EMILY PRESCOTT: Porn heiress Fawn James stirs up trouble with her plans for Jamie Oliver’s old £15m home

EMILY PRESCOTT: Porn heiress Fawn James stirs up trouble with her plans for Jamie Oliver’s old £15m home

By Emily Prescott

Updated: 01:41 BST, 3 September 2023

One of the country’s wealthiest women is facing a planning battle to build a huge basement in chef Jamie Oliver’s former home.

The £15 million mansion in Highgate, North London, was bought from Jamie last year by FIJ PTC, a company which is ultimately controlled by porn heiress Fawn James and her stepfather John.

Mrs James, 37, and her half-sister India Rose James, 31, inherited the majority of their grandfather Paul Raymond’s £450 million Soho Estates business empire upon his death in 2008.

Raymond was most famous for his strip club, Raymond Revuebar, as well as his roster of adult magazines, but the one-time ‘King of Soho’ diversified into various businesses, and at one point was said to have been worth more than £1 billion.

Now planning documents for what is believed to be his granddaughter’s marital home reveal proposed changes include a new swimming pool and summer house where the Naked Chef’s large greenhouse used to be. The vegetable patch is being preserved.

Porn heiress Fawn James is planning to build a huge basement in Jamie Oliver’s former home, with a new swimming pool and summer house where the Naked Chef’s large greenhouse used to be

The £15 million mansion in Highgate, North London, was bought from Jamie Oliver last year by FIJ PTC, a company which is ultimately controlled by Ms James and her stepfather John

Plans to build a large basement beneath the front garden of the 17th Century Grade II-listed house, near to the late pop singer George Michael’s home, have attracted local concern, however. 

Responding to Camden Council’s consultation, Louise Lewis, of Highgate Neighbourhood Forum, wrote: ‘We object to the removal of trees and vegetation in the front of the house. Removal of greenery from the front garden will impact the character of this part of the Conservation Area with its run of listed buildings and their verdant front gardens. It will also affect the setting of the listed building itself.’

Happily for the owners, the local group does not appear to have set its face against the basement entirely. ‘If there is to be a basement, the applicant needs to find a way of maintaining overall appearance of the front garden,’ Ms Lewis concluded.

Soho Estates was contacted for comment.

Emerald’s secret is out of the bag

Emerald Fennell

Society magazine Tatler has found itself caught up in a rather bizarre situation by revealing the filming location of The Crown actress Emerald Fennell’s upcoming drama Saltburn. 

The film, touted as a modern-day Brideshead Revisited, was shot at Northamptonshire stately home Drayton House. 

But producers of the movie – which stars Richard E. Grant and Rosamund Pike and which has been written and directed by Emerald, right – insist no one had permission to reveal the location… despite it being reported on websites such as Wikipedia.

Representatives for the film tell me Tatler has been asked to remove reference to it. I fear the secret is already out!

:

***
Read more at DailyMail.co.uk