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From The Sunday Times

January 20, 2008

Sale of ‘Top Whack Mansion’ is £50m record

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Holly Watt

THE property market may be sliding into the doldrums, but someone forgot to tell a small patch of north London.

Toprak Mansion on The Bishop’s Avenue, Barnet, sold last week for £50m, breaking a record for a newly built property which was set only two weeks ago by a nearby house called Palladio, which was sold for £35m. The name of the Toprak purchaser was given as Horelma Peramam, a billionaire from Kazakhstan.

Toprak Mansion was built by Halis Toprak, a Turkish businessman, although it is understood that he has never lived there. He sold up after his bank was seized by the Turkish government.

It was marketed discreetly for several years, and the asking price climbed from £30m to £50m as prime residential London prices soared. The house had been nicknamed Top Whack Mansion but will now be known as Royal Mansion.

The Bishop’s Avenue, a street of super-sized mansions, is known as “Billionaires’ Row”. The Sultan of Brunei and the Saudi Arabian royal family own a number of properties there.

Toprak Mansion itself is one of two houses built on a plot of land that was left empty after squatters burnt down the previous house.

The other property is the Summer Palace, owned by Lakshmi Mittal, the steel baron, although he spends most of his time at his other home in Kensington Palace Gardens, west London.

The neo-classical Toprak, with a green copper roof and Grecian-style pillars at the front, sits in two acres of garden and boasts a main salon that is 80ft long with a 30ft dining table, a Turkish bath that can accommodate 20, a swimming pool with a glass bridge and four separate kitchens.

The purchaser intends to spend up to £30m on a revamp by a top Italian designer, as well as installing a beauty salon, spa, heliport, cinema and squash court.

Trevor Abrahamson, managing director of Glentree Estates, the estate agent, sold both Toprak Mansion and Palladio. “It is another record amount, but the purchaser thinks it is a very reasonable figure for this sort of house,” he said.

Wow-- How I wish it was mine. Love the idea of a heliport- sure beats using the Northern Line! I wonder If I might get a lift in the morning?

Karen, Barnet, London

Kazakhstan is one of the world's major oil states. If Americans can be billionaires, when the world's not fair, why can't Kazakhs?

RW, Istanbul,

OMG
u r just being envious~~~

Fincess, Almaty, Kazakhstan

If you have that kind of money, then it is no maney at all to be spending - I suppose if you translate it to us mere mortals on 20k say, it would be like buying a house for Â£50 Sterling, and if we could i am sure that we too might spend a bit on doing it up!

Dominic Tattersall, Burnley, England

Very tacky? If the poor chap has worked hard enough and with a bit of luck made a few quid here and there, then he bloody well ought to buy whatever takes his fancy.

How does one define good taste? A cluster of 150-year-old townhouses in Belgravia? Or some impractical futuristic lump of glass and steel? Give me a break!

K, London,

Horelma Peramam is also known by the name Keyser SÃ¶ze. Look up this article on him in Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keyser_Soze

Estelle Juarez, Galveston, Texas

J Dohmann - Greece , Bulgaria, Iran,Iraq, Syria, Georgia and Armenia are among Turkeys neighbours; Why do you have to equate Turkey with Kazakhstan? Their capitals are 4 time zones apart. Cross the Caucasus mountains and the Caspian and this vast land stretches across to China.

Pbm, the Hague, Netherlands

more interestingly, how much will this person be paying in council tax?!

Brian, Scotland,

The properties on Bishops avenue are proof that money does not buy good taste.
Very tacky.

kevin, london, uk

funny, but why nobody is calling it the way I see it... These folks have huge profits to shelter, either in personal living real estate or to shelter from taxes which may in some cases be done nicely with huge losses when the real estate market crashes all around. Either way, the rich know it, and we don't... We're just watching the players in action, sheltering money.

Shelter Boy, london, england

Â£50m and the owner will probably spend 2 weeks a year there ? :-(

Put the money into something worthwhile.

Mark Wannabee, Hampshire, UK

Our link-detached house having a modest one bathroom and just one toilet, is probably one Council Tax band (H) below that of any of those properties in The Bishop's Avenue in Barnet - can I appeal for re-banding, I doubt it very much!

Nick G., woodford, England

"He seems to be a man without a past." -- Kazakh money is like that. Basically, Nazarbeyev and his clan control 50% to 60% of the country's industry and a purchase like this really represents a misappropriate of state resources. i.e. it is likely that Peramam is part of one of the powerful groups in Kazakhstan that run the country and plunder its resources. BTW, if you want to see nouveau riche at their worst, just visit Almaty or Astana.

"you probably cant see is the imbedded surface to air missile defense system, the underground long-term survival bunker, the state of the art perimeter defense system"

He would probably only think to install these features after watching several years of American propaganda.

Cheezburge xxxL, Shanghai, China

The house looks quite demure... however, what you probably cant see is the imbedded surface to air missile defense system, the underground long-term survival bunker, the state of the art perimeter defense system, the 30 car garage, and of course, the mandatory gold and marble toilet with matching bidet.

UglyinLA, Anaheim, CA/USA

Awesome! Hope they enjoy it as much as all that money would help many starving kids enjoy their next meal!

Wes, Dallas, USA

Horelma Peramam seems to be a bit of phantom. Googling him merely gets references to a number of stories concerning this house purchase. Same with Wikipedia. He seems to literally have come out of nowhere. He seems to be a man without a past. This is odd as virtually every billionaire in the world has left a trail.

jl, Armonk , USA/NY

Looks like a bank

Rick, Chicago, IL

Isnt Kazakhstan the place where 80% of the people live in mud homes??

'Oh,' yes,I see it on the map now..right next to Turkey!!!

Johann Dohmann, USA

JOHANN DOHMANN, EGF, USA

HIgh Five Horelma -- SEXY TIME

SHANE, Los Angeles, USA

In my neck of the woods houses that look like that cost about $500,000. You'd get fifty acres as well. And a view. And no crime. 'Course no-one round here would build something like that. It's just not very attractive and the pillars look daft.

Sara, New York, New York

I suspect that Peramam is the covert name of Borat. He changes his names often and now after he made a lot of money with the movie, Sasha probably investing some of them. Smart step, after the dollar is loosing his breath. Bravo Borat !

Peter, Sarasota, USA

100 M US....For that house? Really????? I have a bridge in Brooklyn for sale to anyone with money from Kazakhstan......

Charlie Buckets, Chicago, Il

It looks strikingly like a Carnegie library in the U.S.

Amazing G, Colorado Springs, CO

The original story was that Peramam is an Israeli billionaire who grew up in Kazakhstan. Why this new spin?

Hampar Tokatlian, Motreal,

The journalism of this story would have been a little better if something was written about how purchaser (Horelma Peramam - the billionaire from Kazakhstan) came about his wealth.

Joe Blough , Toronto, Canada / Ontario

Wow, to live in an area as dull as Barnet, I would really expect a more impressive building, at least! You could easily get something as nice in a better, central area... Knightsbridge, Kensington, Notting Hill, Elephant and Castle...

Chris, London,

There is no accounting for lack of taste it seems

Dave, Spring, Texas

wretched excess

moxtell, boca raton, usa/fl.

Wow! $100,000,000 for a house! Well, I guess if you've got it, you might as well enjoy it. I don't know about you, but I can only live in one room at a time, I can only wear one sets of pants at a time and can only eat so much food. I hope he has a big enough family to take advantage of such a fabulous place.

Alex, Los Angeles, CA

a person would think that if this story has enough merit to make the show then there would be some photos...oh well go figure

George, Terre Haute, In

jenqui

how else to get POMALA

sid, venice, ca