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Speculator snaps up poets’ house
THE Camden Town home of French poets Arthur Rimbaud and Paul Verlaine has been sold at auction for just over £2 million.
The house, sold as part of a package of three Georgian homes by the Royal Veterinary college, had been the centre of a campaign by well-known faces in the arts world and French literary attaché Herve Ferrage to turn it into a centre celebrating the lives of the two poets.
The pair lived in the street in 1873, having fled Paris after their affair became public. Their work produced in Royal College Street has been compared to the works of William Wordsworth or Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
A mystery buyer was found but his bid for the houses was turned down by the college. Campaigners revealed he is an eccentric multi-millionaire philanthropist with interests in music festivals, including Glyndebourne, and is a trustee of a prominent music academy.
However, he failed to complete the deal and the homes were auctioned off on Monday morning.
Property developer and businessman Michael Ogun fought off three other bidders to buy the homes in an auction at the New Connaught Rooms, a conference centre in Covent Garden.
He told the New Journal he plans to renovate the houses – currently on the English Heritage at risk register – and let them before potentially selling them off in four to five years.
He said: “I bought them because I think Camden Town prices are going to go nuclear in the next few years, and I plan to hold on to them for about that time and then sell them on.”
And he admitted he did not know of the home’s literary background until the auctioneer quoted a Verlaine poem, reportedly written in a garret at the top of number eight.
Mr Ogun said although the house would be a private home – scuppering plans by campaigners to make the house a cultural centre and archive – he would give permission for an English heritage Blue Plaque to go up, something the Royal Veterinary College had blocked as they were trying to sell the property.
Mr Ogun said: “I’d be happy to see a proper blue plaque put up.”
Former Labour councillor Gerry Harrison, who campaigned to turn the home into a cultural centre, was at the auction. He said: “I’m disappointed that the College changed the goal posts – but they have made £500,000 more than they would have done if they stuck to the original plan.”
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