The New York herald., 1921-10-02
LONDONERS CRYING
FOR HOMES, ASMANY
Big HOUSES LIE IDLE
Mayfair and Belgravia
Filled With Empty Places
Too Large to Rent.
MAINTENANCE COST HIGH
Former Fashionable Sections
Invaded by Boarding Houses
in Flivver Era.

Special Gable to THE NEW York HERALD.
copyri0hf, 1891, by THE New YORK HnRALp.
New York Herald Bureau.
London, Oct. 1. J
The traditions Of Mayfair and Bel
gravia are standing between thousands
of Londoners who are crying for houses
and thousands Of houses that are cry
ing for tenants. Many thousands of
persons in London are successful sal
aried, trade or professional people, and
they like to live nicely in nice neigh
borhoods and do not mind paying good
rentals.
But most Of the houses that are
vacant are huge Victorian arks of
from four to six stories high and with
eight to sixteen bedrooms, usually hav-
ing no elevators. heating or plumbing.
They we're built for large families of
the Victorian era-families in which
were ten or twelve children and which
could afford to keep eight or ten SER
wants at the wages then received by
servants.
For families of the present day and
at the present scale of wages paid to
servants, not to speak of food costs,
these houses are impossible to all save
very wealthy persons and they prefer
to build their own modern houses.
The difficulties Of the situation arise
out of the fact that vast areas in the
fashionable parts of London are held
In entailed estates. This ground is
rented at low yearly rentals for terms
up to a hundred years. The leasehold
landlords now find the houses on their
hands, for although the owners of the
ground have divested themselves of
most of the responsibilities connected
with the property in consideration OF
the low rentals and on account OF their
ownership of continuous tracts they
still insist on debating the nature of
the occupancy of the houses. And lest
the general value of the whole neigh
borhocd which they own should fall
they refuse to allow either the splitting
of the houses into apartments. which
might be rented as shops below and
flats above. or even permit high class
physicians. surgeons and dentists to
establish themselves In these houses
with view to using them as home and
office.
This is the case with vast tracts
on each side of Oxford street, around
the Mecca Of all medical men, Harley
street. and around Portman Square.
North OF Oxford street are hundreds OF
doctors and dentists eager to take these
houses for their offices and residences,
but the landlords shy over brass name
plates. Even when these physicians and
dentists offer to practise without a name
plate on their door. or when they offer to
put door in the back yard alley
for their patients, frequently a lease Is
refused to them
The ground landlords continue to get
Their one hundred and fifty pounds an
nual rental for the ground on which
each house stands and are still hoping
for return Of the good old days, mean
while refusing to make concessions that
would enable the leaseholders to convert
these great arks into comfortable duplex
apartments. with modern heating and
plumbing, at q cost of ten thousand
pounds. but which would earn two or
three thousand pounds afyear. while now
a whole house can be bought for such
sum-
Pressure is becoming strong to re-
model these houses and make II possible
for other families to live in them, with
the leaseholders organizing in old
like Portman Square, where
easily half of the great mansions are
standing idle with glaring ito let"
signs on them for more than a year.
and in Belgrave Square. where scores
OF titled families are maintaining only
n caretaker in huge mansions in which
they cannot afford to live. Blooms
bury and the Georgian fashionable quar-
ters further east have already gone the
way Of boarding houses. hotels. tene-
ments and shops, with few shining
examples. and II Is predicted that May
fair and Belgravia will be the next
to go.
Only excepting Park Lane, which Is
the westerly boundary OF Mayfair and
pnly half n mile long. London fashion
has as yet marked out no other resort
Tor itself Cheaper suburbs are crowd
na inward as business crowds out. and
fashion bids fair to be literally squeezed
,ff the map. Many families have al !
ready given up their town houses and
aiken simpler country establishments In |
nome counties. relying on flivvers TO get |
hem to town during the season.