Property description
Key features: Flexible living space
Lower ground floor flat
3456 sqft
Six/five bedrooms
Enclosed garden
Stuffed owls, foxes, pheasants and ducks, black and white photographs of the Arc de Triomphe, African masks, French enameled advertising signs, pinned beetles and butterflies, paintings, mirrors and 1930s pendant lights. This is a very Victorian home and not just in its architecture. Filled with objects of eclectic origins, and mixing 19th-century with midcentury modern as well as contemporary, it is in the spirit of the era a home as a reflection of an owner's interests and aspirations. It is a place for others to marvel over the relationships between objects and space, objects and other objects. It is a story continuously told, constantly changing with no two days the same experience.
Built in 1855, Amhurst Road is a 3,456 square feet, period 2-bay fronted, five-storey townhouse located in the heart of trendy Hackney. A short walk from Hackney Downs, Hackney Central and Dalston Kingsland stations, this five-bedroom house is nestled along a beautifully preserved stretch of Victorian terraces. From the exterior, its architecture is highlighted by striking black-painted joinery, a soft yellow brick frontage, two bay windows and large solid original entrance door raised from street level by a generous external stair.
Inside, Amhurst Road is characterful and homely. Recently completely refurbished, the house has been a labour of love for its current owners, who have fitted it to meet exemplary modern standards, but lost none of its charm and personality. The property includes under-floor heating, soundproofing, relined chimneys, improved thermal insulation and has been fully rewired.
Currently laid out over four levels with a neutrally decorated, contemporary one-bedroom flat to let in the basement, Amhurst Road has five bedrooms, plus an artist's studio-cum-bedroom/playroom on the top floor. The property benefits from off-street parking, a walled rear garden planted with a lawn as well as fruit and vegetables. Several terraces laced with honeysuckle lead from the upper ground floor into the garden. The house has views out over London towards the Barbican and Millennium Wheel.
Amhurst Road has painted floorboards, Persian rugs, working fireplaces and colourful walls throughout. Off the evocative entrance hall with its zebra-carpeted stair, the upper ground level contains a spacious freestanding kitchen/dining room which opens onto a grand red-painted drawing room. Intricate ceiling roses and cornicing in the reception rooms and hall have been restored by master craftsmen. Upstairs there is a master bedroom with en suite bathroom, as well as three other large double bedrooms. One of the children's bedrooms on the second floor has a fun vintage map of Greater London covering an entire wall. The family-sized bathrooms blend luxury contemporary fittings with opulent dark walls, marble splash backs and double washbasins set onto decorative wrought iron legs.
The house presents unrivalled taste, a relaxed lifestyle, and has been restored using a thoroughly cultured and high-end address book of contacts and sources. It retains the stamp of its history, with mezuzahs on the doorframes left to reflect its previous owner, the writer and campaigner Morris Beckman who was instrumental in fighting 20th-century extremism and wrote about the house in The Hackney Crucible (1996).
Amhurst Road is located within the catchment area of excellent primary and secondary schools, including the Ofsted 'Outstanding' Mossbourne Community Academy, and within the pick-up range of several private schools. As the son of the current owners beams: 'This house is a real smasher.'
Property Info: