A £3.75m view of Brighton Beach

For sale: a grade 2-listed, Regency mansion on Brighton’s Kemptown seafront. All yours for a sweet £3.75m. ‘This magnificent property,’ estate agent Foster & Co says, ‘enjoys panoramic sea views whilst providing unparalleled elegance across six storeys of beautiful Georgian architecture’. 

Built in 1828, 9 Eastern Terrace has an illustrious history. Although the details seem patchy, it is widely reported that in 1910, when the last King of Portugal, Manuel II, was exiled during the revolution, he fled to England, and lived for a while at 9 Eastern Terrace before moving to reside in Fulwell Park, Twickenham. In 1932, aged only 42, he died unexpectedly, from an acute swelling of the throat and suffocation. Some regarded the death as suspicious partly because, the year before, an intruder had been caught in the grounds of Fulwell, and the intruder had been linked to a Portuguese republican terrorist group.

9 Eastern Terrace later became the Royal Sussex Hotel and then part of the Municipal Training College until at least 1965. Around 1995, the property was bought for £125,000 by Doctors Jennifer and Noushin Farhoumand, both members of the Brighton and Hove Bahá'í Spiritual Assembly. Dr Noushin Farhoumand, who died in July 2023, was a distinguished consultant psychiatrist who is said to have dedicated his career to advancing mental health services and education. Jennifer Farhoumand was a consultant in public health medicine. Both were trained at Makerere University Medical School in Uganda.

Foster & Co lists the properties impressive characteristics: circa 10,000 sq. ft. across six opulent storeys, a self-contained basement apartment, five reception rooms, eight bedrooms, double-height mezzanine library, full-sized billiards room, marble fireplaces, alabaster pillars, and a spectacular sweeping stone staircase. Plus a roof terrace, balcony and private courtyards.

The Farhoumands let out their property to film makers, on at least a couple of occasions. In 1999, the production team for Neil Jordan’s End of the Affair (an adaptation of Graham Greene’s novel of the same name) selected 9 Eastern Terrace to represent a seaside hotel where pivotal scenes between the lead characters unfold. These scenes of an extra-marital affair were played by on-screen lovers Ralph Fiennes and Julianne Moore. (See The Free Library). 

In 2013, the first-floor drawing room of 9 Eastern Terrace was used for The Left-Hand Path, a supernatural thriller written by local author Louise Pennington (Baroness Bentinck), based on her erotic novel, Jessica’s Lover. Terri Dwyer, a former Hollyoaks actress, played the female lead and was quoted in The Argus as saying of the house: ‘[It] is amazing. It’s beautiful, there’s a real character to it and it’s been great to film in. When you’re doing a film it’s particularly nice when a set contributes to the role, so it’s quite easy to become Jessica in this kind of ornate, grandiose room.’