Avery House, Mayfair - London
From Whore House to Commercial Head Quarters …
This picture is taken from the sales brochure …
Situated in the heart of Mayfair is the very stylish Avery Row with its trendy bespoke shops, cafes, exclusive restaurants and designer pubs. This area is sandwiched between South Molton Street, Brook Street and Oxford Street, it was once referred to as Poverty Lane, reflecting the nature of the neighbourhood at the time. How the times have changed, it is now one of the richest places in London ....
The twisty lanes actually follow the route of one of London’s most famous lost waterways the Tyburn. Avery Row takes its name from the bricklayer who cleverly paved over the waterway to make the streets.
Avery House, built circa 1800, was used as a brothel at one stage of its life, it was according to history a very successful one at that! A thriving well visited business! When we came to the project it was a run down carcass of a building, our commercial brief was to turn it into a prestigious office head quarters, we set about modernising and refurbishing it throughout. The roof design was changed to incorporate a stylish roof garden, however much like a lot of towns and cities the local regulation requirement was that this roof garden could only be used at certain times of the day. The views across London were wonderful. The basement was area was designed with vast walls of decorative old brick, at the time we took on the project it was running with foul smelling water. The only way to deal with this issue was to undertake a ‘tanking’ installation, this is a specialist process using a particular mix of chemicals and cement, today there are other ways of dealing with the issues of damp. However, it was a big and expensive project.
From the sales brochure
The finished product was stunning, even if I do say that myself!! It was put on the market and was quickly snapped up by Cartier Jewellers at the highest per square foot cost in Mayfair at the time. I should say it is a headquarters building not a stash for their jewellery, in case anyone is thinking of doing a heist off the back of this blog!! No workshops there!! But respecting their privacy there is no photo’s of the interior here either.
Description from the sales brochure
As a matter of interest/gossip, a lot of the jewellery companies in London do not advertise their workshops, Cartier was subject in 1997 of a robbery. The gang of thieves, came in via the skylight and helped themselves to a vast amount of jewellery and gems; it was alleged at the time in the press that they stole more than £30 million, however Cartier later denied that it was that amount? Police confirmed that they had no idea how the robbers knew where the workshop was as they had no signage. I have been lucky enough to have been into one of their workshops. Many years ago, it was fascinating, the jewellers had big bags full of diamonds that they would just poured onto a dark velvet cloth, one of the jewellers poured thousands of pounds of cut diamonds into my hand, he asked me how much I thought they were worth, I suggested a few thousand? It was £30,000.00!!.... I was not allowed to take them home!!
