Baroness Bra’s spot of Mone improvement
AT the end of a divorce, most partners would happily sell the marital home as quickly as possible.
But bra entrepreneur Baroness Michelle Mone has made plans to turn the £1.6million house she shared with her exhusband into a dream mansion to bid farewell to the ‘bad memories’.
The Tory peer, 44, became the sole owner of the five-bedroom property in Lanarkshire last month after she bought out her former spouse Michael.
The pair had put the house on the market in 2012 for £1.6million – just £75,000 more than they paid for it in 2008 – but had been unsuccessful in finding a buyer.
Now, Lady Mone has submitted plans for work on the 6,000sq ft property to make it even bigger.
The scheme includes adding a single-storey extension to the current building.
She is also looking to put on an annex to the luxury property that would be used by her disabled father.
A planning application has been submitted to South Lanarkshire Council for the work as well as plans for a two-storey bay window and conversion of the current bar and cinema into a self-contained flat for one of her daughters.
The property is situated behind heavy security gates and includes 12 large rooms which are opulently furnished.
Other security measures include panic buttons and a CCTV system that can be monitored by smartphone from anywhere in the world.
Neighbours are to be given the opportunity to object to the proposals before the council makes a decision at a date yet to be set.
The former owner of bra company Ultimo – who is currently living in an apartment in London – took up her seat as a life peer in the Lords in September 2015.
Speaking last year, she told of her plans for the Lanarkshire property, following the breakdown of her 19-year marriage to her husband, with whom she had three children.
Lady Mone said: ‘I’m selling my home here in Glasgow but I also own the big house with my exhusband. For two years I’ve been trying to buy him out of it and he only agreed just the other day – which is fantastic.
‘I designed it, I built it, I love it. But I’m going to change it all so that it doesn’t have any of the bad memories from when I lived there.
‘I’m over the moon. I’ll always have a base here in Glasgow but I’ve moved in to my London home as well.
‘So, that means I’ll have just the one home here rather than one and a half.’
In her autobiography, Lady Mone admitted she put her husband’s cufflinks in the bin, let down his tyres and cut holes in his boxer shorts.
She also claimed that on one occasion while they were still sharing the marital home, she poured cold water on his side of the bed.
She said later: ‘I am sorry for that. Sorry for that woman I became. It wasn’t nice at all.’
The couple created lingerie brand Ultimo together in 1996, before they split in 2011.
Lady Mone cut her ties with the business last year and led the Mone Review for the UK Government, in which she is working to create business in Britain’s poorest neighbourhoods.
‘I’m going to change it all’