Still the Height of Fashionable Living

There is something supremelyunnatural about living so far off the ground that the front door is closer to the clouds thanto the pavement. Yet for decades, the penthouse has been the ultimate sexsymbol of the property world - glamorous, expensive, cut off from the hoi polloi and the stuff of fantasy only - at least for most of us. If one thing was going to damage that reputation it was the events of September 11 last year when the potential horror of high-rise life was brutally exposed. For months afterwards many predicted the demise of the skyscraper, whether for offices or for homes. Proposals were pulled, architectural plans put on ice, and developers were left wondering whether to plough ahead with schemes already under way. "There is no question that people's comfort level at being isolated in the sky is very different today," says David Childs, a consulting partner of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, the architects responsible for some iconic high-rise US buildings, including the Sears Tower in Chicago. "Those images that were burnt on to our retinas last September are hard to escape." Yet a year on, in spite of the sombre predictions, high-rises are still firmly in fashion. Such is the king-of-the-castle lure of the penthouse that even 9/11 has not seriously tarnished its reputation.

The real legacy of September 11, says Pamela Liebman, the chief executive and president of the Corcoran group, one of New York's largest residential brokerages, was that people have shied away from buildings that are for some reason very conspicuous - tower blocks for example, or those situated near famous landmarks. "We are far more likely to hear people say that they want to live in a less exposed building than in a less high one," says Liebman. This could be bad news for the 240m-high Time Warner AOL Centre in New York. Not only will it be one of the tallest constructions in the City at 80 storeys, but it is also composed of two towers and has "America" in its title - features that will not go down well with jittery buyers. "There is great concern about those penthouses," admits David Childs. A fear of standing out in the crowd was also detected in London after the events of last year. "We had one client who hesitated about buying a penthouse at the top of Parliament View just after September 11 because it was so close to the House of Commons," says Karen Howes of Taylor Howes Designs, which has done the interiors for many of the developments at Chelsea Harbour. But in London even the highest penthouses are much closer to the ground that those in New York, Tokyo or Hong Kong.

This, coupled with the fact that September 11 made buyers more security-conscious and anxious to distance themselves from the street, has actually played into the hands of those selling apartments and penthouses. "What has changed is that people would much rather live in a solid block of flats where they feel more secure than in a freehold house," says Ed Mead, of Douglas & Gordon, which sells houses to London's wealthiest buyers. Even today, with the steam going out of the capital's property market, barely a week goes by without the launch of another luxury penthouse with "magnificent river views", wooden decks and all the gadgets and gizmos that wealthy buyers demand. Virtually every new development that has sprung up along the Thames has made a huge pitch for its top-floor trophy flat. "This is where the companies push the boat out, because this tends to be where the profits are made," says Daniel Smith, an analyst at London Residential Research. Security is always at a premium - underground parking, 24-hour doorman and closed-circuit television cameras galore. The latest in glamour high-rises comes from Ballymore Properties, whose New Providence Wharf Thameside Scheme in London's Docklands has seven penthouses, each with their own outdoor swimming pool, a London first. Three have already been sold at prices ranging from œ1.95m to œ2.5m.

Outside London too, sky-high living is thriving. In Birmingham the 39-storey Holloway Circus Tower has just been granted planning permission. The original proposal for 45 storeys was scaled back following objections from the Civil Aviation Authority. In Liverpool, the Beetham Organisation is building the 30-storey Beetham tower. But the popularity of high-rises is not just about the paranoia of the security-conscious rich. The tendency in cities like London will probably be for more tall buildings as government planning guidelines push developers in the direction of brownfield sites and people choose to beat poor public transport by moving back into city centres. "There is a real tide towards living in the core of cities again," says David Childs. "People are focusing on basic human needs and finding ways that will allow us to live, work and play in the same area." But unlike many others in the property sector, he is convinced history will show that September 11 had an impact on city planning. In spite of the continuing popularity of high-rises, the long term trend is low-rise, even in cities such as New York, he maintains. "In New York now, when developers are looking at residential, they will be lower and more spread out, rather than singular and high," says Childs. "I think people love living at a level where they are slightly above the tree tops but have a relationship with the ground."