The Queen's new neighbours

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The Hindujas’ £100 million mansion is ready to move in. S Kalyana Ramanathan walks by the exclusive address.

Astatue of Baron John Lawrence, governor of Punjab during the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857 who later became viceroy of India, stands guard at the entrance of Carlton House Terrance in central London. The great imperialist would have been surprised, to put it mildly, to find that the new owners of the prime property along the street are an Indian family — the four Hinduja brothers, Srichand, Gopichand, Prakash and Ashok Hinduja, who head a diversified global conglomerate with interests in trading, automobiles, oil, banking, power, defence and a lot else. The Hinduja family traces its origins to Sindh and first made its fortune in Iran during the reign of the Shah. With a net worth of £6 billion, the Hindujas, principally Srichand and Gopichand who live in Britain, made their debut this year on the Sunday Times Rich List, coming in at number nine.

Earlier this month news leaked to the British media that the “first Indian family” of Britain — who had paid nearly £60 million for the palatial mansion in 2006 and then spent another £40 million and five years restoring it and refurbishing it — was ready to move into its new home next month. The Hindujas’ property numbers 13 to 16 of this stretch that is numbered from 11 to 19.

Carlton House Terrace is a stone’s throw from Buckingham Palace, the Queen’s London residence. The houses along this stretch have been the address of several prime ministers, and eminent historical figures like Lord Curzon and Lord Kitchener, besides housing institutions such as the Royal Society and the British Academy. In fact, the Hindujas already had an apartment on the street before they invested in this property.

The four houses that the Hindujas have bought were built in the late 1820s-early 1830s on land previously occupied by Carlton House, the residence of the Prince Regent who became George IV. It’s architect, John Nash (not to be confused with the Nobel laureate and American mathematician), was the one who remodelled Buckingham House into Buckingham Palace, besides coming up with the design for developments along Regent Street and Regent Park. In fact, Carlton House Terrace was part of the Crown Estates — property owned by the British sovereign — and served as its headquarters until 2005. This heritage and grade 1 residential property is now the most exclusive and expensive of its kind in the entire United Kingdom.

By total spend the Hindujas Carlton House Terrace property falls in the same league as the £117 million that another Indian, Laxmi Niwas Mittal, had paid in May 2008 for a house on Kensington Palace Gardens. This was Mittal’s second house on the street, dubbed “billionaire’s row” in the media, the first being a 55,000 sqft mansion he bought in 2004 for £57 million. Mittal, who has been topping Britain’s Rich List for many years now, bought a third house on Kensington Palace Gardens a month later in June 2008 for £70 million.

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The Hindujas’ property is commonly described in media reports as having six floors. But it is plain for all to see and count that there are only four floors to the Hindujas’ palatial new residence, unless there are hidden mezzanine floors without any windows. It would be even more intriguing if the building had two underground floors!

The media is yet to get access to the property, but there is reportedly enough and more space in the 50-room, around 70,000 sqft building for the 30-odd members of the clan. Snippets that have trickled into the British media suggest that the house has been carved out into four separate but inter-connected apartments, which also include a private theatre, a swimming pool, and a glass dining table that can seat 30 people.

From all accounts, the structure has been meticulously restored in a way that has not raised hackles in conservative circles in Britain. Paddy Pugh, the director for London of English Heritage, a semi-government body that champions historic places, told Sunday Times newspaper, “I can’t think of another domestic restoration project on this scale with buildings of this importance. Rarely have we seen such opulence allied to such craftsmanship.” In fact, the property was restored under the watchful eye of English Heritage.

Despite several requests, the Hinduja family, which is media shy at the best of times, has not allowed any mediaperson a peek into the house, let alone let him take pictures of the interiors.

The Hindujas had initially planned to produce a small brochure that would illustrate the transformation of this Victorian property from a state of shabby disrepair to its original stately beauty as conceived by Nash.

The idea of this brochure has apparently now been dropped after they were told that it would attract unnecessary media attention. The Hindujas had, around the beginning of the new millennium, come under a massive media scrutiny over a cash-for-passports scandal and insiders say they still cringe at the thought of being repeatedly referenced in the media over that sordid affair.

Brochure or no brochure, however, the Hindujas will surely get a lot of public attention when they finally move in next door to the Queen.