Property of the Week: Morpeth Terrace, the historic antiques-stuffed home of a Sotheby’s auction house boss in Victoria
Price: £1.495m
When Heinrich von Spreti, executive board member at Sotheby’s auction house, was looking for somewhere to live in London, he stuck to the old adage “location, location, location.” And, boy, did he find one.
His Grade II listed apartment on Morpeth Terrace, a sought-after mansion block, afforded von Spreti an extraordinary morning commute. “I couldn’t have had a better walk to the office, passing Buckingham Palace, Green Park, The Ritz, it’s all on the way to Bond Street,” he says. “Every day was an enormous pleasure.”
The second floor, one bedroom apartment also has direct views across to Westminster Cathedral, which as a Catholic, von Spreti also relished, listening to the sound of the choir as it drifted through his open windows. He snapped up the apartment in 1986, seduced by its high ceilings and elegant double reception room.
He set about restoring its period features, which took about a year and a half, and filled it, as one would expect given his occupation, with art and antiques. Swans are a particular theme alongside Wagner, von Spreti’s favourite composer. “My favourite place is the second room,” he says. “It’s very, very cosy and I love my large blue chair because it’s very comfortable, velvet woven with silk.”
Now von Spreti is moving full time to Munich, where he is president of Sotheby’s Germany, and must leave his beloved conversion in the heart of Victoria to another buyer with a good eye for a valuable antique.
Call 020 7495 9580; sothebysrealty.co.uk.