Twin sisters Lindsey (above left) and Jenny (above right) bought homes next door to each other in a once-in-a-lifetime move. As part of the Savills team handling the sales, I got an insight into just how much it meant to them to achieve their dream. Here they tell their own moving story.

Jenny: I came over to the UK from Canada 10 years ago in support of my husband so that he could go to business school in the capital. I worked within the wine industry and could continue with my passion here in London. However, there was a catch – leaving my twin sister Lindsey back at home in Canada, thousands of miles away.  

Lindsey came back and forth to London a lot in those first few months and on one of her trips over – having recently broken up with her boyfriend at the time – we went for lunch in Covent Garden and discussed her joining me here. We flipped a coin – heads, she would move to London, tails, she would go back to Canada. It landed on heads and the rest is history.

Lindsey: Shortly after moving to the UK, I met my now partner Andy, an Aussie, and we moved into a rented home in Clapham along with Jenny and her husband Jeff. Moving in together kept costs low and also meant that I didn’t need to live alone while Andy spent half the year back in Australia. 

Jenny: Jeff and I later fell pregnant with our first child, Charlotte, who is now a year old. We felt it would be too much to live the four of us and so Jeff and I decided to move into separate accommodation. However, with a newborn baby, we wanted to be close and so we ended up in two rental flats in Clapham just a five minute walk from each other. 

Fast forward to the start of 2023 and we began to think about buying a family home, while Lindsey and Andy were planning to hold out a bit longer as Lindsey and I continued to establish our start-up business Grape MarketPlace – a personalised wine subscription service tailored to each customer’s unique taste and budget. I used to be a senior wine buyer for Oddbins, and so I used that passion to start up our new venture. 

My husband then came across this gorgeous home in Battersea, painted in the loveliest blue and next to it, a near identical property painted in a complementary pink. After realising they were both up for sale, we all joked about how amazing it would be to live next door to each other, thinking it could never happen. A few days passed and we enjoyed the pipe dream before deciding that we’d go and view the properties – we had nothing to lose.

Lindsey: Turning up to the houses, we felt this overwhelming sense of emotion as they looked just like the ones that we played with as children. And it only got better when we stepped in the front door. The houses had their own distinct style, that matched our personalities to a tee – it wasn’t even a question as to who would go for which house. The pink house resembled the interiors of Jenny’s old home, while the blue house was painted in similar colours to my former flat.

We looked around with so much excitement, knowing that we’d never find anything like this ever again. Being almost nine months pregnant, we were keen to put ourselves in the best possible position as buyers and to put forward our best offers in order to secure each home.

The homeowners were two separate families and so it really did feel like a once-in-a-lifetime coincidence that both were up for sale at the same time. There were a lot of negotiations to be had, which Aileen McCarthy in Savills Battersea office handled so incredibly. 

Jenny: Offers for both houses were accepted, and the feeling was just incredible. We exchanged on the same day in July before later completing and collecting the keys just a day apart – making for an anxious 24 hours.

Now having moved in, we are planning to connect our balcony to Lindsey’s, creating one large space that we can all enjoy. We’re also exploring the option of knocking down the wall in the garden so that the children can run back and forth between the two houses when they are old enough to play. 

As expats, it was so important for us to live close to one another and this provided a solution that we could only have dreamed of.  

Lindsey: Just before my own baby was born, we threw a baby shower where boys were in the blue house and girls in the pink house.

Jenny and I still pinch ourselves that we live next door to each other in the city we love. We can’t begin to thank Aileen enough for keeping the two sales together so that we could live out our dream of being next door neighbours.

Further information

Contact Aileen McCarthy