We took out a mortgage the size of Mount Snowdon.’

– CHERIE BLAIR IN HER AUTOBIOGRAPHY SPEAKING FOR MYSELF.

Tony and Cherie Blair have created a property empire for themselves and their immediate family that replicates his lifestyle when he was Prime Minister. His central hub in London’s Connaught Square is an even more luxurious version of No. 10, including a mews house for an office and security protection. Their Grade I-listed country pile, South Pavilion in Buckinghamshire, is the equivalent of Chequers – down to having a modern sports pavilion and tennis courts.

Their offices at Marble Arch Towers and Cherie’s and Euan’s offices at 1 Cumberland Place are the equivalent of Whitehall ministries and departments.

The entire family are also colonising Marylebone in multimillion-pound properties, each within easy walking distance. And one of Blair’s closest confidants, Lord Mandelson, lives within walking distance in Regents Park, alongside his former bag carrier, Benjamin Wegg-Prosser, who has a house a few hundred yards from Blair’s HQ at Connaught Square.

The property empire of Tony and Cherie Blair and their immediate family is nothing if not extensive. The Blairs now own a staggering thirty-six properties – including two blocks of flats – worth tens of millions of pounds. Thirty-one are in the UK, and another five are abroad. They buy their children expensive homes and their relations more modest properties.

Nothing is too grand for the Blairs. As well as buying the homes they have also spent a fortune modernising, extending and adapting them and landscaping their gardens to meet their tastes.

Tony and Cherie seem never to have got over the time he was Prime Minister and he could entertain in Chequers and live in Downing Street. ‘He runs his office like No. 10, with ladies keeping his diary,’ says a former staffer. When interviewing prospective staff, he is normally dressed in jeans, drinking coffee from a Starbucks cup.

It was not always like this. Until Tony Blair became PM their lifestyle was comfortable rather than grand. They first lived in an up-and-coming area of Hackney called Mapledene. This was Hackney’s equivalent of a poor man’s Islington – a convenient berth for thrusting middle-class professionals such as lawyers and journalists who didn’t want to commute to work from the boring suburbs. They bought up neglected but rather fine-looking properties that would go for a fortune in Chelsea but went for a comparative song because of their location in rundown Hackney.

As they became more prosperous they moved to the more fashionable and expensive Islington, and, once Blair became MP for the safe Labour seat of Sedgefield, they purchased a modest but scruffy property, Myrobella in Trimdon for £30,000 in 1983 as a constituency home. They also purchased two flats for Euan Blair in Bristol in 2002 in a very controversial deal through a blind trust advised by Peter Foster, an Australian conman. They paid £525,000 for both and sold one in 2008 for £260,000. The second is still owned by Cherie Blair and has no mortgage but can be rented out for at least £1,200 a month. They originally had a mortgage costing £2,000 a month for both flats but derived a rental income of £2,400 a month when the Blairs owned both.

The turning point for the Blairs, once they had acquired the taste for more gracious millionaire-style living, took place in 2004 when they purchased 29 Connaught Square – and the transition to the private lifestyle of the billionaire jet set when he left office in 2007.

CONNAUGHT SQUARE

The purchase of Connaught Square certainly stretched their pockets at the time and the PM’s salary was lower than the deposit. The cost was an eye-watering £3.65 million and they had a deposit of only £182,500, relying on a 95 per cent mortgage of £3,467,500 from the Cheltenham and Gloucester (now part of state-owned Lloyds) over twenty-five years.

Cherie said her in memoirs, Speaking for Myself, that they took out a mortgage ‘the size of Mount Snowdon’, adding, ‘Yes that was very scary. Particularly since I was the person who had to support it. Because whatever else happened, we had to meet the monthly payment and it was down to me. Because no one else was going to meet it, were they?’

At the time there was speculation that the Blairs had overpaid, but, with an estimated value at the time of writing of over £8.3 million1 in the present property boom, no one is going to say that now.

The Blairs bought the property from wealthy art historian Roger Bevan, who had led a residents’ campaign to buy the freehold of the property and others in the square from the Church Commissioners. The Old Etonian and Cambridge graduate also encouraged the residents to restore the square and reinstate the original railings, which had been destroyed by an IRA bomb attack in the seventies.

