CELEB HOMES Come on in
From renovating to ‘downsizing’ and buying private islands, stars do it in A-list style
Scott Disick & Sofia Richie
Until recently, fans would be forgiven for thinking that Scott Disick, better known as the party-boy father of Kourtney Kardashian’s three children, spent his days (and nights) clubbing and lounging by pools in luxurious holiday destinations with girlfriend Sofia Richie.
Yet lately, Disick has been honing his skills as a high-end renovator, making over his A-list pals’ homes as well as building an extravagant cubby house for his kids, Mason, 9, Penelope, 7, and Reign, 4.
Disick has spent the better part of the past year transforming a mansion in the celebritystudded LA suburb of Hidden Hills. True to Kardashian style, he has documented the process in the first season of his homerenovation reality series, Flip it Like Disick. After buying the property for $4.81 million last year, he has now listed the finished five-bedroom, sixbathroom pad for $10.3 million.
Disick enlisted a ragtag team to help him with the renovation, including pop star turned interior designer Willa Ford. The group completely transformed the 1973 farmhouse, which now boasts two master bathrooms with marble tiles and benchtops, a fancy cellar to display wine bottles almost as if they were works of art and an infinity pool.
Michael Douglas & Catherine Zeta-Jones
Hollywood heavyweights Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones know how to downsize in style. The Oscar winners have traded in their sumptuous $30.47 million New York estate – complete with his-and-her indoor pools – for a threestorey $6.7 million Georgian-style home in a nearby suburb. The duo, who have been married for almost two decades, have also put two of their holiday homes – one in the Bahamas and the other on the Spanish island of Majorca – on the market for $15.8 million and $46 million respectively.
Tinseltown’s biggest names, including Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman and Jack Nicholson, have holidayed with the Douglases at the clifftop Majorca villa S’Éstaca, but the couple recently had to slash the asking price after it languished on the market for five years. Zeta-Jones has a simple explanation for their huge property portfolio: “Like people collect art, we collect homes. We love architecture. It’s like a passion.”
George & Amal Clooney
George and Amal Clooney are raising their toddler twins, Alexander and Ella, on their large private estate in the middle of the River Thames, about 60km from London. As with Johnny Depp (see opposite), it’s island life, albeit a less sunny one. The Clooneys forked out a whopping $18.31 million for their 17th-century mansion and have shelled out millions more on extensive renovations that include an indoor pool, home cinema and private boathouse. Ever the gentleman, George compensated his neighbours across the water for the noise and disruption of renovations by treating them to luxury holidays to Corfu.
Johnny Depp
Johnny Depp claims it was Marlon Brando who instructed him to buy his own island when the pair made
Don Juan DeMarco in 1994. Depp reportedly paid around $5.35 million for his slice of paradise in the Bahamas after he fell in love with it during the filming of Pirates of the Caribbean. He has since named its beaches after heroes such as Brando and the wild man of literature Hunter S. Thompson. The island may have lost some lustre for Depp in recent years as it was the site of his ill-fated 2015 wedding to Amber Heard.