Tom Conti sells his house to Tim Burton … for £6.5m discount
( But don’t feel too sorry for him, ) that’s still a profit of £10,230,000
IT has taken three years – and a price cut of £6.5million – but Tom Conti has finally found a buyer for his Edwardian mansion.
Originally listed at £17.5million, the five-bedroom house in the exclusive North London suburb of Hampstead has now been sold for £11million to film director Tim Burton.
Conti, 77, has blamed ‘immoral’ rates of stamp duty for his struggle to sell the property at the original asking price.
Even so, the actor has little to complain about considering he has made a profit of just over £10million, having bought the mansion for £770,000 more than three decades ago.
Designed in 1903 by mathematician and educationist William Garnett, the house was supposedly inspired by Lewis Carroll’s nonsense poem Jabberwocky.
That may have attracted the interest of Burton, a fan of Carroll who has made the films Alice In Wonderland and Alice Through The Looking Glass, both based on the Victorian author’s books.
Burton and his former partner, the actress Helena Bonham Carter, lived in adjoining properties in Hampstead before their separation in 2014.
His new 6,649sq ft home has a double-height ballroom with a minstrels’ gallery, home cinema, large gardens, a library and a roof terrace with views over London.
It also boasts several dressing rooms, a study and a room dedicated to ‘games and dancing’.
Conti bought the house in 1985 with his wife Kara Wilson when it was made up of flats and transformed it into one of London’s finest private homes.
The Scottish star of Shirley Valentine has complained about ‘endless building’ in Hampstead, including by footballer Thierry Henry. In 2012 he objected to plans by the former Arsenal star to demolish a neighbouring property and replace it with a modern design including a 40ft fish tank.
But he claimed the building work was not his reason for selling, instead putting it down to living costs and inheritance tax.
In an interview in 2015, he said: ‘It becomes silly as I sit here writing from home and looking at my vast heating bills. So we are downsizing. It’s got absolutely nothing to do with Thierry Henry.’
Records from HM Land Registry show Burton, who has lived in London for several years, bought the house in November. He is currently working on a live action version of the Disney classic Dumbo.