Over the past 200 years this warehouse in the City of London has lived many lives. Originally a wagon repair shop, it was later a sawmill, and then converted into a recording studio used by the Pet Shop Boys.
In the 1980s it was converted into a house – previous residents have included an Oscar-winning film director and a celebrity artist and film maker.
Now the extraordinary, three storey, circa 4,440 sq ft house, with its massive open plan kitchen living room and secret garden, is for sale with The Modern House for £6m.
The house is hidden in plain sight close to some of the City’s biggest financial institutions including the Bank of England.
Its original wagon doors lead through to an internal courtyard, and then on to the three bedroom house, which also has a study, a gym, and a roof terrace.
“It is incredibly private,” said Corey Hemingway, head of prime sales at The Modern House. “Nobody knows it is there because it is hidden behind a 13ft brick wall and utterly secluded.”
The building was once used by Whitbread Brewery, where it was used as a workshop to repair the horse-drawn wagons used to distribute its beer to London’s pubs. It was also used as a blacksmiths’, stables, a fodder store, and later a sawmill.
After the building was converted into a house one of its first owners was Sam Taylor-Johnson, the Turner Prize-nominated artist turned film maker. She is a long time collaborator with the Pet Shop Boys, producing their videos, singing on two of their tracks, and producing others. She rented the house to the band so that they could make use of its ground-floor recording studio.
After Taylor-Johnson, who is now married to actor Aaron Taylor-Johnson, moved in the house was sold to the film director Joe Wright (Pride & Prejudice, Atonement, Cyrano) and his wife, the musician and sitar player Anoushka Shankar, whose work has been nominated for six Grammy awards.
During their tenure the couple, who have two sons and are now divorced, called in the London-based architect Charles Tashima, director of Studio Tashima, to upgrade the property whilst preserving as much of its historic character as possible. This meant exposing the original brickwork, roof trusses, and massive timber beams which run across the 56-ft living room.
Tashima added some personal touches too, including reclaimed timber panelling, patterned Moroccan tiles, and sections of fossil limestone flooring salvaged during the renovation of London Heathrow’s Terminal 2.
The current owners – a tech entrepreneur and a publisher - bought the property in 2019 as a live work space, with office space on the ground floor.
They added their own touches to the property, including the deep orange rubber floors in the main hallway, and a customised kitchen. The soundproofed recording studio is now used as a gym.
The property has been put on the market because its owners want to move to the country.
