Gervais splurges £2.75m on ‘little country retreat’

CHAMPAGNE revolutionary Russell Brand shocked comrades by decamping to a £3.3 million riverside pile in the Home Counties two months ago. Now fellow millionaire comic Ricky Gervais has turned his eye from the quinoa heartlands of North London to a well-heeled corner of Middle England.

I can reveal that multi-millionaire Gervais, 54, and his partner Jane Fallon (pictured below), 55, have splashed out £2.75 million on a riverside house in Marlow, Buckinghamshire, a short cruise downriver from Brand’s six-bedroom period home in Henley.

Gervais’s detached house overlooks a stretch of the Thames immortalised by Marlow writer Jerome K. Jerome in Three Men In A Boat, and has around an acre of land.

The comic — who recently upgraded his main home in London to a £10.5million Hampstead mansion with a swimming pool — doesn’t intend to move full-time. Instead, he’ll use the spacious Marlow property as a ‘little country retreat’, according to a snap he posted on Twitter.

Neighbours include George and Amal Clooney, who held their second wedding reception at Danesfield House just outside Marlow and own a Grade II-listed manor in nearby Sonning. It’s an increasingly showbiz lifestyle for Gervais, who grew up in a rough suburb of Reading before hitting the big time thanks to co-creating the Bafta and Golden Globe-winning series The Office, in which he played odious paper manufacturing boss David Brent.

At the latest count, Gervais has an estimated £55million fortune and a property portfolio worth more than £16 million. In addition to his two UK homes, the writer, director and actor owns two apartments on New York’s Upper East Side, which he bought for £1.1million in 2008 and £2.5million in 2011.

Thanks to his wealth, Ricky paid cash for his recent Marlow purchase. He and Jane, a bestselling novelist, had been househunting in the area for some time, after spending a ‘beautiful’ weekend in the Buckinghamshire town. The comedian irked neighbours at his previous Hampstead home, which he put on the market for £7.7million last autumn after upgrading to his current mansion, by digging out the basement to add an underground gym and indoor pool. But he has so far submitted no plans to make grand home improvements at his Marlow retreat. A spokesman for Gervais says: ‘We have nothing to add.’