Ah, how the other half live. Buying listed mansions in London’s most exclusive areas, or moving to the Cotswolds. Undertaking vast, expensive renovations on new homes, or invoking the ire of their neighbours with their building plans. Either way, we love to know about it.
From Taylor Swift’s departure from Hampstead to Boris Johnson’s run in with some newts, here are this year’s best, biggest and juiciest celebrity property stories.
Planning battles
Another year, another planning spat over Robbie Williams’ Grade II-listed Holland Park house.
The singer moved into his Queen Anne-style property in 2013, and his ambitious renovation plans, which included excavating a basement swimming pool under the house, quickly drew objections from his neighbour, the Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page. In 2019, four years after he’d submitted the first application, Williams’ plans were approved, with a lengthy list of noise-preventing conditions. But even so, the work has not been without setbacks.
Williams’ latest dispute concerned a “fungus infested” Norway maple tree, which he wanted to chop down. An anonymous neighbour objected, claiming that Williams had not provided clear proof that the tree was not salvageable. At the end of November, Kensington and Chelsea council ruled in Williams’ favour: the tree was “in poor health” and would be felled and replaced with a tulip tree. Lovely.
Williams is not the only public figure whose renovation plans have ruffled some feathers. Former Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s plans to demolish and rebuild an extension on is £3.8 million Georgian manor house in Oxfordshire have been approved – but he’ll have to take precautionary measures to protect the rare population of great crested newts that live in the property’s moat.
Ed Sheeran’s 16-acre complex near Framlingham in Suffolk, meanwhile, has angered neighbours, who claim that his hedges and security fences have ruined their countryside views. This summer, when he posted a picture jumping into a pond, locals accused him of “taking the mick” because he had been given permission to dig the pond on the strict condition that it be used as a wildlife space and not for “recreational leisure activity, such as swimming.” Luckily for Sheeran, the council agreed to remove the restriction.
In other Sheeran-related news, the singer reportedly expanded his £70 million property portfolio by purchasing an £8.25 million office building in the heart of Soho. Sheeran owns at least 27 London homes, as well as his Suffolk estate and a property in Umbria, Italy, but this is thought to be his first major investment in commercial property.
Politicians and their properties
2024 saw elections in both the UK and the US — and with it came a glance at the vast property empires of the ruling class.
Before his election victory, Donald Trump announced the opening of his new links golf course in Aberdeenshire next year. It is his third golf course in the UK. Named after his Scottish-born mother, the 18-hole MacLeod Golf Course has been met with staunch objection, with conservation experts urging Aberdeenshire council to reject the proposal for the course. Campaigners have labelled claims that the new course is “one of the most environmentally friendly and sustainable” ever built as “laughable” and “complete nonsense”.
Ex-PM Rishi Sunak was forced to move house after losing the general election this summer, but not to worry: he had a string of luxury homes to choose from. This includes two Kensington properties, a Yorkshire manor house and a Santa Monica penthouse.
The many homes of his former Conservative colleague, Jacob Rees-Mogg, were also brought to the public eye after his reality TV series, Meet the Rees-Moggs, aired this month. Set primarily in his Grade II-listed Somerset mansion, Gournay Court, the programme showcases Rees-Mogg’s Tudor fireplaces, wood panelled dining room and enormous family portraiture. The family divides their time between their Somerset mansion and their five-storey townhouse on Cowley Street, metres away from the House of Commons.
All roads lead to Hampstead
Hampstead retained its charm amongst the rich and famous, with Lewis Capaldi being one of the newest celebrities to join its ranks. Earlier this year, the Scottish pop sensation spent upwards of £3 million on a new home near the ponds, said to be a stone’s throw away from Harry Styles, who spent £3.2 million on his first Hampstead home in 2012.
As well as Styles, Capaldi’s neighbours include Cat Deely and Patrick Kielty, who won planning permission to transform their £4.9 million property into a mid-century modern-style home last year. Dua Lipa, who lives on one of the area’s most prized leafy avenues, is also working on a total overhaul of her Arts and Crafts property, which will add a swimming pool, steam room, cinema and studio to her new basement.
But while Hampstead gained Capaldi this year, it lost Taylor Swift after her breakup with actor Joe Alwyn. Early last year, Swift was rumoured to be house-hunting in the area. Not anymore. “I left all I knew, you left me at the house by the Heath,” she sings in So Long, London. “I’m just mad as hell cause I loved this place for / So long London”.
