Pop svengali Pete Waterman’s penthouse flat near the recording studios where singers including Kylie Minogue and Rick Astley laid down some of their biggest hits is on sale for £1.35 million following a hefty price reduction.
The hitmaker first listed the two-bedroom, two-bathroom leasehold property in January of this year but reduced the asking price by almost a quarter in July, according to Zoopla.
Waterman moved from the premises to new studios on Borough High Street in 1999, but retained ownership of the apartment as a pied-à-terre. His main residence is in Cheshire.
“This flat in a Victorian warehouse has been my London base since 1986 when SAW took off,” he told the Daily Mail in 2015.
“When I moved in I found this pair of matching Odeon cinema lights dating back 70 years – the sort that used to pop up with the Wurlitzer organ in days gone by”.
The apartment is over 1,500sq ft and has a double-height vaulted ceiling, arched warehouse windows and original industrial winch and joist machinery beside a Juliet balcony.
A mezzanine level is home to the main bedroom, lit by a lantern skylight, and a black marble en suite bathroom.
There is a second bedroom and bathroom downstairs, as well as a kitchen, utility space and dining area slicked in a glossy oxblood shade.
Instead of gold records train enthusiast Waterman, who is set to front a four-part series on model railways for More 4, has affixed a selection of locomotive name and numberplates to one side of the fireplace.
The music mogul toured his old base for a Channel 5 documentary in 2001. “We were probably one of the world’s most state-of-the-art recording studios,” he said.
“We have five studios in this one building, working 24 hours a day. It was unglamorous on the outside, but inside it was pristine, with gold records everywhere and racing cars hanging off the walls.
“At one time we had as many people from all over the world coming to visit this studio as did Abbey Road. The thing we didn’t have was a zebra crossing.”
From 1984 to 1993 the trio scored thirteen number one singles and more than one hundred UK top 40 hits, thanks to a winning pop formula that helped launch the music careers of Neighbours stars Kylie Minogue and Jason Donovan among many others.
Critical acclaim proved elusive, though they did win three Ivor Novello Songwriter of the Year awards on the trot.
Keen to pivot into production, musicians Stock and Aitken had approached Waterman, who was in the the process of setting up his own record label PWL, with a track called The Upstroke in 1984.
It failed to make much of a dent in the charts, but was picked up in clubs and played by John Peel on Radio 1.
The partnership established, Stock Aitken Waterman went on to unleash a slew of powerhouse singles in the mid 1980s, including Rick Astley’s Never Gonna Give You Up, Dead or Alive’s You Spin Me Round (Like a Record) and Kylie hit I Should Be So Lucky – famously written and recorded in 40 minutes as the trio had forgotten about her visit.
Growing success saw them leave The Marquee in Soho and set up their own studio complex in south London, alongside Waterman’s label.
Gary Hersham, founding director of Beauchamp Estates, said: “As well as being in one of London’s hippest locations, moments from Borough Market and with easy access to the City, this stunning Manhattan loft-style penthouse comes with the priceless kudos of being part of British music history.”
Waterman appeared as a judge on Pop Idol in 2001 and was awarded an OBE for his services to music in the 2004 New Year Honours List.
In July, he shared a plaque he’d had made for the complex on social media, asking “who needs to wait twenty years for an official one?”
