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Setting a New Trend
Balham has emerged from the shadows to be the area of choice for professional
homes, says David Spittles.
Balham is the rising residential star of south-west London. The area has languished
in the shadow of neighbouring Clapham and Wandsworth, but bankers and lawyers
are moving in, Victorian terraces are smartening up and the place is growing
increasingly trendy.
Young metropolitan types fill newly opened bars and restaurants on lively
Balham High Road. But where do they live? Certainly not in the sort of
apartment schemes
that have sprouted up close to other Northern Line stations such as London Bridge,
King’s Cross or Angel.
In Balham, there are no such developments – a gap in the market
that Angel Property is trying to plug with Blueprint, a snazzy scheme
of 50 flats designed
by award-winning architectural firm Munkenbeck and Marshall.
“
We scouted the area and quickly spotted that the new developments under
construction there had extremely unimaginative designs,” says Kurt
Little, Angel’s managing director. “Buyers are crying out
for homes with a bit of flair and excitement, so we came up with a design
that is markedly different from anything else in Balham.”
Angel has made a name for itself with the Jam Factory in Bermondsey,
raising the stakes in the area by building high specification lofts.
Blueprint is an
altogether more contemporary building on the site of an old printing works, where
the hit reality television show The Salon was filmed – hair today, gone
tomorrow.
The new low-rise building is clad in cedar and pre-patinated copper, and has
two external glass-fronted feature lifts. Open-plan apartments have underfloor
heating and limestone, glass and walnut finishes. Decked terraces are screened
by metal planters rather than railings, a deft design touch enhanced by good-quality
communal landscaping.
Prices range from £235,000 for a one-bedroom apartment to £295,000
for a two-bedroom apartment. Secure covered parking costs £15,000. Completion
is due in early 2005. Call 020 8772 8000.
Values are about £20 a square foot more than other schemes have sold for;
but the homes have “touched a nerve”, says Peter Davis of estate
agency Foxtons, whose glass shop front on Balham High Road is another tell-tale
sign of the area’s arrival. “Balham has taken over from Clapham as
the place for young professionals to put down roots.”
More than half the flats have sold, mostly to singles and couples who commute
to Central London.
Blueprint is a five-minute walk to the Tube station and on the edge of the sought-after
Nightingale Triangle, a leafy enclave of Victorian housing. |
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