He was famous for his fast driving and even faster personal life and now the former home of James Hunt – the 1970s sex symbol, F1 champion and all round racing legend, is up for sale.

It’s a four bedroom mews house in Normand Mews, West Kensington, London W14 and yours for £2.75 million.

Ok so the smell of petrol smeared racing outfits and Brut after shave has long gone – Hunt left three years after buying in 1980 – but the changes he made to the house linger.

The current owners, Peter and Carol Harrison, say Hunt bought the house (which is in fact two mews homes put together) because the garage had space for his beloved Ferraris and classic car collection.

The property, which is within a gated mews community, witnessed some of his rocky personal life including a marriage to Suzy Miller (who left him for Richard Burton) and also happier times with Sarah Lomax, with whom he had two sons but also later split from.

Changes Hunt made to the addresss – No. 7 & No.8 – during his three year stint there included adding new bedrooms, a 19th century spiral staircase, a domed ceiling in the master bedroom and a Jacuzzi, some of which remain.

But Hunt may not recognise much else now. Recently, the house has been refurbished with state of the art, luxury amenities including an Italian Valcucine glass kitchen and Basalt worktops, an in-wall gas fireplace, a home cinema and a hidden wine cellar with space for 1,060 bottles.

The master bedroom has sliding doors opening on to an astro-turfed sundeck and each room comes equipped with TVs and Sonos Music systems.

Despite these modern-day embellishments, the Harrisons were nevertheless keen that Hunt’s time at the property isn’t forgotten. Several years ago the couple asked English Heritage to put up a ‘lived here’ blue plaque but the rules are clear – only 20 years after someone’s death or 100 years after their birth can it be added. So the couple, keen not to hang around, had their own plaque made instead.

There are several ‘real’ ones in the area, too. Including one for one for Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Mahatma Gandi.  There are some less deceased famous faces in the area though, including singer Estelle and TV presenter Konnie Huq.

So where did Hunt after shipping out of the house in 1982? To Wimbledon, and a spell in suburbia before he sadly succumbed to a heart attack in 1993, soon after proposing to what sadly wouldn’t be the third Mrs Hunt.

Mews properties like this have become popular in recent years; they’re quirky, have bags of personality and character compared to the huge houses they’re usually behind.

A pregnant Kate Hudson recently purchased a £4 million Mews house in North London which she will share with boyfriend Matt Bellamy (lead vocalist in Muse) when she stays in London.

This is a guest blog by writer Roger Hunt.

When a plastic window salesman comes to my door I like to keep them talking. Why? Well, it gives me a tiny crumb of satisfaction that I’m wasting their time and maybe stopping them calling on someone who’s going to fall for their sales patter. It’s petty I know but few things upset me more than seeing perfectly good wood windows being replaced with ugly, unsustainable and far from cheap unplasticised polyvinyl choloride or uPVC as its better known.

Windows make up the face of a home and contribute hugely to its character. Estate agents agree. In a survey by English Heritage 82% of them felt that original features such as sash windows tend to add financial value to properties and 78% believed they helped to sell a property more quickly. 

© Boris Baggs, courtesy of English Heritage -an original timber door (left) that compliments the characters of a terrace row of Victorian homes, an effect destroyed by the plastic replacement on the right © Boris Baggs, courtesy of English Heritage

Replacing original windows is incredibly wasteful and it’s worth remembering that the timber used to make them was usually of very high quality. In fact, it’s not uncommon to find wooden windows that are 100 or even 200 years old and still going strong. If they are damaged it’s possible to make relatively inexpensive repairs which is something that’s virtually impossible to do with plastic windows – they invariably get shipped off to landfill.    

 Modern wood windows made from sustainably sourced timber by reputable firms are of a high standard and are expected to last at least 60 years. With plastic windows it’s not unusual to see signs of deterioration quite early in their life despite claims they’re ‘maintenance free’. That’s why there’s now special paint to “transform weathered and discolored uPVC”.

