TALK OF THE TOWN: Posh and wreck… Beckhams’ £31million townhouse still needs urgent repairs
‘In poor structural condition due to wear resulting from age’ is not how you’d expect David Beckham to be described.
So you’ll be pleased to hear it doesn’t apply to him – but to his £31.5 million townhouse in London’s super-posh Holland Park.
Becks, below with wife Victoria, has already pumped £8 million into renovating their ageing Victorian villa, which has an indoor pool and wine cellar.
But it still needs urgent structural repairs – with a raised terrace so close to collapse that it’s been sealed off.
The Beckhams are keen to get on with urgent repairs but, as a local tells me, because it’s Grade II listed ‘they can’t do anything without council approval’.
Posh and Becks have already pumped £8 million into renovating their ageing Victorian villa in London’s Holland Park, but it is still needs urgent structural repairs
The Beckhams are keen to get on with urgent repairs but, as a local tells me, because it’s Grade II listed ‘they can’t do anything without council approval’
Crush of the week: Lily Lewis
She’s gorgeous and extremely well-connected. Her father John owns the Sloane Square Hotel and founded the Royal Crescent Hotel in Bath, and she grew up among many famous guests.
This is poet and artist Lily Lewis, whose pals include singer Ellie Goulding and actress Anna Friel, and who has been on holiday with Boris Johnson!
It might sound like a charmed existence but Lily, who specialises in modern portraiture, has had her share of tribulations.
This is poet and artist Lily Lewis, whose pals include singer Ellie Goulding and actress Anna Friel, and who has been on holiday with Boris Johnson!
She has a neurological condition called synaesthesia that results in a merging of senses.
She tells me: ‘Sometimes I smell colours and see sounds.’
She works with charity Doorstep Library to help vulnerable youngsters by volunteering to read to them. How can we not love Lily?
Coltrane Lives As Hagrid
Robbie Coltrane has always looked the part as Hagrid, the half-giant and half-human gamekeeper in the Harry Potter films.
Now I can reveal that he lives the part too, holing himself up in a windswept, hillside dwelling in the Highlands which looks remarkably like Hagrid’s hut.
‘It’s got a prominent, pyramid-shaped, pointed roof, like Hagrid’s,’ a local tells me. ‘And, like Hagrid’s, it’s stone-built and, in all honesty, looks like it’s seen better days.’
It’s been home to the 71-year-old Coltrane ever since he first starred as Hagrid in 2001.
It doesn’t belong to him, however: he rents – for the peppercorn fee of £1,000-a-month.