A mansion at the centre of one of London’s most intriguing unsolved murders has been put on sale for £12.5m.
During the 1970s and 1980s the house was home to Aristos Constantinou, the self-made founder of the Ariella fashion label.
The 40-year-old was found dead at the house, on The Bishop’s Avenue, Hampstead, in the early hours of New Year’s Day 1985.
Mr Constantinou had died shortly after returning home from a party with his wife Elena, then 26. The father-of-three had been shot six times with silver coloured bullets, and at the time Mrs Constantinou told police they had been ambushed by masked, gun-wielding burglars when they arrived home.
She said she had been locked in one of the home’s seven bathrooms while her husband was shot, and had later managed to climb down a drainpipe to escape and raise the alarm.
Nobody has ever been charged with the killing, although police did reopen the case in 2017 giving hope to Mr. Constantinou’s family that his killer might finally be brought to justice.
A spokeswoman for the Metropolitan Police said: "The Metropolitan Police Service remains committed to solving the murder of Aristos Constantinou who was brutally murdered in East Finchley on New Year’s Day in 1985.
“As with any undetected murder, we will act on any new information we are given and carry out regular reviews of the case. A review of this case is currently ongoing."
The seven-bedroom, 12,526 sq ft house is on sale with Glentree Estates.
Hidden behind electric gates the front door of the house is flanked by pairs of double height Grecian style columns.
Inside there is a grand double height entrance hall with marble floors, opulent décor, and a vast chandelier.
Other highlights include a dining room with a table large enough to comfortably seat 28 guests, and a bathroom with large cherub mural and frescoes.
The cavernously large pool house with arched windows, decorated with patterned tiles and statues, overlooking a 0.6 acre garden.
Mr. Constantinou had bought the house, built in 1931 and named Heath House, for £400,000 in the 1970s – around £2.5m in today’s money.
It was last sold, in 2015, for £9m to an offshore company, Mayberrie Consultants Ltd, registered in the British Virgin Islands.
Trevor Abrahmsohn, managing director of Glentree, said he had sold the house on behalf of the Constantinou family, to an Indian businessman. "At that point it had a little chapel, and you could see the bullet holes still in the wall," he said.
"I think that most people would want to knock the house down and start again because it is a little bit higgledy piggledy and it is all very dated," he said. "It will not be everyone’s cup of tea."
However he is confident that a buyer will be found, simply because of the site’s location on the fringes of Hampstead Heath.
"The Bishop’s Avenue is probably one of the best known streets in the world," he said. "It is a status symbol."
