FIRST LOOK: Inside St Leonard's Place as it is restored to its former glory

During the years when it was the city council's headquarters, it had that slightly run-down, shabby appearance that only municipal buildings seem to manage.

More recently, that lovely curve of late-Georgian buildings - designed, perhaps, to be York's answer to Bath's Royal Crescent - has been hidden from view behind scaffolding and ugly hoardings.

In just a few months, however, that scaffolding will start to come down, and the renaissance of this 'cultural quarter' of York - which has also seen the multi-million pound refurbishments of both the city art gallery and the Theatre Royal - will be complete.

Already, however, like a chrysalis rearranging its internal structure before emerging as a butterfly, St Leonard's Place is being transformed from within.

Up until 2013, when the city council moved out, the inside of this elegant crescent - a Grade II* listed building - was a rambling warren of municipal offices.

Built in the early 1830s as a crescent of nine stately individual townhouses, a passageway had been knocked through on the ground floor so council staff could get from one end of the building to the other without repeatedly having to go in and out.

Cheap partitions had been used to divide up the generously-proportioned rooms; floors were covered in shiny lino or inexpensive carpet squares; and the colours were drab, institutional beiges or greys.

Mark Finch of developer Rushbond and architectural historian Ingrid Brown inside one of the attic apartments

All that has changed. Leeds-based developer Rushbond, which bought the crescent from the city council, has, since April last year, been busy restoring it to its original use - as housing.

It had originally planned to turn it into an 88-bedroom hotel, but abandoned those proposals after a hotel operator pulled out.

So housing it is to be - although not exactly of the 'affordable' kind.

In all, the five story crescent (basement, ground floor, first and second floors and attic) will be converted into 40 homes. Five of them (at No 2, 3, 4, 6 and and 7 St Leonard's Place) will be sumptuous townhouses occupying all five floors and the same space the original townhouses did.

The four remaining original townhouses (Nos 1, 5, 8 and 9) have been converted into 29 luxury apartments. A further six mews properties are being built on St Leonard's Mews behind the main crescent.

Room with a view: a kitchen with a grandstand view of York Minster

And prices? They range from £300,000 for the smallest flat to almost £1.6 million for the most palatial of the townhouses.

These properties aren't going to solve York's housing crisis, therefore. But even back in the 1830s, they always were intended as 'genteel private residences' for the wealthiest of York's Georgian elite. So nothing has really changed. And they will, at least, help bring a buzz back to this part of York.

The Press was invited in to have a look around. Much of the St Leonard's Place crescent was still a building site, and so off limits. But we got to see some of the almost-finished apartments in what was 9 St Leonard's Place.

The contrast with the days when these were council offices was extraordinary. All the clutter of lino, carpet squares and cheap partitions has been cleared away. Period features - elegant fireplaces, ornate plaster ceilings, curving staircases, attic roof-beams and even some of the original window-glass - has been retained.

Period features such as this original fireplace have been kept

But contemporary kitchens, en-suite bathrooms, walk-in wardrobes and elegant, minimalist radiators have ensured these are flats with a very modern feel.

They also happen to have some great views - over the rooftops to the Minster from the front; and out over King's Manor and the stretch of Roman and medieval wall leading to Museum Gardens from the back.

The colour scheme is neutral, so the new owners can put their own stamp on the flats. But what's best about them is their quirkiness.

Mark Fincher, Rushbond's director of real estate, said the challenge was to create modern, contemporary homes in a late Georgian building replete with period features.

Dividing the crescent up into flats was a bit like doing a jigsaw puzzle, he says. So one duplex flat in no 9 St Leonard's is spread out over three floors - basement, ground floor and a stairway leading up to a blank wall on the first floor. That stairway doesn't go anywhere - behind the wall where it ends is another flat. But it looks out through a wonderfully-proportioned Georgian window over King's Manor, and is in itself a great place to sit.

Stair to nowhere: but it does have great views. Mark Finch of Rushbond and architectural historian Ingrid Brown on the stair that ends in a wall...

The flats on the first and second floors are the grandest - the rooms in the attic flats are less high and not so generously proportioned, because they were, after all, designed as servants' quarters. But they compensate by having the best views of the Minster - and ceilings supported by original timber work.

Expensive these homes may be: but they have been snapped up. At the time of writing, Rushbond had already sold 34 of the 40 homes and apartments - including all but one of the most expensive townhouses.

They've gone to a range of different people, Mr Finch says: including people moving to York from London, and others 'downsizing' from large Yorkshire country homes to live in the city.

The view from one of the flats over York's Roman and medieval wall

Clearly, there are still a few people out there with a few bob to rub together...

• For more information about St Leonard's Place call Savills on 01904 617820 or visit www.stleonardsplace.co.uk

A history of St Leonard's Place

By the 1700s, York had firmly established itself as the 'social centre of the North'. Writing in 1736 Francis Drake - the author of an early history of the city - described it as a 'resort... and residence of ...country gentlemen.'

Throughout the 18th century, a host of elegant new buildings and walks sprang up, says architectural historian Ingrid Brown, who has produced a history of St Leonard's Place for Rushbond.

They included the Assembly Rooms, the Mansion House, the racecourse, the tree-lined New Walk beside the River Ouse where Georgian gentry could 'promenade' with their ladies and, in 1744, a new theatre on Duncombe Place - today's Theatre Royal.

By the start of the 1800s, the city fathers decided they needed to build some new roads to better serve the elegant Georgian city. "Major initiatives included the widening of Parliament Street for the city's markets and the expansion of the city gaol," Ingrid writes.

But the most significant change came in 1831, with a proposal to build a new street at the northern end of the city to link through to Bootham.

The York library 'news room' or reading room that was set up at No 1 St Leonard's Place in the 1800s. Illustration from the collection of Bill Fawcett

St Leonard’s Place, it was to be called, since it crossed the site of the former St Leonard's Hospital. And since there was to be a new road, the city steward Peter Atkinson decided that there might as well be some new houses as well, so the corporation could make a bit of money.

There were three options for the new street. The one the city council initially approved involved demolishing part of the city walls and removing Bootham Bar. This being York, however, a “resistance group” of outraged locals – including the Archbishop of York, Edward Harcourt – was formed. A compromise route was agreed which saw only a small part of the bar walls knocked down. Bootham Bar survived.

The route for the new street agreed, it only remained to build the houses. An initial design was bland, and failed to attract any investors.

But then the recorder of York, Charles Elsey, suggested the appointment of a young architect, John Harper. Harper designed a curving terrace of nine elegant neo-classical houses, the one in the middle significantly larger than the others. With its columns, its stucco and its magnificent mansard roof, it was the perfect gentleman’s address - and there was enough interest for construction to begin.

St Leonard's Place was completed by the end of 1835. The York Corporation recorded its thanks to Elsey, whose "taste and liberal spirit... introduced into our Northern Metropolis... an elegant specimen of the modern style of domestic architecture which forms so great an ornament to many parts of London and other cities in the South."

A contemporary floorplan shows that one of the new properties was owned by the architect, John Harper, himself; and another (No 9) by Charles Elsey.

The largest house, No 5, became The Yorkshire Club, while No 1 became the York library news room or reading room. An engraving shows how the 'news room' would have looked in its heyday, lined wall-to-ceiling with books and periodicals. The perfect place for the Georgian elite to keep up with the affairs of the day...