The Varma Mansion: Revisited

"The Mansion"
Past Projects, Harrison Varma

The Lemming did a post on this magnificent house a little over a year ago. (March 8, 2009)

From the looks of it, someone decided they liked The Mansion, and had the £35,000,000 to pay for it - or a mutually acceptable amount. I haven't found indications that it's still on the market.

Here's one of the more complete descriptions of the Varma Mansion I found, that's still online:

"The Mansion by Harrison Varma"
LUXUO Luxury Blog (March 12th, 2009)

"Harrison Varma have created 'The Mansion', a luxurious home, located near the Kenwood House in the Hampstead area of London.

"This magnificent modern mansion located in Courtenay Avenue has been built to the highest specification with over 16,300 sq. feet of accommodation comprising of 8 bedroom suites, 6 reception rooms, cinema, indoor pool, gym and leisure facilities, staff apartment, 8 person lift as well as secure underground parking for 6 cars.

"The property is currently [March 12th, 2009] for sale with Savills for £35,000,000 ($49,000,000)."

Harrison Varma has maintained a couple of good-quality photos on the harrisonvarma.co.uk website, but for the most part The Mansion seems to have passed from the Web.

The three exterior views on this post are from househomedesign.com and the Varma website. Housedesign.com has a number of interior views which I presume show the mansion - but I wasn't able to verify that.

Why revisit an upscale house across the Atlantic - that's probably been off the market for a year? Good question.

I noticed that the 2009 post was being visited a bit more often than others from that period: and when I looked, the photo link was broken. Contemporist had taken down the page I'd linked to: which is a fairly common practice for online periodicals.

It makes sense, from a dollars-and-cents point of view: document storage costs money (not much, but it adds up); and quite a few outfits are - well, I suppose "budget conscious" is a good way to put it. It's a little rough on folks who come, looking for information that's not there any more: but that's the way it is.

That's also why The Lemming seldom removes posts - and why I keep 'old' pages on my websites. That's another topic.

Besides: I liked the look of the Varma Mansion, and wanted to come back for a look from time to time, myself.

Varma this, Varma that: who or what is this "Varma," anyway?

Harrison Varma is an architect, working in England, who has found a rather specialized niche for his talents. And, Harrison Varma is an architecture firm. From the about page of the Harrison Varma website:

"Harrison Varma is a boutique design-and-build company specialising in the creation of individually crafted, contemporary, luxury homes built to the highest standards.

"It has its own workforce of over 100 specialists and craftsmen and an independent joinery company...."

I'm near the other end of the income scale, from Varma's clients: but I'm glad that Harrison Varma is around, and that folks with the wealth it takes to build those houses are interested in having places built in the Hampstead, Highgate and Kenwood area of England.

This way, I get to look at photos of magnificent residences - without having to worry about maintaining them.