This week, the billionaire property developer Nick Candy announced that he had been appointed as Reform UK’s new treasurer and pledged to donate a “seven figure sum” to Nigel Farage’s party.
Candy, until now a long-term Conservative party member and donor, made his fortune redeveloping luxury properties with his brother Christian Candy. Together, they are worth an estimated £1.5 billion, according to the Irish Sun, with Candy’s wealth around £880 million.
So what does Candy own? From his record-breaking One Hyde Park penthouse to his modernist Los Angeles mansion, here’s a look at Nick Candy’s property portfolio.
Knightsbridge Penthouse
One Hyde Park, the £1.2 billion development which was completed in 2009, is the Candy brothers’ most famous project. Overlooking Hyde Park, it contains 86 residential properties which have commanded eye-watering prices since its inception. As well as sheiks, oligarchs and billionaires, owners of the ultra-luxurious apartments have included Kylie Minogue - and the Candy brothers themselves.
Nick Candy owns the development’s duplex penthouse: a five-bedroom, 18,000-square-foot apartment which covers the building’s 10th and 11th floors. The property, which was gifted to him by his brother in 2014, features a double-height reception room with an eight-metre-high ceiling and a glass fireplace, a Japanese-themed kitchen and breakfast room, private spa, gym, cocktail bar, home cinema and wraparound terrace. There are two secondary staff entrances, while the principal suite covers 2,300 square feet alone, with dressing rooms and twin bathrooms with Jacuzzi-style pools.
Candy lived in the apartment with his family —he is married to the Australian actress Holly Valance and has two children— and reportedly spends around 20 days a year at the property. According to The Guardian, this caused him to complain about his £161,000 a year service charge. “I’ve got a penthouse … and I’m there like 20 days a year, and I pay the service charge [like] the guy who uses the pool everyday.”
In 2018, Candy sold the property for £160 million to offshore companies that he controls in order to remortgage it with an £80 million loan from Credit Suisse, The Times reported. Candy listed the property for £175 million in 2021, making it the most expensive apartment in London by some distance. Three years later, it remains on the market with Sotheby’s International Realty.
Listed Chelsea house
Built in 1809, Gordon House is a large, Grade II-listed house which sits on two acres of grounds within Chelsea’s Royal Hospital. It sits alongside The Orangery, built by Sir Thomas Vanbrugh in 1725, and the smaller Creek Lodge, constructed in 1868.
Christian Candy bought the three properties for £68 million on two long leases from the hospital in 2012. The following year, he gained permission to convert the buildings into a single-family residence, and submitted further plans to build a private spa and “leisure centre” under the property, making it one of London’s largest-ever mega-basements. This would include a 20-metre swimming pool, cold plunge, jacuzzi, sauna, steam room, dance studio, three treatment rooms, a cinema and an 18-metre, two-lane bowling alley.
According to his design business Candy London’s website, the development took four years, engaging a team of over 220 workers onsite daily. It took 12 months to excavate 16,000 cubic metres of soil, with the 14,000 square foot basement connecting the buildings underground and featuring the first private IMAX cinema in Europe, as well as a wine cellar with a vaulted ceiling. The whole property now spans 40,000 square feet of internal space, including a two-storey guest house with a double-height courtyard with a retractable glass ceiling.
Nick Candy was gifted the property by Christian Candy in 2014, which he said was honouring his late father’s wishes to share his wealth with his brother. Court documents show that Nick Candy paid the second and third instalments of the second £48 million lease, agreeing to pay the fourth too. He also paid £1.92 million in stamp duty on the gift, which prompted Christian Candy to apply for repayment of the £1.92 million that he had already paid. The appeal, which took place in 2022, was unsuccessful.
Cotswolds estate
In 2021, Nick Candy and Holly Valance spent £8.5 million on a Grade II-listed Oxfordshire estate. The Georgian rectory, built in the late 18th century, has over 10,000 square feet of space and sits on around nine acres of land. There are seven bedrooms, a swimming pool, tennis and squash courts, stables and a chapel.
At the time, Candy told the Daily Mail that the couple and their two young daughters were “very immersed in quiet country life at weekends and adore the friendly and welcoming village”.
Mayfair office
This Grade II-listed Edwardian townhouse on Upper Brook Street was purchased by one of Candy’s companies, 49 UBS Limited, for £13 million in March 2015. Built in 1907, the building spans six floors with more than 9,000 square feet of space.
Candy London gave the building an extensive renovation, extending it to accommodate an extra office space and creating open plan and private offices, meeting rooms, a bar and restaurant and two roof terraces. In total, there are eight open plan offices across four floors, with luxury bathrooms and individual kitchens, according to Candy London’s website.
The building is also the registered address of several of Candy’s companies.
Los Angeles mansion
Candy’s modernist mansion in the Holmby Hills is called The Reserve. Spanning 21,000 square feet —with 11,000 square feet over a single floor— the mid-century property sits on two acres of land and is intended, according to Candy London, to “inspire tranquility and peace”. The ceilings are 14 feet high, with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the landscaped gardens and 50-foot swimming pool.
Other highlights include the master wing, a wine room, Art Deco Hollywood bar and 1920s French regency-style cinema. There is also a separate 10,000 square foot guest house, “as luxurious and imposing as the main house”, which has five bedrooms, a gym, spa and carport. Many of these luxuries were added by Candy, who bought the estate from his brother in 2018, Mansion Global reports. He paid $28.5 million (£22.3m), according to Zillow.
Candy listed the property for $85 million (£66.6m) in 2022. It is still on the market, now with a $10 million (£7.8m) price cut.
Other projects
The Candys’ property empire started with an apartment in Earl’s Court in 1995, which the brothers refurbished and sold for a £50,000 profit. In recent years, Nick Candy has returned to his roots, renovating period properties under Candy London in upmarket London areas. These, for example, include a four-bedroom white stucco family home on Elm Park Road in Chelsea, which Candy bought for £4.6 million in 2021. In 2023, it was listed for £8.595 million with Knight Frank, but does not appear to have been sold yet.
Candy London also redeveloped a three-bedroom Mayfair apartment on Carlos Place, opposite the Connaught Hotel. Candy bought it for £5.6 million in 2021 and sold it for £8.4 million the following year.
Another notable acquisition is Candy’s 206-foot superyacht called 11:11, which he purchased in 2014. This too was given a makeover by Candy London, which added a jacuzzi, massage room and spa, and expanded the gym. Bloomberg reports that Candy used the boat between 10 and 12 weeks a year for family and business, and leased it for €650,000 (£535,000) per week for eight weeks a year, on average. He listed the boat for £54 million in 2020.
