Baroness Brady’s ‘eyesore’ £6.4m Belgravia mansion
KarrEN Brady has decided that, as Baroness Brady of Knightsbridge, she should live in the style befitting a peeress of the realm. Just months after I disclosed that she was selling up in Birmingham, the 48-year-old apprentice star has splashed out £6.425 million on a magnificent five-storey house in the stuccofronted splendour of Belgravia, London’s most exclusive and expensive enclave. When she was elevated to the peerage by David Cameron in 2014, she was accused of snubbing Birmingham, where she made her name, by choosing a swanky London district for her title.
Her new Grade II-listed property clearly offers room for improvement, as she has decided to spend some of her £85million fortune on making extensive renovations.
These include the installation of new ceramic and stone tile floors — with ‘wet’ underfloor heating — as well as the installation of electric underfloor heating in the bathrooms. But the most significant element of the renovation is the addition of a basement under the rebuilt rear extension, to be used according to planning documents, as a ‘family room’.
Brady has also secured permission for the installation of a satellite dish, ‘mounted on [a] chimney [and] not seen from street level’. Her new home is already shrouded in scaffolding ready for the work ahead, prompting alarm from neighbours. One resident described the ongoing building work as an ‘eyesore’, adding: ‘I have paid a huge sum of money [for my home], only to look at the hideous and ugly scaffolding. How long, pray, will it be up for? It is extremely ugly.’ Brady moved to the Midlands after encouraging her boss, the publisher David Sullivan, to buy Birmingham City Football Club and put her in charge aged just 23. She later married Birmingham player Paul Peschisolido, with whom she has two children. Last year she was made chairman of Taveta, the company behind Sir Philip Green’s empire. Born and brought up in Edmonton, North London, she also has a flat in Knightsbridge, close to Harrods. Doubtless she’ll be reflecting on the wisdom adorning her website: ‘You can’t determine where you start in life, but you can determine where you end up.’ Which, in her case, is certainly not Birmingham.