The curse of the Curzon
Why the 'redevelopment' of Curzon Mayfair might not be such good news
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A quick note before we get into today’s issue. Initially this was due to be a brief article on another of London’s cultural institutions closing (and an excuse to moan about the dreadful London press). But then we started pulling at the threads and it just kept unraveling. We tried to get it all finished in time and under a reasonable word count, but in order to do it justice we have decided to split it across two issues. So, you’ll get part two of this on Wednesday.
Last week we gave you all the good news coming out of London.
But, unfortunately, in writing that issue, we used up all the positive stuff. We’ve looked really hard, but there is no more. So, today, we have no choice but to report on some bad news. Although, if you read the Metro or Time Out, you might not know it was bad news…
“London’s historic Mayfair Curzon cinema is set to shut its doors to allow for ambitious redevelopment plans costing up to £15million” chirped the Metro last week.
Which is their weirdly positive (and slightly misleading) way of saying that one of London’s most iconic art house cinemas is about to be shut down by the developers who have been trying to get their hands on the place for years.
Time Out were the ones who actually broke the story, and their headline was even more tone deaf than the Metro’s:
Good news London cinemagoers! One of the few remaining cultural landmarks in Soho is going to be wiped off the map so that “the art of cinema-going” can be “reinvented”.
Time Out’s twitter account even talked about a ‘silver lining’ which prompted a few angry responses and may have been why the headline on the article was swiftly edited to read: ‘Curzon Mayfair’s future in jeopardy amidst massive development plans’ and the subhead changed to ‘A new £15 million cinema is planned for the building’.
Unfortunately, Time Out altering their clumsy copy doesn’t change the fact that the rest of the article is a slightly edited version of the press release they were likely provided by the developers, and only tells a tiny bit of the story.
This is our attempt to fill in the blanks, but to do that (adopts podcaster voice) first we’re going to have to go back to 2016….
Fight noise
Seven years ago, a development company called 38 Curzon Ltd, began converting office space above the Curzon cinema into “luxury flats”. Almost immediately the developer began complaining about noise from the cinema leaking into their £2m apartments, accusing the Curzon of being in breach of its lease and demanding they “fork out £500,000” on soundproofing.
When the cinema said it didn’t have half a million spare to stop noise from films being heard in homes that had just been built DIRECTLY ABOVE A CINEMA THAT HAD BEEN THERE SINCE 1934, it resulted in an “action for forfeiture,” meaning that the cinema could have been forced to surrender its lease and vacate the building.
After 27,000 people signed a petition to save the Curzon, the mayor eventually stepped in to introduce the ‘agent of change’ principle which means developers building near existing venues have to pay for their own soundproofing. And, for a few years at least, the Curzon was left alone.
Lease of life
The next event of any note came in 2019, when Curzon Cinemas was bought by the US-based Cohen Media Group. As Variety put it at the time, this signalled “the end of the involvement of the Wingate family in the chain, 85 years after Harold Wingate founded the Mayfair cinema in London”.
Then, towards the end of last year, dark forces began to gather once again, as the cinema’s 90-year lease neared its end.
Another campaign was swiftly assembled, 15,000 signatures were collected and Westminster City Council was convinced to designate the cinema as an Asset of Community Value. This meant that, if the cinema was put up for sale, then community groups would get first dibs on buying it (presuming they could raise enough money in time).
But that wouldn’t do anything if the landlords chose to terminate the lease by becoming ‘owner operators’ of the building themselves; and that’s exactly what 38 Curzon Ltd has done.
If you’ve ever seen Scooby Doo, then you know how this works. The evil developer wants to build on the land, but first he has to get rid of the tenants, so to do that he attempts to scare them away (usually by dressing up as a ghost). When that doesn’t work, he finds an even more diabolical way of getting what he wants.
Resident Vevil
In this case the guy playing the role of ‘evil developer in a sheet’ is Dan Zaum. Dan is the sole Director of 38 Curzon Ltd. He’s also the director of 38 Curzon Lease Ltd and 38 Curzon Management Ltd, (but not Imaginative Company Names Incorporated), and he’s the one quoted in Time Out last week:
“We are passionate about preserving this unique building, with the cinema at its heart…We will bring the Mayfair Cinema back to life, restoring its beautiful original features and giving it the very latest technology. I see the Mayfair Cinema being reinstated to its former glory and reinventing the art of cinema-going. This iconic piece of architecture and integral part of London’s cinematic history is yearning for revival.”
