeKooning, Jackson Pollock, Robert Ryman, Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg and Cy Twombly. Goldenberg lived in Mayfair until his retirement in 2018 when he moved to Italy where he lived until his death in 2022.
Peter Wetherell, Founder and Executive Chairman of Wetherell commented: “Over the last three years the buying power of Americans purchasing in US dollars in London has grown, and they have become a renewed force in London’s super-prime residential market. Such is the American influence for example, that this is the third American in a row to own the house in Hay’s Mews. Five sectors - Hedge funds, IT, medical provision, logistics and media – have generated huge wealth for America’s multi-millionaires and billionaires, and they see London as one of the few world-city locations to live, work and spend leisure time. Americans are domestically used to new build homes, so in London newly built or recently refurbished homes like the Hay’s Mews house carry a premium for them.”
