Winner waves farewell to his £60m mansion

Michael Winner has announced he is selling his £60m London mansion before he ties the knot. Recently spotted on the beach sporting a paunch, perhaps he'd like to pay for a new set of abs as Big Brother's Darryn Lyons has done.

A few weeks ago I suggested on this page that anyone keen to spend £40m-plus on a house had missed the boat with the sale of Park Place to a Russian buyer for £140m last month. It seems I was wrong. That ship may have sailed, but there's now something even better for the nation's super-rich to consider. Yes, Michael Winner is selling up: his Holland Park home is on the market for £60m, says Jan Moir in the Daily Mail. For that you get 47 rooms; the home cinema in which "Warren Beatty once snogged Michelle Phillips, the Mamas and Papas singer"; the three-quarter-acre garden where a brass band played Happy Birthday to Jane Seymour when she was dating Winner; a Jacuzzi and a steam room; an underground swimming pool; and a whole lot of slightly bonkers-looking light fittings. Country Life says there are 2,000 bulbs while the Daily Mail goes for 3,400, but either way it means someone (not Winner, obviously) must spend a lot of time up ladders changing them.

There's currently a tremendous shortage of supply of big houses in prime central London: last quarter a mere 1,342 properties changed hands, 27% fewer than usual. That suggests that, while he might not get his full £60m, Winner should be able to shift his childhood home relatively quickly. The question now is just what the publicity-hungry old boy will do with the cash. He is engaged (he has never been married before), so he could spend up on the wedding. Petra Ecclestone's dad is dropping around £1.5m on her big day at 15th-century Odescalchi Castle just outside Rome this week. But given that he is marrying a rather younger woman (Geraldine Lynton-Davies), who he says is behind the house sale, there has to be speculation that he might want to spend a little on preserving his youthful looks.

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