The Blairs had different ideas, which became very clear when they also purchased a small mews cottage at the back of the square, 5 Archery Close, for between £600,000 and £800,000 in February 2007 with a mortgage from Lloyds TSB.

The mortgage was discharged by 2008 – showing the Blairs’ change in fortunes – and the former PM bought the freehold so he owned both properties.

What happened next, as the Daily Mail reported in June 2007,2 was to cause consternation with the neighbours and has never really been resolved. The Mail said a

huge tarpaulin covers scaffolding used by workmen linking the three-storey house with a mews cottage.

The entire rear of the Grade II listed building, which the Blairs bought in 2004 for £3.6 million, has been ripped off so the two houses can be joined, providing a massive living area for the former Prime Minister and his family.

A bulging skip stands outside, and the west side of the square is now little more than an eyesore. A vast new kitchen is being built, as well as accommodation for security staff and a suite of offices from which Mr Blair will run his new career. There will also be a sun terrace and four solar panels to provide green energy …

The once-peaceful square, just north of Hyde Park, has never seen anything like it. Tony and Cherie recently attended a residents’ garden party to try to soothe ruffled feelings, but there is still resentment at the disruption the new neighbours are causing.

Police have drawn up plans to seal off the area in the event of demonstrations and have asked residents to consider carrying utility bills to prove their identity to officers manning security cordons around the square.

A petition circulated among residents has suggested that to protect the Blairs, part of the square could be turned into ‘a gated community policed by armed guards [with] a police helicopter hovering above’. It added that, if the risk to the family was so great, they should not be living in a residential square.

A community police officer told worried neighbours last week: ‘We are in a new situation and we are not going to know how it will affect everyone until the family is here.’

The reason cited for all these changes was that the Blairs claimed that MI5 and Special Branch told them it would make their main home safer. Panic alarms, motion detectors and CCTV cameras were fitted as part of an extensive security system. The mews house was also thought to be used as a nanny flat.

The project was overseen by one of Cherie Blair’s close confidants Martha Greene, an American restaurateur and film producer, who seems to have taken over the role once performed by Carole Caplin in Downing Street, when Blair was PM, as an adviser to Cherie.

Greene came to Britain from America in the 1980s and joined Saatchi & Saatchi, rising from ‘gofer’ to apprentice producer in just three years. In 1990 – the year her first marriage to sound engineer Robin Saunders ended – she set up the independent production company Stark Films.

One of her most notable successes in a wide-ranging career was taking over the popular upmarket Villandry restaurant in Great Portland Street.

She seems to be a very feisty character and was highly praised by people in the advertising industry. Tim Mellors, now president and chief creative officer of the agency Grey Worldwide North America, provides a graphic description of her presence of mind when producing a film for BP in Martinique when everything went wrong. In a blog3 he described the situation:

There are times when doing a runner is the wisest call a producer can make. On a BP underwater shoot in Martinique, some of the crew turned out to be inter-island drug runners making a bit of spare cash. They were authentic badasses, and although they didn’t like us, they really hated the gay French art director. So much so that they chopped the head off his Old English Sheepdog to teach him a lesson. Feisty Martha went up to them to remonstrate and they replied by (literally) taking a crap in her handbag.

Within 20 minutes Ms Greene had us on a light plane out of there. I remember making a mental note: when the shit really hits the fan (or the handbag), make sure you have a good producer.

An article in the Daily Mail4 in 2006 describes her as ‘the sensibly attired New Yorker who has, with measured steps, effectively replaced Carole Caplin in Cherie’s affections and confidence.’

According to the article, so close was she to the Blairs that when she split with her former partner Ivan Ruggeri, a former Italian tour operator, she engaged a high-flying family lawyer, Maggie Rae, to thrash out the acrimonious details of their separation.

According to the Mail, ‘Key among her demands is a confidentiality agreement under which Ruggeri promises not to divulge any of the details of their relationship, or anything she may have told him about her friendship and business dealings with the Blairs.’

