Snow cabins and jungle showers: the latest perks of a luxury London flat
Developers are offering novel attractions to would-be buyers as demand for the most expensive new homes takes a plunge
It was once thought to be enough to offer basement gyms and bowler-hatted concierges as a lure for the property-buying global elite. But now potential purchasers of 23m flats overlooking the Thames in London are being offered access to their own snow cabin, where they can unwind from the rigours of the capitals social scene among artificial white drifts.
This frosty cousin of the sauna is being offered to buyers of apartments at One Blackfriars, a 50-storey tower with views across to St Pauls Cathedral. It is one of several novel attractions to lure would-be purchasers to the tower, including a rainforest shower experience involving a dousing to the sounds of the jungle, a virtual golf course with a whisky bar, a wine tasting room, a hot stone massage parlour and a 20-seat cinema.
The perks are being offered as demand for the most expensive new homes in the capital falls dramatically, forcing some developers and estate agents to look for novel ways to encourage sales.
Nine newly built homes worth more than 5m were sold in the six months to October, down 83% on the same period in 2015, according to analysis of Land Registry data published earlier this month by property investment company LCP. Increases in stamp duty announced by the former chancellor George Osborne and the uncertainty of Brexit have been blamed.
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A Chinese developer in Batterseas Nine Elms area, where there is a glut of newbuild luxury apartments, is promising that staff will turn down buyers bedsheets at night, while a rival is offering membership of a private club complete with a rooftop orangery and transparent swimming pool that spans two towers.
Marketing staff for the Blackfriars tower believe the snow facility will contribute to a five-star hotel experience. A similar attraction, Snow Paradise at the K West hotel in Shepherds Bush, west London, consists of a 2m squared cave-like room kept at -15C (5F), with snow pumped into it from a machine that uses air and water.
Natalia Rakowska, a marketing manager at K West, said: Its like Narnia. You rub your snow into your skin and it feels amazing.
While no affordable housing is being built on the prime site at Blackfriars the developers have made a 29m contribution to the construction of homes elsewhere in the borough little expense is being spared on attractions for residents.
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As well as the snow cabin and rainforest shower, apartment owners will also have access to more standard facilities: a 20-metre swimming pool, a sauna, a steam room, valet parking and a 24-hour concierge provided by Harrods. The first residents are due to move in in 2018.
Tom Copley, Labours housing spokesman on the London assembly, said: These kinds of additions are vastly beyond the reach of most of the people we need to house in London. We need to be building homes that people can actually afford to live in.
If you juxtapose the image of the snow room or the jungle shower with the rising number of people sleeping on the streets and in housing need, it paints a very uncomfortable picture of the inequality that exists in London.
Estate agents recognise that the quality and novelty of perks on offer is increasingly important as demand cools.
Lauren Kemp, a spokeswoman for LCP, said: The top end of the market has been battered by taxes. There have been three increases in stamp duty since 2012 and the top rate of stamp duty, for properties above 1.5m, is now 12%. Anybody buying through a company, which was popular for foreign investors, can be hit by a tax of up to 250,000 a year.
In its marketing literature, Berkeley Homes says: Maintaining the comfort of the residents at One Blackfriars is essential.
One Blackfriars was criticised last year when it was advertised with a video that showed a young couple arriving in the capital in a private helicopter. A narrator described their visits to exclusive boutiques and Londons museums. The video faced criticism accusing it of being elitist. It came amid growing concern that Londons housing market is being distorted by an increasing number of foreign investors, some of whom rarely occupy their homes.
Earlier this month, the London mayor, Sadiq Khan, appointed the London School of Economics to carry out an inquiry into the impact of foreign investment on Londons housing market.
Earlier this year, the Guardian revealed that a 50-storey block of 214 luxury apartments by the river Thames in Vauxhall was more than 60% owned by foreign buyers. One-quarter of the flats were held by companies in secretive offshore tax havens and many were unoccupied.