The House · Established 2011

A PRIVATEPROPERTYHOUSE.

Ashcombe Vance House was founded in Manhattan in 2011 by Helena Ashcombe and Marcus Vance, who had spent the prior decade independently establishing themselves in private property representation across two continents. The house has, in fifteen years, declined more instructions than it has accepted. This page is the case for why.

Origin

2011

Helena Ashcombe and Marcus Vance met in 2007, on opposite sides of a transaction that did not, ultimately, complete. Helena was the listing agent for a Mayfair townhouse on behalf of an owner relocating to Switzerland; Marcus was acting privately for a Connecticut family looking to acquire a London base. The transaction stalled over a non-clinical question of building services, and the two principals fell into a correspondence about the work that occupied another sixteen months and four further introductions before any business was closed.

The full account

By 2011, both were independently considering exits from their then-firms. Helena had been the senior private-sales lead at Sotheby's London since 2009; Marcus had been the head of real estate at Eklund Gomes, on the private side, since 2004. Each had reached the conclusion, separately, that the volume mandate at a major brokerage was incompatible with the kind of representation they wanted to do.

The decision to found a house together — rather than two houses, or one extended partnership at one of their existing firms — was Helena's. The decision to base it across both cities, rather than in one, was Marcus's. The Paris office followed in 2018, when Camille Lefèvre — who had been one of Helena's referring counterparts in Paris since 2009 — joined the principals as a third partner.

The house has, since founding, represented two hundred and thirty-eight properties. The total volume of transactions is unimportant; the average tenure of the clients is. Members typically remain instructing the house for the duration of their property career. Our oldest principal-instructions are now in their fifteenth year.

Three Cities, Three Orders

Manhattan, London, Paris. The fixed order is a chronology, not a hierarchy.

MANHATTAN.

Opened 2011 · Marcus Vance

The Manhattan office has been the founding office of the house since 2011. Marcus Vance leads representation in Manhattan and acts as the senior principal for transactions on the eastern seaboard generally. The Manhattan portfolio leans toward pre-war cooperatives, cast-iron lofts, and pre-war townhouses; we have, by editorial choice, declined to take on new condominium representation since 2019.

Office & principals

The office is at 48 East 78th Street, three blocks east of the Frick. The location is by design — the house operates from a residential block, not a commercial corridor. Visitors are received in a converted parlor floor of a 1903 brownstone; we keep no street-level signage.

The Manhattan principals are Marcus Vance and three associates. Marcus reviews every instruction personally before representation is offered.

Nine properties in Manhattan · Six public, three private

LONDON.

Opened 2014 · Helena Ashcombe

The London office was opened in 2014, three years after the house's founding, when Helena Ashcombe relocated her primary practice from New York. Helena leads representation in London and acts as the senior principal for transactions across the United Kingdom and northern Europe. The London portfolio is the deepest of the three cities — both by property count and by tenure of instructions.

Office & principals

The office is at 27 Mount Street, in Mayfair, on the upper floor of a building Helena has occupied since the founding of the London practice. The location is the result of a deliberate decision to operate from within the streetscape Helena's clientele inhabit, rather than within a commercial property-services district.

The London principals are Helena Ashcombe and four associates, plus a senior researcher who has been with the house since 2014. Helena conducts the first principal-meeting on every London instruction.

Eleven properties in London · Seven public, four private

PARIS.

Opened 2018 · Camille Lefèvre

The Paris office was opened in 2018, when Camille Lefèvre joined Ashcombe Vance as a third partner. Camille had been a referring counterpart of Helena's since 2009, working independently across the seventh arrondissement and the Marais. The decision to formalize the relationship into a Paris office took two years to reach.

Office & principals

The office is at 14 rue de Tournon, in Saint-Germain-des-Prés, on the second floor of a building Camille had previously kept as her private rooms. The Parisian arrangement is the same as London and Manhattan — residential streetscape, no street-level signage, visitors received privately.

The Paris principal is Camille Lefèvre, supported by two associates. Camille's representation extends across France and selectively into Belgium and Switzerland.

Seven properties in Paris · Three public, four private

On Stewardship

Representation, not transaction.

The house's working position is that property representation is a longer relationship than a transaction. The transaction is a moment within the relationship — sometimes the central moment, sometimes a peripheral one — but it is not the relationship itself.

What this means in practice

When a principal of the house accepts an instruction, the principal accepts a continuing relationship with the property and its owner. We follow our instructions through completion, then beyond completion into the years of ownership that follow. We are often retained for a second or third instruction by the same client, sometimes years later, sometimes for a property in a different city than the original instruction.

Our oldest active client relationships were established in 2011, the year the house was founded. They are now in their fifteenth year. The clients in question have, in that time, instructed the house on three to five separate properties each.