Boy George, likewise, been trying to move away from Hampstead for a couple of years. He listed his Grade II-listed Gothic mansion for £17 million in 2022 and, unable to find the right buyer, advertised the property to rent in September for £65,000 per month. According to Julia Garber at listing agents Robert Irving Burns, the Karma Chameleon singer received some “very good offers”, which he turned down. “Whether we sell it or whether we rent it, he’s happy with both. He’s very relaxed. He’s not under any pressure whatsoever.” The property still appears to be available.
Escape to the Cotswolds
Celebrities looking to escape the city have long flocked to the Cotswolds. In 2011, the area’s political and media power figures —including David Cameron, Rebekah Brooks and Jeremy Clarkson— were amongst those dubbed the “Chipping Norton set”. Soho Farmhouse opened in 2015 and attracted a raft of A-listers, including Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise, Harry Styles, Ariana Grande and Margot Robbie. The Beckhams bought a Grade II-listed farmhouse nearby, complete with a 91-metre-long lake and a football pitch.
Things accelerated after the pandemic, with Kate Moss amongst those to sell her Highgate home and relocate. But this year, the area tightened its stranglehold on the rich and famous. Following her departure from Hampstead, Taylor Swift and her partner Travis Kelce were reported to have rented a £3.3 million property in Chipping Norton while Swift was on her UK leg of her Eras tour.
They were joined later in the year by former talk show host Ellen DeGeneres, who has reportedly left the US following Donald Trump’s election victory and is “never coming back”.
Celebrities who sold up
2024 was a year of noughties band reunions: Oasis, Sugababes, The Libertines, The Darkness and Stereophonics have all performed or announced gigs. It was also a year of noughties band members selling their London homes.
Sugababe Heidi Range and her property developer husband Alex Partakis, for example, put their Fulham home on the market for £5.3 million in February to move to Surrey with their daughters. They bought the Edwardian laundry factory in 2015 when it was still “just an empty warehouse” and converted it into a plush 4,124 sq ft pad, complete with Partakis’ vintage Ferrari Dino on display in the living room, parked in an internal garage with glass doors.
A Libertines band member, who did not wish to be named, made a similar decision, trading in his maximalist Victorian property in Stoke Newington for trendy Margate. The house — fittingly located on Albion Road — bore the stamp of its owners in its interiors, and was the prototype for The Albion Rooms, the Margate hotel and recording studio opened by the Libertines in 2020. It was listed for £1.95 million in February. “It has been a beautiful setting to write and raise children, but it is time for us to move on,” said the owner. “The sea suits us more these days. I dare say we’ll head back to London again one day.”
Some celebrity moves, though, were necessitated by circumstance. In November, former Liverpool striker Andy Caroll and his ex-wife Billi Mucklow put their six-bedroom house in Chigwell on the market shortly after announcing their divorce. The Grade-II listed mansion, which had previously belonged to Sir Rod Stewart, sits on 25 acres of land with panoramic views of Epping Forest, a boating lake, tennis court, swimming pool and full-size football pitch. The couple bought the house from Stewart for £4.1 million in 2019 and listed it for £8.5 million with Savills – more than double what they paid for it.
Andre Portasio, husband of the late Paul O’Grady, put their shared home on the market in September. The broadcaster and chat show host bought the property in the Kent countryside in 1999 and lived there until his death in March last year. The 20-acre country estate is a “wildlife haven”, with native woodland, paddocks for livestock and a wildflower meadow. “[The gardens] are incredibly special during the spring when everything comes into bloom,” said Portasio. “You really feel as if you’re in your own world here; the skies are vast and the land rolls down almost as far as you can see.”
More than three decades after Freddie Mercury’s death, his Kensington home was also put up for sale. The Queen frontman bought his neo-Georgian house in 1980 on his first viewing, and bequeathed it —and all its contents— to his friend Mary Austin when he died. Austin has lived at the property since. Last year, she auctioned Mercury’s collection with Sotheby’s, and this year, the house was listed for £30 million with Knight Frank. She said: “Ever since Freddie and I stepped through the fabled green door, it has been a place of peace, a true artist’s house, and now is the time to entrust that sense of peace to the next person.”
