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Sir Alan makes his apprentices feel at home
Amar Singh and Mira Bar-Hillel20 Mar 2008
Contestants on the new series of The Apprentice have been given their coolest shared house yet - a £5million converted warehouse in Battersea.
Their predecessors stayed in a large house on millionaires' row in Hampstead, a Notting Hill townhouse and a 17th century Chiswick estate.
But for the fourth series of Sir Alan Sugar's hunt for a new employee, the BBC is spending £3,000 a week to hire this chic Victorian conversion.
The Glass Factory, in Candahar Road, is described by one property website as an "exceptional warehouse-style family house".
Its owner is Scottish peer and ex-racing driver John Crichton-Stuart, otherwise known as the seventh Marquess of Bute.
The marquess, who sold the family seat Dumfries House last year for £ 45million, styles himself as John Bute and raced under the name Johnny Dumfries during the 1986 Formula 1 season.
The 49-year-old, said to be worth £112 million, will earn about £50,000 from renting out the property for the four months it takes to shoot the TV series.
The gated home lies in the heart of a residential area near the Thames nicknamed Little India. All the roads (Afghan, Cabul, Candahar and Khyber) were named to commemorate the second Afghan war (1878-1881).
Among the features in the 7,000 sq ft home, which the marquess purchased in 1998, is a huge dining table that seats up to 20 people, a pod-style office, a playroom and a gym. There are eight double-sized bedrooms to accommodate the 16 housemates and, if the rivalry and back-stabbing gets too intense, an enormous garden for a spot of pacing and strategising.
In the first episode, on BBC1 next Wednesday, Sir Alan tells the candidates: "You'll be staying in a place which in my day was a factory used to make glass. Now posers like you lot live in places like this."
A programme source said: "It's a stunning property that's very quirky and modern. The contestants fall in love with it when they see it."
George Franks of letting agents Douglas & Gordon said: "It is the sort of place I would envisage everyone competing in The Apprentice would aspire to. The building has definitely got attitude."
Londoners among the clashing egos at the Glass Factory will include 27-year-old Raef Bjayal, who describes himself as "absolutely priceless", telesales executive Michael Sophocles, 24, who admits to being "unscrupulous", and Claire Young, 29, a retail buyer nicknamed The Rottweiler.
