A four-bedroom Victorian villa in South Hampstead that was once home to English singer-songwriter Lynsey de Paul has been listed for sale for £4,850,000 (AUD$9,284,400).
The 3,807 sq.ft. Italianate property on Fairfax Road, which was built in 1851-52 is listed by Aston Chase. Set behind high walls and secure gates, it has a brick façade with stone quoins, sash windows and dormer windows to the roof, along with a south-west facing garden.
Lynsey de Paul, who died in 2014, was born and raised in Hampstead and bought the villa in 1995. Through the 1970s she wrote and performed a run of hit singles, including “Sugar Me” (1972) and the Ivor Novello Award-winning “Won’t Somebody Dance with Me” (1973) and “No Honestly” (1974). Her single “Rock Bottom” represented the UK at Eurovision in 1977, finishing second.
She went on to write “There’s No Place Like London” for Dame Shirley Bassey and “Gold”, the theme to Esther Rantzen’s Hearts of Gold.
According to the press release by Aston Chase, she was a prominent supporter of Margaret Thatcher, performing a campaign song at the 1983 Conservative Party Conference and attending Downing Street luncheons in 1984 and 1988.
At Fairfax Road, Lynsey entertained friends including Esther Rantzen, Def Leppard’s Joe Elliott, Suzi Quatro, Roy Wood, Henry Kelly and Spike Milligan, who nicknamed her “Looney de Small”. She is alleged to have had relationships with Sean Connery, Bernie Taupin, George Best and Ringo Starr.
Lynsey downsized from the villa in 2001. It later passed to the Groves family, then in 2003 to BBC London and Heart 106.2 presenter Jonathan Coleman, who sold it to the current owners when he moved to Australia in 2006.
Those owners commissioned interior designer Shalini Misra in 2013, spending a year sourcing fittings from the UK and Europe for a refurbishment completed in 2014.
The remodelled garden floor now houses an open-plan kitchen with a lava stone island bench, opening onto full-height glazing and the garden. The raised ground floor holds the drawing and dining rooms, while the principal bedroom suite, formerly Lynsey’s, occupies its own level on the third floor.
Mark Pollack, co-founder of Aston Chase, said the villa “offers the perfect blend of leafy village style charm and urban convenience.”
“The address is renowned for its stunning Victorian architecture, spacious family homes, superb transport links and top-tier local schools,” he said.