Her new partner would also have been useful to the Blairs. He is Jonathan Metliss, a corporate lawyer, a Tory donor, a member of the Westminster Conservative Association and on the executive of the campaign group Conservative Friends of Israel. His entry in Debrett’s People of Today shows extensive links with Israel. On 7 September 2010 the annual publication listed him not just as a member of Conservative Friends of Israel, but also as an executive of the Britain Israel Communications and Research Centre, a joint secretary and executive member of the Parliamentary Committee Against Anti-Semitism and a member of the Inter-Parliamentary Committee Against Anti-Semitism (which perhaps should refer to the Inter-Parliamentary Coalition for Combating Anti-Semitism).

Debrett’s also lists Metliss as a member of the executive of the Israeli British Business Council, a director and member of the executive of the British–Israel Chamber of Commerce, a director of the Weizmann Institute Foundation and a vice-chairman of the Friends of the Weizmann Institute (UK) – the last two of which are connected to the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel – a chairman of the British Friends of Haifa University and a member of the Advisory Board of Tel Aviv University Business School and the Board of Governors of Haifa University.

Greene seems to have been involved in brokering the deal to buy Connaught Square while Tony and Cherie were still in Downing Street, and, according to people living in the square, her reward was the use of the building for offices while she was in London.

According to the Mail she also gave Cherie other advice. ‘When Cherie doubted the wisdom of giving her first solo television interview, it was Greene who convinced her that going on Richard [&] Judy was a splendid idea.’

And, when Cherie wanted to boost her fitness regime, it was Greene’s advice that led her to train with Steve Agyei – himself a former protégé of Carole Caplin.

On a lecture tour in 2005 it was Greene who flew first-class to Dubai with Cherie and stayed in adjoining hotel rooms. Press coverage was, according to Greene, a necessary evil: ‘If we could exclude [the British press] we would.’

She also organised the domain name for Cherie Blair’s charitable foundation and organised the catering for the Blairs’ twentieth-wedding-anniversary meal.

SOUTH PAVILION

The rise in the Blairs’ fortunes once they had left office can also be seen from the fact that, a year later, they were able to buy their own ‘Chequers’ – South Pavilion, Wotton Underwood, in leafy Buckinghamshire – then on the market for £5.75 million.

According to the Land Registry they paid the full price, having fallen in love with the former home of actor Sir John Gielgud, who lived there until his death in 2000. They bought the place from Effie Lecky, wife of budget Canadian airline boss John, with what is thought to be a £4 million mortgage from Lloyds TSB, before the owners put it on the market.

The grand, seven-bedroom, Grade I-listed mansion is next door to Wotton House, a stately home that opens its doors to the public in the summer. The two houses are located at the end of a secluded country road, with rolling meadows on either side. There are no more than ten detached houses dotted along the road, separated from one another by wraparound gardens and tree borders.

It’s an affluent area: Robin Gibb, Rowan Atkinson, David Jason – they all have houses round here. If you want to be out of the public eye, it’s ideal, just like Chequers with its tree-lined drive off a public road except, of course, that the road to the house is a public highway.

Wotton House was restored to its former glory by the actress Elaine Brunner in the 1950s. It had been built at the beginning of the eighteenth century and was almost identical in design to Buckingham House in London – now integrated into Buckingham Palace. In October 1820, the main house was gutted by a great fire, and all that survived intact were the two pavilions, linked to the house by low screen walls.

In the rebuild that followed, the external appearance of Wotton remained the same – although Sir John Soane, the architect, did persuade his reluctant client, the Marquis of Buckingham, to let him reduce the overall height by 8 to 10 feet.

Now occupied by David and April Gladstone – David being a direct descendent of Liberal Prime Minister William Gladstone – it was designed as the original Buckingham Palace. A residence fit for a queen occupied by a scion of a PM therefore lies next door – separated now by only a six-foot-high steel fence.

The Blairs though were not satisfied with the existing building and applied for no fewer than nine separate applications for developments in the next four years. This is despite its having ornamental gardens, a tennis court and a swimming pool already.

They started with a relatively uncontroversial application reviving a proposal by the previous owners to build a garden studio and a proposal to build a mess room. There were no objections in March 2008 and both went ahead.

