Property developer Christian Candy wants to build an extraordinary private spa and “leisure centre” under a Georgian property in Chelsea, creating one of London’s biggest family home basements.
Plans submitted to Kensington and Chelsea council for the development of Gordon House reveal a cavernous subterranean “lifestyle” space with a 20-metre swimming pool, cold plunge pool and jacuzzi, sauna and steam room, dance studio, three treatment rooms, cinema and 18-metre two-lane bowling alley.
Candy bought a long lease on the Grade II-listed building from The Royal Hospital Chelsea for £75mn last year. It was the first time the house had come on the market since it was built in 1809. It also includes an orangery built in 1725, and a third smaller building, Creek Lodge.
With mega-basement developments sparking an increasing number of planning disputes, Kensington and Chelsea has already said it will impose strict limits on their size and depth from the end of the year.
Westminster is under pressure from residents to follow suit.
But the two-acre grounds of Gordon House have given architects Paul Davis & Partners free rein to design a far more spacious basement — nearly 1,200 square metres — than is normally possible.
The swimming pool is only five metres shorter than the public pool at Chelsea Sports Centre in King’s Road.
Jonathan Hewlett, head of London residential at estate agency Savills, which handled the original sale, said: “They’re not going under the building, they’re going under the garden and that’s given them scope to accommodate everything they could possible want.”