Forget Hugh Hefner, this is the real playboy mansion: home of Robert Hanson, who knows the inside-leg measurements of more models than Jean-Paul Gaultier.
The blade about town — son of the late industrialist Lord Hanson and engaged briefly to model Sophie Anderton — is stuck with the tag “playboy” much as Tony Blair’s name is always followed by “prime minister” or Cherie Blair’s with “freeloader”. If Hanson Jr had married earlier, the gossip columnists would have been laid off, the Chinawhite nightclub would have gone bust and half of Models1 would be fretting over where the next holiday in Mustique was coming from.
He does not disappoint. I find him ensconced in a deckchair at the Berkshire home he is flogging, proffering champagne. Hanson, 44, is full of bonhomie about his trip to Russia the previous week.
“Paradise: I very nearly didn’t come back. The girls were all tall and beautiful and there were hundreds of them, although their second word in English seemed to be ‘cash’.”
This last year he claims to have suffered the equivalent of losing his religion. Yep, during his dark night of the soul he has wondered if there might be more to life than scurrying after skirt: “There is nothing like two parents dying; my appetite has not been great for that.” First, his mother died of leukaemia, then papa followed last November. After much anguish, Hanson decided to flog the long, low house near Newbury that has been principal home for the Hansons for 40 years.
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He offers practical reasons: he already has a weekend bolt hole in Gloucestershire that he was going to sell, but his prospective buyer died (literally), so he is selling this instead. However, as heir to the Hanson zillions, he is not short of small change (Kimber Cottage is going for £2m). Perhaps it reminds him of too much.
“My mother was mad about roses,” he says, stooping to sniff at a blooming bed. After her death in February 2004, Hanson moved back down to be close to his father. The tycoon had been austere through his son’s childhood, but here they bonded belatedly.
“He was very excited about me moving here,” says Hanson. “His bedroom was below mine so he reinforced the floor; he feared there would be some action up here.” He smiles, glancing at the king-size bed.
He recalls how his father (6ft 6in) was knocked out by a low beam (“my mother found him out cold”) and the time his father stood right over a water rat and shot: “He missed, making this huge crater in the lawn, while the rat scuttled off to the stream.”
In his final year, Hanson Sr built a swimming pool — over the helipad where Air Hanson used to land — in which to exercise. But showing he can’t be sombre for long, Hanson joshes to the estate agent that she might like to skinny-dip.
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While it could not be called modest, Kimber Cottage is no plutocrat’s palace; Roman Abramovich would hardly consider it grand enough for staff quarters. Hanson assures me the family has a larger pile near Huddersfield, home of the Hanson empire. “This started as a small cottage,” he explains, “but it was so typical of my parents to take something tiny and add five extensions.”
While it boasts nine bedrooms, it still retains the feel of the ancient thatched cottage it always was. But one where swells certainly came to stay. We pass a giant photomontage sent as birthday greetings from Roger Moore to Lady H that features the Hanson clan with 007, Joan Collins, George Hamilton and Michael Caine. It is like reading Nigel Dempster, circa 1975.
Despite the extensions — God knows how the late Lord H wangled planning permission — many of the rooms remain small and dark, while the decor looks passé. But Hanson is surely truthful when he says it is “a wonderful place for summer entertaining; I remember all the guests sitting in the garden”. The house snuggles into a lovely lea down a lane hardly large enough for bicycles, let alone Chelsea tractors.
The only downer is the nearby Newbury bypass, which ruins the approach, sending visitors round a myriad of mini-roundabouts. A neighbour, Lord Palumbo, “made such a fuss about the bypass, but you can’t hear it,” says Hanson, doing his good house-seller bit.
Only in country houses of the super-rich is everything immaculate, and Kimber could not be more manicured. The Hansons employed more toilers than the Indian railway or the NHS. “I make the gardeners clip the hedge with nail scissors,” he says, playing the jolly fascist.
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He might have raised nippers here with Anderton, but he admits his parents did not view it “as a match made in heaven. She was very into her career.” But he clearly remains fond of her: “I was very unpopular with Lady Derby as I insisted on watching I’m a Celebrity ... I was so proud of Sophie, though I gagged when she ate those testicles,” he adds, crossing his legs.
It is a hard life being Hanson: “I also inherited three houses in Palm Springs.” He rolls his eyes as if suggesting this is a bit of a drag.
Irrepressible, he says: “I am not going to think just about the sad things here, such as my father’s death. You have to keep thinking of happy memories.” Oh, and if any models are reading, he promises that he, like the house, is back on the market.
Kimber Cottage is for sale for £2m with Lane Fox, 020 7499 4785, www.lanefox.com