They then moved in July 2009 to extend and refurbish the gardener’s pavilion in the grounds, leading to six objections and one letter supporting the proposal. Enquiries for this book found at least five could be suspect – they all came from the same computer IP address and gave false postal addresses.

The main objections were that it would set a precedent, could be used as a separate dwelling and shouldn’t be adapted, as it is in the grounds of a listed building. There was also concern expressed that part of the existing kitchen garden would be built over and that the size and nature of the existing building should be preserved. But they were overruled and consent was given after some modifications to the plan.

The next proposals were more contentious. A scheme to build a new sports pavilion and retain the fencing round the tennis courts in September 2011 led to a condition imposed by the county’s archaeological officer. He warned, ‘This development could cause some harm to the asset’s archaeological interests, but not such substantial harm as to justify refusal of planning permission if the development is otherwise acceptable.’

They requested that a condition be imposed that no development shall take place ‘until the applicant … has secured the implementation of a programme of archaeological work in accordance with a written scheme of investigation which has been submitted by the applicant and approved by the planning authority.’

Buckinghamshire Gardens Trust objected to the original plans on the grounds of the impact of the tennis-court fencing, the size of the sports pavilion, its design and how it is proposed it will adjoin the existing historic wall. But this also went ahead after it was modified.

The Blairs also took advantage of the government’s green-energy scheme by fitting discreet solar tiles to the building, both saving them energy and allowing them to benefit from the Coalition government’s green ‘feed-in tariff’ by selling surplus energy to the National Grid.

More serious objections rose over plans to chop down a hundred trees and prune others and erect a 6-foot-high, 300-foot-long, modern steel boundary fence between the property and its neighbour Wotton Hall.

A Mrs Evans of Lower Green, Westcott, objected to the tree felling, saying, ‘There is no need for the trees to be felled, and the works could destroy the atmosphere surrounding the South Pavilion and could be detrimental to the village.5

Buckinghamshire Gardens Trust, the Georgian Group and English Heritage also objected to the boundary fencing.

Buckinghamshire Gardens Trust expressed concern about the utilitarian modern design. ‘They said they hope the fence could be screened by planting but do not see how it could be guaranteed. They consider a pattern to stimulate historic ornamental. Fencing within the mansion grounds would be more appropriate.’6

The Telegraph reported that the Trust wrote a letter to the council saying, ‘We are concerned that the severely utilitarian modern style of the proposed fence damages the historic character of this area of designed landscape.’7

The Georgian Group said that a condition should be applied requiring the removal of the railings when the current occupant no longer occupies the building.8

English Heritage was concerned too, saying Blair’s plans, which included chopping down a hundred trees, would damage the special character of the house. In particular, English Heritage disliked Blair’s plan to put roof lights in the sports pavilion.

However the new railings went ahead in 2012 after concerns, agreed by English Heritage, that the then-boundary fences were not secure, a council report describing them as ‘too weak and too low’ to ‘prevent trespass’ on Blair’s private property. In return, two trees had to be protected and a large number of laurel and holly bushes were planted to obscure the boundary fence and add to the privacy of the Blairs.

BLAIR’S CHILDREN’S HOMES AND CHERIE AND EUAN’S BUDDING PROPERTY EMPIRE

The go-ahead in 2012 for all these schemes marked the end of the Blairs’ ‘improvements’ to the property. They had now turned to providing homes for their children and family.

Euan, their eldest son, had bought his first property in May 2008 for £462,501 from Patrick Boyle, a Paris-based trademark lawyer. The spacious two-bedroomed garden flat in Liverpool Road was in upmarket Barnsbury not far from the Angel and Upper Street, Islington. It was, however, on a busy road, used by traffic to avoid the jams on the main road between the Holloway road and the Angel. He got a mortgage from Lloyds and sold it nearly two and half years later, in September 2010, for £496,000, making a £33,499 profit.

