Award Winning Dollar Bay
Award Winning Dollar Bay
24.11.17
It’s been a pretty good week for events in our calendar, especially when it comes to the Fingers Crossed/Will We Won’t We variety of event. The last seven days have bought the opportunity for Helen and I to attend two prestigious award ceremonies with the hopes of winning further accolades for our work for Mount Anvil at the impressive Dollar Bay in Canary Wharf.
WhatHouse? Awards are a yearly pilgrimage by the great and the good of the property development industry, all intent on a bit of networking, a bit of catching up and a teeny weeny bit of drinking. It starts at 11:30 (yep, in the morning) with a few cocktails in the Red Bar of the Grosvenor House Hotel (a bar that magically seems to accommodate the entire audience before and after the event), a few glasses of fizzy, and then seemingly unlimited amounts of whatever-you-want-to-drink laid on by some very kind hosts (thank you Vado!) The wonderfully funny Jack Whitehall managed to navigate the noise that always seems to dominate this event and he kept (most) people’s attention for the duration, at the very least he didn’t need the loud speaker SSSSSSH-ing button that the organisers have deployed in previous years.
Dollar Bay popped up in two award categories, winning Gold for Best Interior Design and Gold for Best Luxury Development. Despite the fact we are not allowed to gate crash the stage (that would be bad form, they have a strict two-people-only-and-no-long-speeches rule) we are delighted to have worked with Mount Anvil on the interior design throughout this stunning development, to have worked on the specification of all the apartments, including the two impressive penthouses and their entrance areas and to have designed and installed several show homes and to have won such a prestigious accolade for the Interior Design on this development with them. Our working relationship with Mount Anvil dates back over ten years and we value having the opportunity to continue collaborating with them on some of London’s most interesting and exciting developments.
To then, five days later, attend the Designer Awards in a fabulous Circus Big Top, hosted by the adorable Claudia Winkleman, and walk away with a much coveted Designer ‘d’ was more than the icing on the cake. It was the cherry on top of the icing, with another cherry on top of that. We have hankered after one of these lovely Corian d’s for a good while now, having been finalists on several occasions, but always having to adopt the ‘ahh, congratulations Mr/Ms Winner, we are so pleased for you’ face. Until this week. And this wasn’t just any ordinary category that we are talking about. This was the top billing Ultimate Luxury Bathroom Design of the Year. Ultimate. Luxury. Yep. And the ‘d’ trophy wasn’t one of the little red ones, or even one of the big red ones, it was one of only two massive black glittery ones. Properly heavy. Ask Helen, she had to carry it home. I wore it as a bangle on my wrist for about ten seconds before I decided that I valued the blood supply to my hand too much.
Working with Mount Anvil on Dollar Bay has truly provided us with the opportunity to work on a project that brings with it a great sense of pride, of achievement and of satisfaction. So to have had our work on this development recognised by these awards, firstly from the property development industry and then also from the design community, brings a pretty good year to a pretty good end.
And I am now invoking a new rule that I am not going to drink anything alcoholic before at least midday ever again. If only to avoid trying to talk to one of the members of our team on the phone on a Friday afternoon, pretending not to be half cut at 2pm when they were all on site grafting at a three-house show home install. Sorry about that Carly, but I do believe I fooled you, and you had no idea I was in a room with 1000 other drunken peeps?
