Striped house owner plans to demolish it to build her dream London home

EXCLUSIVE: Owner Zipporah Lisle-Mainwaring wants to turn the disused office in Kensington into a dream London home
Zipporah Lisle-Mainwaring
Alex Lentati

A property developer who painted her multi million-pound Kensington townhouse in red and white stripes to the fury of neighbours is demolishing the building, the Standard has learned.

Zipporah Lisle-Mainwaring was told to get rid of the stripes after her neighbours labelled them an eyesore. She lost a legal challenge to the council order in court but is appealing the decision.

Today she revealed that demolition work had begun but admitted that if she had known what difficulties the paint job would cause her she would never have done it.

Ms Lisle-Mainwaring, who lives in a grand apartment in Switzerland, wants to turn the disused office in South End into a dream London home.

She is currently pressing ahead with plans to flatten the entire building after being granted permission by the planning inspectorate.

Battle: Zipporah Lisle-Mainwaring outside the house in Kensington
Alex Lentati

But her plans have been beset by legal challenges after she applied in 2013 to build a mega-basement, and she has so far spent more than £1 million trying to fight them.

Work to demolish the property began on March 22, with asbestos being removed and the interior stripped out.

But she cannot actually level the building until she gets a so-called party wall agreement from her adjoining neighbours, which could take months.

The controversial striped house in Kensington
AFP

She also now plans to request planning permission for a single basement extension for her new four-bedroom home.

However, her legal battles are not yet over as neighbours are understood to have appealed for leave to appeal the planning inspectorate’s decision in February to grant permission for its demolition and change of use.

Nevertheless there is no injunction to stop Ms Lisle-Mainwaring from knocking down the property before any appeal can be heard.

Ms Lisle-Mainwaring told the Standard she had “no doubt” her neighbours would cause her more “terrible problems” in trying to delay her.

She said: “It has been very stressful but at least I have a comfortable home to live in and am not going to go bankrupt.”

The “noisy” work has angered neighbours, who fear it will only get worse as the demolition is completed.

One said: “Living in Geneva she has no idea of the amount of disruption she is causing.

“The serious work hasn’t even started yet- so it is likely to get worse.”

Mohammed Dawood, who lives opposite the townhouse, said: “It is really loud in the mornings and I struggle to sleep through when it starts at around 6am.”

Conservative councillor Daniel Moylan said he had not received any complaints around the works but that council officers would investigate any “noisy work” outside of sociable hours if there is evidence of it.

He added: “People are very anxious about what is going on in that house. It’s become something of a local icon.

“But it is a free country, just about, and we can’t stop her from doing the works so we will have to wait for the next steps.”

Ms Lisle-Mainwaring was accused of painting the property to get her own back on neighbours who objected to her plans — an allegation she denies.

But she conceded that if she had known at the time what kind of effect it would have on her life, she “certainly would not have painted it red and white”.

Ms Lisle-Mainwaring scoffed at claims building work commenced so early in the morning, saying it was “against the rules” for anything to start before 8am.

“It’s ridiculous, it does not happen - they (the builders) are not allowed to do it.”

However she added she would continue to fight the Hammersmith Magistrates Court ruling that she must remove the stripes, saying: “My lawyers say I should just leave it but I feel strongly about the principle of it.”

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