How come we don't know this guy?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/main.jhtml?xml=/property/2008/06/05/lpferrari105.xml



Property in London: The Ferrari man who mistook his Putney house for a garage
Last Updated: 12:01am BST 05/06/2008



The first thing you notice about Jason Barron's Putney home is that it's not short of vroom. Mary Wilson reports

In pictures: The Ferrari house
Jason Barron loves his orange Ferrari Dino so much that when he and his partner rebuilt the interior of their Victorian home in Putney, they created a glass wall between the garage and the house so he could gaze at it any time of the day or night.


Car blimey: Jason Barron and Satu Macdonald's daughters, Ava and
Mae, sit on the stairs next to the garage housing Jason's Ferrari Dino
When you walk through the front door, the first thing you see is the Ferrari, sitting proudly to the right of the hallway. Jason, 36, a City banker, has always had a passion for cars.

Satu Macdonald, his partner, says: "He goes to track events and has four other cars - including a BMW M3, yellow Lancia Delta Integrale and a green Porsche GT3RS, which he keeps garaged nearby. When we were living in our previous home - a loft apartment, also in Putney, we read an article about a house which had a glass garage and we've always held that dream in our heads. We initially wanted to put in a whole glass box, but it was ridiculously expensive and also we would have lost a wall for putting things on."

They bought the house in 2002, primarily because it had outside space for their mongrel to enjoy, but they stayed in their loft flat for two years while they applied for planning permission and had the house extended and rebuilt. It now looks very different to any of the other houses in this pretty and quiet street off Upper Richmond Road. The narrow road has a herringbone brick pavia surface and most of the properties are Victorian, with brick or white-painted fronts. This is the only house with a contemporary façade front and back.

"It was quite a hassle getting planning for what we wanted to do, but eventually we managed to alter the front of the house and cover half of it in oak cladding, extend the roof terrace and the rear 1970s extension and rebuild the interior. It was a building site for quite a while," says Satu. The result is a light and spacious home with very clean lines - there are no handles on any cupboards or wardrobes throughout the house. The kitchen has square white gloss wall cupboards and dark wood floor cupboards - both by Pedini, with white Corian work surfaces and three wine chiller cupboards under the breakfast bar.

All the walls in the house are white. "We decided on white because we have lots of different pieces of furniture - mostly from the 50s, 60s and 70s, which provide the colour," says Satu.


Ferrari family home: the house looks very different to any of the
other houses in the Putney street off Upper Richmond Road
When Jason bought the Ferrari it was red, but he had it resprayed its original orange and, as they were buying their L-shaped leather sofa at the same time from Purves & Purves, they had it made in exactly the same colour. In the living area there's a lime green rug - and outside the rattan reclining chairs are in a softer lime green. The kitchen chairs, which they had shipped from New York, are cream and orange; the children's plastic chairs are orange and even their wooden toy bricks are orange.

"Orange has become a bit of a theme," says Satu, who was a fashion designer before the children were born.

When they bought the house they hadn't planned a family, but by the time they moved in, in June 2004, their first daughter, Ava, was eight months old. And three years later, Mae was born. The girls also have a Porsche to play with - a 1950s pedal car which was made in America.

Other major alterations the couple have made include taking out the bay window at the front, moving the staircase so they could have a large open-plan living area, and creating a basement cinema room where there used to be a dark and dingy second living room. Upstairs they have moved walls and made three, instead of four bedrooms - turning one of the smaller former bedrooms into a dressing room. The en-suite shower room has been enlarged with a massive wet area. There's a smart family bathroom and in every room - downstairs and upstairs - they have had wardrobes and cupboards built, so there's ample storage space.

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"Jason is basically a frustrated architect and although we used an architect, John Dyer-Grimes, Jason has designed much of the joinery, including the unusual box-style book shelves in our bedroom and the curved desk in the basement. He was very involved throughout with the design of the house and he even created a cubby hole at the bottom of the stairs for the dog's toys," she says.

Instead of the original spiral stairs leading up to the roof terrace, there is now a proper staircase and the terrace has new decking with wire railings, planters all around with zebra reeds, an outside shower and kitchen area with sink and fridge.

The couple also re-made all the sash windows, renewed the glass in the back extension, put in new wood flooring in the basement, Terrazzo stone on the ground floor and solid-wood staircases that have no banisters, just narrow insets in the wall which are lit at night.

They have remodelled the garden, with an Italian friend designing a simple look with espaliered apple and pear trees surrounded by low box hedges around the edge of the garden. And instead of a shed, there is a line of white storage units, similar to the cupboards in the living room. "We didn't want to put in a shed as the garden is just like a room outside, so we tried to treat it in the same way," says Satu.

"We love living in Putney. Ava has just got into Putney High School, the river and the park are nearby and we have lots of friends here, so we're moving to a larger house closer to the school. It also has two double garages and off-street parking for five cars. And yes, we'll do a makeover before we move in."

Contact: The house at Parkfields, SW15 has three bedrooms, a 36ft-wide rear garden, 26ft roof terrace, large open-plan living room/kitchen/dining room and basement cinema room. There is air conditioning in the main bedroom and underfloor heating throughout.
It is on the market with Savills (020 8780 9900, www.savills.com) for £2.25million.
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i posted in a thread about 1 1/2 years ago about my wife. after i threw in the towel in buying the original dino that made me fall in love with the cars (over 13 years to track it down), she secretly kept on the owner and convinced them to sell it to her. needless to say, how does one ever top a gift like that?