A St John’s Wood property owned by Monty Python star Eric Idle during the 1970s and 80s has had its price reduced.
The six-bedroom house was put on the market at the start of May for £9,750,000 but is now £8,950,000 after it was reduced by 8.2 percent last week.
This is the second property owned by Idle to come on the market in north London recently. Milkwood Studios, which was custom made in the 1980s and co-owned by five of the Python stars, was sold as a converted family home last December, also through Savills, with a guide price of £12 million.
The comedian and composer lived in the mid-Victorian home on Carlton Hill during the filming of each of the five Python films and was often away for long stretches in these years.
In one of these periods, while Idle was making The Life of Brian in Tunisia, the house was rented by Carrie Fisher who was filming a Star Wars sequel at Elstree Studios.
She relates an episode when, waking one night, she found her host entertaining the Rolling Stones downstairs. Her cast mate Harrison Ford – who stayed in the house a few years later when starring in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom – dropped by, and Fisher says that there is a scene in The Empire Strikes Back where Princess Leia and Han Solo are clearly showing the after effects of this night of debauchery.
While it may have housed some extraordinary residents, the property’s architecture is also striking, bordering on fantastical, with its asymmetrical composition and crenellated turret.
The Grade II-listed house was built in c. 1845 in the Victorian Gothic Revival style as part of the residential development of St John’s Wood after the foundation of Abbey Road in 1824.
Giles Elliott, associate director of Savills St John’s Wood, said: “That pocket of St John’s Wood has some quite unusual houses. They were built in a time called ‘The Battle of the Styles’ when they were looking for new styles of building after the Georgian period.
“This house looks like a mini-castle, it’s awesome!”
The five-storey home is believed to have been developed by Francis William Armson, a builder, surveyor and architect known for his device of placing asymmetrical Gothic or Tudor-style houses diagonally opposite each other.
The houses in this part of St John’s Wood would have been unique in London at the time, and acted as a prototype for later suburban development in the city.
In contrast to the fanciful façade, the interior has been fully modernised and the castellated tower is now a study with an adjoining roof terrace.
Three of the bedrooms are en suite and there is ample outside space provided by two balconies, a patio and front and back garden.
Off street parking and a garage are an added benefit.
Read more:
St John’s Wood: Culture, grandeur and a world famous crossing
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