Cherie Blair stepped in to allow him to move to a much grander property in Shouldham Street in May 2010 in the coveted W1 postal district and within walking distance of the Blairs’ London home in Connaught Square. So, with Cherie’s help he jumped from a £500,000 flat to a £1.29 million home jointly owned by him and his mother. The property was also secured with a Lloyds TSB mortgage.

The estate agents, York Estates at the time, waxed lyrically about the attractiveness of the property, though they have since, we suspect after representations from the Blairs, removed details of the property from the Internet. At the time they emphasised that it was a rarely available freehold in central London. ‘This 4-storey Georgian house has planning permission to extend at lower ground and ground floor levels. Alternatively the house can be occupied in its current condition. It has three bedrooms, a study, two bathrooms, a garden, and both a drawing room and a reception room.’

The property became the centre of a planning row after a neighbour suggested that Euan was subletting the property, and the Blairs were forced to change some alterations they had made to the Georgian home. Euan was helped again by his mother months before he married his longstanding girlfriend Suzanne Ashman. She is the daughter of motor-racing entrepreneur Jonathan Ashman and was educated at the private St Paul’s Girls’ School in west London. She later read philosophy, politics and economics at Trinity College, Oxford, and went on to work at the Tony Blair Faith Foundation.

The grand, six-bedroom Georgian townhouse in Marylebone, purchased in September 2013, shows that Euan intends to follow his father’s lifestyle. Months afterwards, in March 2014, the one-bedroom mews house that backs on to the property was also purchased so the two properties could be amalgamated in a replica of Tony and Cherie Blair’s Connaught Square home – enough for both a home and an office.

The entire cost of purchasing both properties came to £4.825 million but neither of them is owned by his wife Suzanne Blair. Instead the main home is jointly owned by Cherie and Euan and the house that backs onto it by Cherie alone. Both properties have a mortgage from Lloyds Bank.

The six-bedroom property was put on the market for £3.695 million – and was sold to Cherie and Euan for £3.625 million. Estate agents described it as a ‘bright, modernised property [that] benefits from beautiful high ceilings, floor to ceiling windows and wooden floors. The accommodation comprises of a master bedroom with en-suite bathroom, five further bedrooms, two further bathrooms, two spacious reception rooms, kitchen, utility room and guest cloakroom.’

No sooner had they bought it than they applied for planning permission and listed-building consent (it is Grade II-listed) to both improve and repair it.

Among the problems they discovered was a large crack in the West flank wall. Their architects commented,

It shows you that, even at the luxury end of the market, it is still caveat emptor: buyer beware.

The biggest changes involved developing the basement or old vaults below the ground floor. This included swapping the kitchen and utility room and creating a bedroom and a playroom for a future Blair generation. The plan for a mega £100,000 kitchen on the ground floor did not meet with Westminster Council approval and had to be substantially reduced in size. Other proposals met with more approval from Westminster as Euan has sympathetically restored some lost features.

More gigantic works were needed for the £1.2 million, one-bedroom mews house that backs onto the main house, which at the time of going to press had not yet been approved by Westminster Council. These included digging out a basement and creating a courtyard between the two homes.

It is described by estate agents as,

A unique period cottage laid out over two floors and located in this charming mews off Marylebone High Street … The accommodation features open plan ground floor space refurbished in a ‘Cape Cod Style’ with light timber flooring and large skylight. A gentle spiral feature staircase leads up to the upper floor which comprises of a spacious and light double bedroom with exposed beams and a recently fitted shower room with skylight.

Cherie has more ambitious plans for her son with outline planning proposals submitted in August to substantially enlarge the property. Work is going ahead in January 2015 to build the basement, as this did not require planning permission.

It was probably only fair that the Blairs helped Euan buy a grand house. Only the year before, they had bought expensive properties for both daughter Kathryn and son Nicky, both within walking distance of each other and not far from Connaught Square.

Kathryn had a £975,000 upper-floor maisonette just off Regents Park and very close to Baker Street. She owns it jointly with Cherie and there is no mortgage.

Nicky was bought a very nice mews house – again, jointly owned with Cherie – in Marylebone, close to the station and near to a private hospital. This, too, was bought for cash. It was a three-storey freehold home with three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a very useful garage and a sun terrace, and cost £1.13 million. It is now owned by a wealthy Punjabi politician and orthopaedic surgeon.