 The common argument for replacing wood windows is energy efficiency but this is largely down to the glazing within the window rather than what the frame is made of. Wood itself is extremely thermally efficient and there’s lots you can do in terms of draught proofing and adding secondary or double glazing – specialist companies can help with this.  
 When it comes to sustainability, wood is naturally renewable and as trees grow they soak up CO2 from the atmosphere. uPVC is a product of the petrochemical industry. 

 Then there’s that all important question of price. High performance, double-glazed timber windows need cost no more than their PVC-U equivalents: research for the Wood Window Alliance reveals that wood windows work out between 2-7% cheaper than uPVC over their lifetime.

 So what are you going to do next time the plastic window salesman comes calling? I’m going to carry on talking!

Roger Hunt is one of the UK’s leading architectural, environmental and property writers. Follow him on Twitter at @huntwriter.

Whenever Primelocation has been shopping in around Knightsbridge in recent years it’s been obvious that something big was cooking within the huge construction site on the junction where the Brompton Road, Sloane Street and Kensington Road converge, slowly replacing a drab office building.

Richly relaxed: The lounge of One Hyde Park's £140 million penthouse apartment

From its early days the name of designers Christian and Nick Candy were headlined as the stylists behind the project, which soon had a name, too – One Hyde Park – as well as the involvement of architect Richard Rogers, best known among other things as the designer of Channel 4’s striking HQ near the Houses of Parliament.

But what has really made this apartment development famous are the prices being demanded for its properties. As early as February 2008, when the site was still rubble and diggers, prices for the largest of the penthouse apartments were being reported as in excess of £100m and while the housing boom continued sales were healthy – Nick Candy claimed to have sold properties worth £767 million in the first phase and, after the lull that followed the near collapse of the world banking system, more last year pushing up the total to a billion.

High expectations: The front of One Hyde Park, from which residents have views of Hyde Park, Knightsbridge and Harrods,

So for the people who have already bought here, or those that may be considering it, what’s on offer? The 86 apartments within the site are best described as super prime and are within four blocks or ‘pavilions’ all with spectacular views over Hyde Park, Sloane Street, Harrods and the London skyline.

The complex, which is being operated by hotel chain Mandarin International, includes a private cinema, 21m swimming pool, saunas, steam rooms, squash court, gym – and at the less prosaic end of the luxury market, a golf simulator, wine cellars, library, 60 on-site staff and their own Rolex shop.

Million pound menu: the dining room

Such luxurious surroundings mean even the smallest, one-bedroom apartment starts at £6.5 million – as much as a five-bedroom detached house a couple of miles away in the richer suburbs of the capital – and rapidly rise to £140 million for the most expensive penthouse apartment, although this hasn’t stopped some of the world’s richest people buying, including the prime minister of Qatar.

George Clarke is a busy man; TV’s pin up architect has just finished starring at this year’s Grand Designs Live at the NEC but our reporter Cheryl Markosky tracked him down before he went to get the low down on ‘Gorgeous George’ – who turns out to be much more than just a pretty face.

George has some interesting political views about the recession, the banking industry and the housing industry. Read our exclusive interview.

What do the Duke of Westminster, Kualar Lumpar and Liverpool have in common? The answer is Cesar Peli, one of the world’s leading architects famed for his designs for some of the world’s best-known skyscrapers including One Canada Square in London’s Docklands.

His most recent cloud-tickling structure is One Park West, a large apartment tower under construction in Liverpool’s Albert Docks retail and hotel quarter.

Grosvenor's One Park West development in Liverpool

The development is being masterminded by the Duke of Westminster’s Grosvenor property development firm and when completed the 17-storey building will include 326 apartments from studios to three bedroom units.

And although Peli is probably proud of his latest design, he may be put out that one of his more famous ones – Kualar Lumpar’s Petronas Towers – was yesterday overtaken as the world’s tallest structure by Dubai’s much-vaunted The Burj Khalifa tower – at 825 metres high.

