Will Megxit be welcome in Malibu?
It’s been a sun-kissed seaside playground of the A-list for decades. Now the Sussexes are said to be house-hunting there. But with the locals desperate to protect their paradise retreat...
Many years ago, when she was striving to become a renowned actress, Meghan Markle would sometimes jog with her mother along the Los Liones Trail, a winding mountain track offering breathtaking views of the Malibu coast.
according to an old friend, she would gaze down at the sumptuous mansions that dapple the chaparral-clad foothills and line the silken beaches, and fantasise about becoming sufficiently rich and famous to own one.
It seemed an unattainable dream. Even a modest Malibu home costs several millions, and Hard Rock cafe founder Peter Morton recently sold his waterfront palace for $120million, a record sum for Los angeles County.
The closest Meghan had come to living in this ultimate a-listers’ enclave was when she was little and her father Thomas was doing well enough as a Hollywood lighting director to buy a chalet in a smart suburb, 17 miles away.
But now, albeit by marrying a prince rather than becoming a film star, it would seem that Meghan has finally made it to Malibu.
This week, this narrow, 21-mile sliver of paradise, threaded between the Santa Monica Mountains and the Pacific Ocean, is thrumming with intrigue over the rumour (wellfounded, according to the Daily Mail’s sources) that she and Harry are house-hunting there.
From Simon Cowell to Sting, Jennifer aniston to Julia Roberts, Bob Dylan to Coldplay’s Chris Martin, Malibu is so cluttered with movie legends, rock idols and tycoons that, ordinarily, the advent of one more celebrity couple wouldn’t raise a plucked eyebrow. YET
such is the hoopla around the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s sudden flit from Canada to California — and the unseemly eagerness of estate agents to hook them as clients at a time when the property market is at a standstill — that everyone is talking about their arrival.
Since the beaches are now cordoned by yellow police tape, and the restaurants and bars closed, the coronavirus lockdown has given the couple the privacy they claim to crave.
They have not yet been spotted, but word has it that the couple have hunkered down with ten-month-old archie in one of several Malibu properties owned by the mega-rich oil mogul John B. Hess. Last autumn, in a ceremony described by one guest as ‘ the finest spectacle Rome has seen’, Mr Hess’s son, Michael, 33, was married to one of Meghan’s closest friends, fashion designer Misha nonoo, so this would make sense.
Well-connected Malibu resident Tracey Ross, who ran a renowned Sunset Boulevard boutique that clad the likes of Courtney Love, Robert Downey Junior and Dylan, has heard they are looking for a bolthole in two secluded places.
One is Serra Retreat, an ultraprivate neighbourhood nestling in a canyon, close to a spiritual centre run by Franciscan friars. The property that has reportedly taken their fancy there is Petra Manor, a 12,249sq ft mansioned once owned by Mel Gibson, and rented for an eyewatering £11,000 a night by Kylie Jenner of the Kardashians.
It was bought in 2012 by actor David Charvet, who starred in the TV series Baywatch (scenes of which were filmed in Malibu). He’d torn down the original house and rebuilt a European-style mansion on the plot boasting ten bedrooms and eight bathrooms. It is then, considerably larger and grander than Meghan and Harry’s former home, Frogmore Cottage.
The other area is Point Dume, a wild ocean bluff where Chris Martin and his girlfriend Dakota Johnson live.
Other celebrities in the area include Simon Cowell, recently seen nipping to the Vintage Store for groceries in his Rolls-Royce, and fetching them back to his $25million palm-shrouded pad.
Low-profile residents (yes, there are a few) among Malibu’s permanent population of just under 13,000 also seemed ready this week to extend a warm welcome to the Duke and Duchess, who are still revered as ‘ royals’ in these parts, despite resigning their duties.
‘It sure would be nice to see them come in here,’ smiled an assistant at the local shop, where it is not unusual for Pierce
Brosnan or Dustin Hoffman to drop in for a few items to top up the fridge. However, for the resort’s reclusive stars, the prospect of Harry and Meghan encouraging the paparazzi already in their midst will be less appealing. a major advantage of living in Malibu, 30 miles north of Los angeles, is that they have hitherto been able to lead relatively normal lives, untroubled by the celebrity photographers in other affluent areas such as Beverly Hills. There are several reasons for this. There is only one road in and out of Malibu, the tortuous Pacific Coast Highway; and parking on the smaller side streets without being moved on is near impossible. Then there is the undulating, thickly wooded landscape, which forms a natural and