Nicky moved in 2012 – to a new home bought for £1.35 million – a stone’s throw from his sister near Baker Street and Regents Park and within easy walking distance of Peter Mandelson’s home inside Regents Park. The estate agent’s pictures of the home show it has been extensively modernised with a sunny patio garden, expensive kitchen and bathroom. It has three bedrooms and a superb 24-foot reception room with views to the front and back of the house.

That leaves just one other family property purchased by the Blairs, purchased for Tony Blair’s sister for £600,000 in the village of Wotton Underwood in Buckinghamshire, a walk away from the Blairs’ home, South Pavilion. Again this is jointly owned by Cherie Blair and bought for cash.

Cherie and Euan Blair have also obtained a new role as private landlords. Two blocks of flats have recently been purchased in the Manchester area. One – 31 and 33 Gloucester Road, Urmston – was bought for £650,000. They have set up a new company, Oldbury Residential Ltd, based at Cherie’s offices in Great Cumberland Place, London. The ten flats are within two adjoining double-fronted Victorian houses that had been on sale for some time. Described by the estate agent as an ‘excellent buy-to-let investment’, the property was originally on the market for £850,000.

The Daily Mail reported in October 2014, ‘Sources close to the Blair family said they plan to renovate the flats and rent them out to young professionals.’ The estate agent’s blurb said, ‘This prestigious development consists of nine luxury apartments and a simply spectacular and utterly unique luxury penthouse apartment. These apartments are currently tenanted, achieving a rental return of £4,650 per month.’9

Since then they have purchased another block of 14 flats: 2–8 Higher Hillgate, Stockport SK1 3ER.

All this leaves the increasingly wealthy Blairs with a formidable property empire for themselves and their family. They have all three of their children within walking distance of their London home and both Peter Mandelson and Benjamin Wegg-Prosser live nearby. It can only be a matter of time before Leo Blair, born in Downing Street, also acquires a £1 million home.

The Blairs’ ever-expanding property empire

£265,000, BRISTOL: Two flats bought in 2003 by Cherie with help of conman Peter Foster. One since sold for £260,000. The other was up for sale but in January 2015 appeared to have been withdrawn from the market. It is worth £265,000 as of January 2015.

£3.65 MILLION, LONDON: Five-storey Grade II-listed Georgian townhouse bought in 2004. Original mortgage £3.47 million. Thought to be worth £8.4 million as of January 2015.

£5.75 MILLION, BUCKINGHAMSHIRE: Grade I-listed manor house bought in 2008. Original mortgage estimate £4 million. Thought to be worth around £8 million as of January 2015.

£800,000, LONDON: Mews house immediately behind townhouse, bought in 2007 with mortgage, since paid off. Mews houses were selling for £1.8 million in that street as of January 2015.

£1.29 MILLION, LONDON: Four-storey Grade II-listed townhouse bought for Euan Blair in 2010 with mortgage. Now sold.

£975,000, LONDON: Three-bedroom maisonette in Georgian house bought for Kathryn Blair in 2010 for cash. Said to be sold for £1.45 million in 2014.

£1.35 MILLION, LONDON: Four-storey Georgian townhouse bought for cash for Nicky Blair in 2012. Worth £1.8 million as of January 2015.

£600,000, BUCKINGHAMSHIRE: Three-bedroom cottage bought for cash for Sarah Blair (Tony’s sister) in February 2013.

£3.625 MILLION, LONDON: Six-bedroom townhouse jointly owned by Cherie and Euan for him and his wife Suzanne with a mortgage in September 2013. Worth over £4 million as of January 2015.

£1.2 MILLION, LONDON: One-bedroom mews house backing onto the six-bedroom townhouse bought by Cherie Blair with a mortgage for Euan and Suzanne in March 2014.

£650,000, MANCHESTER. Ten flats, purchased in 2014, owned by a new company set up by Cherie and Euan Blair.

£1.3 MILLION (ESTIMATE), STOCKPORT: 14 flats, purchased in 2014, owned by a new company set up by Cherie and Euan Blair.