Al-Fayed seeks capital asset
The philanthropist and designer Jasmine al-Fayed has a new project. The 31-year-old used to run her own fashion label, dressing A-listers including Thandie Newton, Sienna Miller and Anne Hathaway. This spring, she is house-hunting in leafy Hampstead, north London.
The daughter of the billionaire Fulham FC owner Mohamed al-Fayed has £10m to spend, and her father is apparently helping her out with the search.
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Capote was here
The writer Truman Capote made his name — and fortune — with the novella Breakfast at Tiffany’s, which was later adapted into the 1961 movie starring Audrey Hepburn as girl-about-town Holly Golightly.
Now it seems the owner of the yellow mansion in which Capote wrote his bestseller has received a financial boost thanks to its literary pedigree. It has reportedly just been sold for $12m (£7.7m), the highest price ever for a single-family home in Brooklyn, New York.
The 18-room property has 11 bedrooms, 11 fireplaces, crystal chandeliers, Greek-revival columns, parking for four cars and a mural copied from the Kennedy-era White House.
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Miss Marple sale
Knitting needles at the ready — the five-bedroom property in Nether Wallop, near Stockbridge, Hampshire, that doubled as Miss Marple’s St Mary Mead home in the BBC series starring Joan Hickson is on sale for £895,000.
What the beady-eyed spinster sleuth would think of the Grade II-listed cottage’s makeover — there’s barely a sprig of chintz in sight — is anyone’s guess, but it’s certainly worth investigating.
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JCB man in deal
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Who needs estate agents? A year after the rather dated London mansion belonging to the Forte hotelier family went on the market, it has been sold to the serial property renovator and chairman of JCB, Anthony Bamford, for £37.5m.
Apparently the deal was clinched on the shooting field. Once modernised, it could be one of the best houses in London, my source tells me.
Last year, Bamford, 66, sold Sloane House, an eight-bedroom Grade II-listed pile in Chelsea, to Petra Ecclestone, 23, for £56m. Bamford and his wife, Carole, who founded Daylesford Organics, are also selling Bruern Abbey, in Oxfordshire, for £8.5m.
Got any gossip? Email us at movingon@sunday-times.co.uk