Dan sounds very well-meaning doesn’t he? We should wish him and his plucky development company the best of luck…
Or we could get the red twine and the cork board out and start Googling shit.
Because, while 38 Curzon Ltd are the developers of the building, the owner of 38 Curzon is a company called ‘Vevil International Ltd’ (yep, rhymes with ‘evil’ - it’s almost too on the nose).
If you follow news about treasured London institutions being forced out of their properties, then the name Vevil might be familiar to you. Because Vevil International Group are also the owners of 160 Piccadilly, the address of The Wolseley.
In 2021 they tried to get the Wolseley’s operators (Corbin & King) evicted over non-payment of approximately £1m of rent debt that had built up while the restaurant was closed during lockdown. When that didn’t work, they claimed that the Wolseley had “illegally sublet the premises because the lease was in the name of the Wolseley Prop Co, while the rent is paid by the Wolseley Op Co”. That didn’t stick either, but we all know that it didn’t end well for Corbin & King.
And it’s not just 160 Piccadilly and 38 Curzon Street that belong to Vevil. They own a sizable chunk of London’s premium real estate, including 27 Poultry in The City (aka, The Ned), 5 Hamilton Place in Mayfair (aka Les Ambassadeurs Club), 49 St James’ Street, 12 Curzon Street (aka ‘Little’ Soho House), The Clapham Grand, and Koko.
They almost certainly own more, but it’s very tricky to know what exactly, because Vevil International are registered in the British Virgin Islands (where the identities of companies’ owners are not filed with the authorities), and everything they do seems to be done through a network of smaller companies, most of which seem to be registered in that other country commonly linked to money laundering cases: Jersey.
For example, there’s a company registered in Jersey called Vevil Holdings, which seems to be the parent company of the previously mentioned 38 Curzon Lease Ltd - so it looks like the landlord and the developer of the Curzon are essentially the same entity.
The only reason we know Vevil own all those buildings, is because they listed them all in a brochure back in 2016, when they were trying to convince the residents of Clapham that they should be allowed to redevelop Koko
So, who the hell is behind Vevil International and how did they end up owning all these places in London? Well, this is where it gets a bit tricky….
Come back on Wednesday and we’ll tell you more about the mysterious oligarch who owns huge chunks of London and how they're just the tip of the iceberg…
5 little bits
Did you know that there are two fire engines driving around London with the Masonic insignia on them? In 2020 the London Fire Brigade’s accepted a £2.5m donation from the Freemasons of London “for specialist equipment,” but now that the brigade is being reviewed (following the recent report that showed it is “institutionally racist and misogynist”) the Fire Brigade’s Union is calling for the masonic insignia to be removed “because of the exclusion of women from much Masonic work and the fact that it is a secret society.”
There was yet more light pollution news this week. The City of London Corporation has announced that, in order to “cut light pollution and save energy” it is planning to require any new developments in The City to have “curfew times” for when external lighting should be dimmed or turned off. Existing buildings will be “encouraged” to adopt the policy.
In related news, wood burning stoves have (in effect) been banned in new and refurbished London buildings. New planning guidance from City Hall has set an air quality limit which means large home and office developments can no longer use wood or solid fuels. Meanwhile, the mother of Ella Adoo-Kissi-Debrah (the nine-year-old who was the first person in Britain to have air pollution listed as a cause of death) has called for a complete ban on wood-burning stoves in London.
If you fancy starting your own portfolio of West End properties, then you might want to begin with The Prince of Wales on Drury Lane. The freehold for the pub, (which has been operating since the 1850s) is up for grabs on Rightmove for £9.75m.
Four Tet’s All-Dayer festival is coming back to Finsbury Park on August 12. The only act announced so far is Kieran himself, who’ll be performing a 5-hour DJ set. Presale tickets go on sale Thursday 23rd February, with general release the day after.