Great escape? Tom Parker Bowles has joined the committee of the club, which will be opposite White's, pictured
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25 November 2011
Members of White's will be interested to know their 233-year-old clubhouse at 37-38 St James's Street may once have been linked by a secret tunnel to a far-less-esteemed establishment. This delicious possibility was revealed to Luca Del Bono, 38, an utterly charming Anglo-Italian, who is buying 50 St James for his anonymous Russian partners.
This week Westminster council approved plans allowing Del Bono to convert the 185-year-old building opposite White's into a members' club, spa, 14-bed hotel, plus a couple of public restaurants. William Crockford built the place in 1827 and used it as an illegal gaming den for 40 years. A den with a built-in escape route.
The Russians are paying about £75 million for 50 St James, which was a legal gaming house between 1999 and 2009, before closing. But senior members of White's will remember it as the Devonshire Club, which closed in 1976 after 108 years. Conversion back to a club will start after the Olympics, when the deal completes.
Financier Sir Mark Weinberg and Del Bono's friend, Tom Parker Bowles, have joined the nascent club's committee. Meanwhile Del Bono inhabits the top floor of the grand and empty spaces, using his time to refine the plans and seek other freehold real estate in Mayfair and Knightsbridge for his Russian backers.
No, he won't say who they are. But he does say they are rich enough to have tried to buy Harrods, before the Qataris paid £1.5 billion 18 months ago. So the £25 million conversion cost should be no problem. Meanwhile Del Bono is making them feel at home by opening a Russian restaurant, Mari Vanna, in Knightsbridge.
This son of an Italian hotelier has been working his way towards property for 15 years via the hospitality sector, acting as an adviser to W Hotels and London clubs like Annabel's, George and Morton's. In 2000 he helped found Quintessentially, a service that tends to the multifarious needs of the rich.
Property proper began two years ago with the setting-up of Del Bono & Partners. Since then, various restaurants and bars have been bought on behalf of investors. But 50 St James is the big one. At the last moment, as contracts were about to be exchanged the previous owner let Del Bono into a secret.
In the basement of 50 St James a tunnel was found, which the seller swore led to White's.
A legal nightmare loomed if anyone found out. So, the entrance was secretly bricked up. Nothing has been said to this day. This might not be so fanciful as it sounds.
A history of the Devonshire Club, published in 1919, discloses that, "tradition has it that from this cockpit a bolt-hole existed with an exit into an adjacent and convenient spot". Where more convenient that White's? Perhaps one brave member could totter downstairs and check?
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