We have declined approximately four hundred instructions across the fifteen years of the house. The reasons vary: properties whose representation would compromise existing clients, owners whose timelines are incompatible with our pacing, geographies outside our coverage, and the occasional instruction whose particulars fall outside the kind of work we want to do. We do not publish the criteria; we apply them privately, and we explain them privately when explanation is requested.

The Principals
The Mount Street office, Mayfair — the house's London rooms, establishing exterior.
The London rooms · Mount Street, Mayfair
Helena Ashcombe — founding principal, London. Editorial portrait illustration.

Helena Ashcombe

Principal · London · Senior partner on UK and Northern European instructions
MA, History of Art — Courtauld Institute, 1998 Director, Christie's London — 2001–2009 Head of Private Sales, Sotheby's — 2009–2011 Founding Principal, Ashcombe Vance — 2011 RICS — Chartered Surveyor Trustee — Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors London Heritage Buildings Committee

"My grandfather was an estate agent in Hampshire who refused to use a typewriter; he believed that the act of writing the description of a property by hand was part of the discipline of representing it. I have always thought he was right about that. We compose every dossier at this house in a way I think he would recognise."— Helena Ashcombe

Marcus Vance — founding principal, New York. Editorial portrait illustration.

Marcus Vance

Principal · New York · Senior partner on US instructions
JD — Columbia Law, 1996 Counsel — Wachtell Lipton, 1996–2004 Head of Real Estate (Private) — Eklund Gomes, 2004–2010 Founding Principal, Ashcombe Vance — 2011 NY State Bar — Real Property Section Member — National Trust for Historic Preservation

"I came into property representation from law, which means I came in with the assumption that representation was an ongoing duty rather than a one-time service. That assumption — slightly out of fashion in the broader trade — has turned out to be the founding premise of this house. Most of our clients are people who, like me, expected the work to look like this and were surprised that it usually doesn't."— Marcus Vance

Camille Lefèvre — principal, Paris. Editorial portrait illustration.

Camille Lefèvre

Principal · Paris · Senior partner on French and Continental instructions
MA, Architectural History — Sorbonne, 2003 Conservator-trainee — Monuments Historiques, 2003–2007 Independent Property Counsel, Paris — 2007–2018 Joining Principal, Ashcombe Vance — 2018 Member — Conseil National de l'Ordre des Architectes (associate) Specialist — Classified historic interiors, hôtels particuliers

"The Paris market for historic interiors is small — perhaps a hundred and fifty addresses where the work the house does is appropriate. I have spent fifteen years walking those addresses. Joining Helena and Marcus was a way of formalising what I was already doing, with two principals who understood why I was doing it that way."— Camille Lefèvre

Affiliations and the Trade

Where the house meets the wider profession.

RICS

Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors

Helena holds RICS Chartered Surveyor status (since 1998) and serves on the London Heritage Buildings Committee. The house's London valuations and condition surveys are conducted to RICS Red Book standards as a matter of course.

NY State Bar

Real Property Law Section

Marcus has held active membership of the New York State Bar's Real Property Section since 1996. The house's Manhattan transactions are conducted with the standard of legal correspondence Marcus brought from Wachtell Lipton.

Monuments Historiques

Conservation-trainee lineage

Camille trained as a conservator at Monuments Historiques between 2003 and 2007 and continues to maintain the council's professional correspondence. Paris instructions involving classified interiors are reviewed against the council's published conservation standards before representation.

National Trust for Historic Preservation

US — Marcus Vance

Marcus has held Trust membership since 2009 and donates time to its Manhattan-area landmark preservation reviews. The house declines to represent properties whose proposed alterations would, in our view, compromise their landmark integrity.

Christie's, Sotheby's, Artcurial

Independent referring relationships

The house maintains active independent referring relationships with the property departments of all three auction houses. The relationships are non-exclusive and operate by mutual referral; we are not commissioned by any of the three.

— The house is a signatory of the London Council of Private Property Houses (founded 2019, eleven houses)

On Declining Instructions

Four hundred, in fifteen years.

The house has, since founding in 2011, accepted instructions on two hundred and thirty-eight properties. In the same period, we have declined approximately four hundred. The ratio is the most important number we publish; it is the working argument for the rest of this page.

How the ratio breaks down

The four hundred declined instructions break down across categories. Many concern timing — properties whose owners are looking for a faster sale than our pacing accommodates. Some concern fit — properties or principals whose particulars do not align with the kind of representation we offer. Some concern conflict — properties whose representation would, in the principals' judgement, be incompatible with our duties to existing clients. A small number concern the property itself — instructions we have declined because the property, in its current state or proposed configuration, is not a property we want to represent.

The decision to decline is taken jointly by the relevant city's principal and at least one other principal of the house. We do not decline instructions casually. When we decline, we explain — privately, in writing, with the courtesy that the seriousness of property representation demands — and we have, on a number of occasions, referred declined instructions onward to colleagues at houses we trust.

— Declined instructions referred onward where the fit exists · Never left without explanation

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