Agatha Christie wasn't just a prolific writer of murder mysteries, she was also a prolific property developer and "a real wheeler dealer" with an extensive portfolio, says Spencer Cushing of John D Wood & Co, the selling agents for the double-fronted Chelsea mews that was one of her first properties. She lived at 22 Cresswell Place in SW10 in the late 1920s and her time living there is believed to have inspired her short story Murder in the Mews, published in 1937.
The house, which has changed hands numerous times since Christie owned it, is currently on the market asking €2.6 million. It was one of the author’s first development projects and involved converting the old stables of a large nearby house into a fashionable mews. She later added an extra storey to accommodate her writing room.
The writing room, which looks oddly perched on top of the house and is now used as a bedroom, has a westerly view across the gardens of what is arguably London’s most expensive street of houses, The Boltons. Christie bought 22 Cresswell Place while still in her 20s and lived there for several years before letting it. According to Cushing, the layout is the same as when she lived there and the four-bed house still has the parquet flooring she installed downstairs.
It was last on the market two years ago when four parties submitted sealed bids and was bought “for considerably more than it’s on the market for now,” says Cushing.
Currently in “fair condition”, the house has a quaint olde-world look and “a lovely feel” and was last refurbished 17 years ago, when it was owned by an Italian couple.
Christie lived here during the roaring 20s and it’s highly likely the mews was the setting for a few parties.
"She was a complex character and it was the era of The Great Gatsby and a decade of enjoyment and I think she fulfilled her part in that very well," says Cushing.
