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How billionaires are renovating their new mega-mansions

Rutland Gate, pictured here before the refurbishment, is set to be the most expensive property in Britain
Rutland Gate, pictured here before the refurbishment, is set to be the most expensive property in Britain

If you’ve looked around your house over the last homebound year and realised it needs an urgent facelift – or that fresh air is all you want and that it’s time to move out of the city – then you’re not alone. In fact you’re in company with the super-rich, who have spent the pandemic updating their existing properties and buying new, staggeringly expensive ones.

Nick Candy and his wife Holly Valance clearly decided that their Hyde Park Corner pad – which is estimated to be worth £75 million – wasn’t enough for their growing family, and so have also splashed out a house in Oxfordshire, a stone’s throw from David and Samantha Cameron, and Kate Moss.

It is an area that has become increasingly popular with Londoners, thanks in part to the arrival of Soho Farmhouse and Daylesford Organic, which was launched by Lady Carole Bamford and is where the super-rich do their shopping. As a result, prices have skyrocketed; not that this is a problem for Candy, whose Oxfordshire house was sold for £8 million in 2012 and bought by Candy for an undisclosed sum. Either way, it is small change for a man estimated to be worth £1 billion.

Nick Candy and Holly Valance - Getty
Nick Candy and Holly Valance - Getty

Photographs show it to be a classic English home with rolling lawns, banks of lavender and neat hedges. It is the sort of house described in books like The Go Between, with a long swimming pool surrounded by oak trees, and an airy interior with wooden floors, high ceilings and views across the countryside. In other words, a place you dream of being in a heatwave.

Nick Candy's Oxfordshire house
Nick Candy's Oxfordshire house

It’s also a far cry from Candy’s London home, which is the penthouse of One Hyde Park; although both do boast swimming pools over 21m in length. The apartment, which remains one of the most expensive in the city, has more of a classic billionaire aesthetic with crystal chandeliers, floor-to-ceiling windows and space age-style light fixtures.

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Price wise, though, Candy has been entirely outdone by Hong Kong umbrella billionaire Cheung Chung Kiu, who this week heard that Westminster council had approved his plans to turn his mansion in Knightsbridge into a 42-bedroom palace with an Olympic-sized swimming pool and a vast roof terrace.

The Rutland Gate property in Hyde Park
The Rutland Gate property in Hyde Park

This eight-storey, 62,000-sq-ft private palace at 2-8A Rutland Gate cost £205 million to buy, but experts said could be worth up to £500m when completed. The basement will be extended and a ‘halo roof’ will be put in place to create a contained, walled roof garden that neighbours have already complained will change the aesthetics of the area.

Cheung is allegedly planning to turn his property into a modern version of a British palace, with every mod-con available inside, but with old-world decor. This desire for Downton Abbey-style properties both in London and the countryside has been a billionaire trend since the start of the pandemic and is only growing. As shown by the fact last year, Savills sold 21 estates valued at £15m-plus outside of London; by comparison one such property sold in the whole of 2019.

But what ties all these properties together is a sumptuous period drama exterior and ultra-expensive touches inside. The pandemic has made the already often fastidious super-rich even more so, and architects are being asked to incorporate AI-led filtration systems into the air-conditioning. These remove any trace of the coronavirus within an hour, using military technology originally designed to ward off chemical attacks.

Nick Candy's swimming pool
Nick Candy's swimming pool

Fresh air is also the reason why billionaires are requesting vertical gardens inside their houses including walls of flowers and indoor farms where you can grow herbs and fruit instead of popping down to Daylesford for salad ingredients. One multi-millionaire wanted all the walls of his living room covered in moss to evoke the feeling of hiking in the Scottish highlands; another requested a tomato farm inside his kitchen.

Over the last year, as our homes were forced to become make-shift offices, spas, gyms, restaurants and bars, the super-rich have updated their houses to include those exact things. State-of-the-art gyms with Pelotons, swimming pools and every machine imaginable have take over basements, while saunas are being built in the garden to cater to a set that usually spends January and February in the Caribbean, but this year was forced to stay at home. As a result, companies such as Royal Tubs and Luna Spa will create a lavish, hotel-worthy steam room for just £6,000.

The Luna spa costs £6000 to install
The Luna spa costs £6000 to install

My favourite trend, however, has to be luxury dog-grooming rooms. With lockdown ensuring all important pooch parlours were closed for the best part of a year, those who were rich enough demanded one be installed at home.

Interior designer Katharine Pooley told the Evening Standard that she built a dog-grooming room in a Notting Hill townhouse during the first lockdown which included mini wardrobes for each dog, a grooming area with seats and baths, and personalised lead holders.

Neither Cheung nor Candy appear to have a dog, but with their lavish new houses - and in Cheung’s case 42 spare rooms and vast roof terrace - a billionaire mutt with a wing of its own is surely not out of the question...

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