Living and learning
Developers are teaching us lessons in spacious living with their covetable school conversions, by Mary Wilson
New Year, new school term, but what about all those Victorian schools which have become redundant? Because councils find them too expensive to heat and maintain, they are selling them off to developers, which means all the more lovely, spacious, period apartments for us.
The former De Beauvoir School site in Tottenham Road, N1 is being converted by Turnhold Croft into 20 one-two-and three-bedroom apartments. The school has a brick-and-stone facade with tall windows and ornate gables and the loft-style apartments have high vaulted ceilings.
In the old grounds, Telford Homes is building 14 one-,two-and three-bedroom apartments which will also be spacious and have basement parking. Thomson Currie is selling the new apartments from ?275,000 to ?450,000 and the converted properties from ?250,000 to ?425,000.
Northpoint, just off Camden Road, NW1 is a ?55-million scheme on the site of the former Jewish Free School. Crest Nicholson London are building over 100 homes, including apartments, penthouses, townhouses and mews.
Jonathan Vandermolen of Insignia Blenheim Bishop, a former pupil of the school, says, ?There was always a big sense of community when we were at school and Crest Nicholson seem to be re-creating that same feel, but in a residential mode.?
The development will have Georgian-style four-storey properties and six-storey contemporary buildings for a wide mix of owners from first-time buyers to families. Prices start at ?389,950 for a two-bedroom apartment and from ?855,000 for a four-bedroom townhouse.
And off Liverpool Road, N1 a new development called A+ is part new-build, part conversion of a former school. The 50 one-to three-bedroom apartments and four three-bed townhouses start at around ?190,000 with FPDSavills.
CONTACT NUMBERS
FPDSavills ? 020 7472 5025
Insignia Blenheim Bishop ? 020 7290 2800
Thomson Currie ? 020 7354 5224
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