But unlike the £1m-plus apartments for sale at the Dubai tower, properties at One Park West are more affordable starting at £90,000 for a studio and rising to £400,000 for the largest three-bedroom units.

This may account for its apparent success. Grosvenor claims to have sold apartments off-plan worth some £25 million and rented out most of the 123 apartment completed on the project so far – an admirable result given the current economic woes in the region and the UK as a whole.

Building ambitions in Liverpool: The Duke of Westminster

“Demand and new sales struggled during the first quarter of 2009, partly due to the availability of viable mortgage products and potential purchasers being nervous to take the plunge until they saw how the economic landscape was likely to pan out,” says Grosvenor’s Guy Butler.

“But in June we witnessed a change in the market, with an upturn in sales, which has resulted in an average of close to two sales a week since then.”

These figures mask an important point though – almost 70 per cent of sales on the development have been to landlords (rather than owner-occupiers), who have realised that One Park West is one of Liverpool’s few city-centre addresses ideal for upmarket professionals – rents being achieved range from £525 a month for a studio to £900 a month for the larger apartments.

Click here to find out more about the development and see pictures of the apartments.

It’s a dull shade of grey, made of concrete, sports graffiti and isn’t quite your average house. But this unusual building – an old water tower – is on the property market and, with a bit of imagination and hard work, could become your dream home.

The old and disused water tower at Great Doddington, near Wellingborough in Northamptonshire, used to be the home of thousands of gallons of water. But now it’s up for sale on the property market, complete with planning permission to transform it into a quirky new home.

Planning permission for converting the water tower was granted by Wellingborough Council back in September. When a building isn’t yet in a liveable state, it’s hard to imagine how it could become a comfortable home. But if you’ve watched enough Grand Designs you’ll know it’s certainly possible, if you have the vision and determination to make it happen.

Some of the ideas already put forward by architects are impressive, showing that the building has the potential to be transformed into a four-storey house with two bedrooms. On the ground floor would be the entrance and hallway, along with a bedroom and shower. The first floor could have a bathroom and bedroom, followed by the kitchen and dining room on the second floor. The top floor space, with its views of the surrounding area, could make an ideal living room and terrace.

The Great Doddington water tower is on the market for £100,000. According to the Northants Evening Telegraph, there’s already been a surprising amount of interest in the property and the estate agents believe it could become a “trendy 21st century home.”

Home decorating and interior trends come and go (thankfully, in many cases) and have a lot to answer for when it comes to taste. The top 10 home design turn-offs from the last 20 years have just been revealed in a new survey – can you guess which dire faux pas made it onto the list?

The survey, which was commissioned to mark the launch of UKTVHomes, asked 2,000 British home owners what they thought were the worst home design turn-offs and what they’d prefer to see in homes today. Coming top of the list of modern dire designs were paint effects, such as rag rolling, sponge finishes and stencilling. As these were all the rage in the 90s, many a house across Britain is likely to have sported such effects at some time, even if they’re now safely hidden from view.

The second most hated design was found to be mirrored wardrobes (53%), closely followed by heavily patterned tiles (52%) and ghastly animal statues (51%). Other home design turn-offs were noted to be garish 80s colour schemes, net curtains, magnolia paint, futons and wall mounted TVs.

The survey highlighted that more people are thinking about redecorating and improving their homes at the moment, with 40% claiming to redecorate every three years. Nearly half said they renovate to create spaces that are practical and functional and one in ten are concerned about creating eco-friendly rooms. When asked about the style trends they thought could add value to their home, 47% said a loft conversion, whilst 38% said a new kitchen.

In contrast the home design turn-offs, the list of top 10 turn-ons which people would much prefer to find in a home were found to be:

1. Power shower
2. Heated towel rails
3. Under floor heating
4. American style fridge freezer
5. Granite countertops
6. Concealed appliances
7. Stainless steel appliances
8. Solar panels
9. Free standing baths
10. Slate floor tiles