Style guru joins Beaux Arts fight - Carole Caplin Ex-advisor to Cherie Blair warns that flats plan will ‘destroy unique building’

Published: 30 April, 2010
by PETER GRUNER

Lifestyle guru Carole Caplin is backing the battle against plans to “shoehorn” flats and offices into the ornate lobby of an eight-storey block of flats  built in the style of New York’s Grand Central Station.
Ms Caplin, the former health advisor to Cherie Blair – wife of former Prime Minister Tony – has attacked proposals to develop the 100-year-old Beaux Arts Building in Manor Gardens, Holloway.
She has joined an action committee, which includes leading theatre director Max Stafford Clark. It aims to block the plan to “squeeze” three studio flats and two small offices into the foyer. 
The residents accuse developers, who also seek permission to build in the car park, of wishing to “destroy a unique building”.
Ms Caplin has a top-floor penthouse apartment with a panoramic view and roof garden, which she bought 13 years ago for £240,000. It is now said to be worth more than £850,000.
She described how she discovered the building and “fell in love with it” when visiting the Blairs when they lived in Richmond Crescent, Barnsbury, during the period before Labour came to power. 
“After I moved in, Cherie used to visit me at the flat and really loved it,” she added.
Ms Caplin, who owns a fitness studio in Regent’s Park, enjoys living in cosmopolitan Holloway.
“I’ve never gone for what people call a posh neighbourhood, although I’ve loved Fulham and Chelsea,” she said. “Holloway is great. There are some nice shops and restaurants, and of course you get more space for your money. I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.”
With its sweeping staircase and stained glass windows, the former Royal Mail administrative building was built in 1910 and converted into 190 upmarket flats in the early 1990s.
Ms Caplin described the building as “exquisite” with a wonderful history. She could not understand why it had not been given listed status.
“It is one of Islington’s grandest buildings and should be protected both internally and externally,” she added. “The foyer retains many of the original features of the building, including the original plasterwork, stained glass medallions and mahog­any entrance.”
The 1995 brochure advertising the flats stated: “The foyer evokes the civilised refinement of the world’s great hotels, the grandeur of a great ocean liner’s state room.”