PressSection: AZ Home Edition: Final Chaser Page: AH1 The Arizona RepublicENGLISH CLASS SCOTTSDALE FIRM DESIGNS 40,000-SQUARE-FOOT ESTATE NEAR LONDON Written By: Sue Doerfler, The Arizona Republic  Eight luxury suites on the main floor. Two penthouse apartments, each with 3,000 square feet. Tennis courts with underground heating. An ornamental lake and garden. A main suite that's bigger than most people's homes and has its own swimming pool and library. A fancy hotel? No, the largest estate to be built in half a century in England -- and the most expensive. Speculation has it that it's been purchased by either the Malaysian crown prince, His Royal Highness Prince Abdullah of Pahang, or sheik Mohammed al Maktoum, the crown prince of Dubai. The 40,000-square-foot estate, called Updown Court, is more than an overseas oddity. It has a Valley connection: It was designed by the architecture firm John B. Scholz Architect Inc. in Scottsdale. The firm, known for its upscale, luxury homes, many for celebrities, has designed residences all over the world. This project, however, "blew us away," said John Scholz III, marketing director for the firm. His father designed the estate, the largest done by the company. With its 30 bedrooms, two dozen or more bathrooms, banquet hall that seats 30 and 28-seat cinema, the home is about the size of a small hotel or a department store. To design such a home, the firm had to research English building materials as well as upscale products that would be suitable to such a home; use the metric system when completing the drawings; and investigate the wooded site in the rolling English countryside of Windlesham, Surrey, about 25 miles from London. They studied a topographic map and a tree survey. Design ordinances prohibited building in the area, unless a previous structure burned down. The property's original small house had burned more than 10 years ago, and the developer bought additional acreage to create a larger estate. He secured approval from the local council to have such a large home built, Scholz said. The home was built using the same construction system -- a commercial concrete system -- as the White House, he added. The walls are constructed of steel framing. The estate, which took about three years to build, is nearly complete, with the new owners expected to move in during the next several months. The architectural drawings took about a year. "In a lot of ways, it's not that different than building a regular house," Scholz said. But it has more elaborate features. "The developer went to Italy and toured all the quarries and hand-selected a block of marble," Scholz said. The rich black stone was hand-cut to create the custom features in the home. The marble has been used in part of the flooring and in the columns and other details. Even more fantastic is that the driveway is lined in the marble. But there's more:
Unconfirmed reports appearing in British newspapers say that the estate sold for 70 million pounds, which is about $90 million to $100 million U.S. The buyer's identity is being kept secret, as is the developer's. Since designing the English estate, the Scholz architecture firm has had inquiries for other homes of equal size, Scholz said. Homes of this size and price are not unheard of in the United States, he added. CAPTION: Updown Court (top) boasts 30 bedrooms, two dozen or so bathrooms, a banquet hall that seats 30 and a 28-seat cinema. The home is about the size of a small hotel or a department store. A rooftop swimming pool (left) is half indoors and half outdoors. Copyright (c) The Arizona Republic. All rights reserved. Reproduced with the permission of Gannett Co., Inc. by NewsBank, inc. Back to Press Page |