Homes gossip

Buy a piece of Kylie style for £4.5 million

Kylie Minogue is selling her South Kensington mansion block maisonette in Drayton Gardens, with its swish Candy & Candy interior, for £4.5 million.

"It’s an amazing-looking flat with large terraces and views over Chelsea," Nick Candy tells me. "We designed it for her shortly after she moved in. I don’t know why she’s decided to sell, but she already owns several other properties."

The Melbourne-born popstrel recently spent an estimated £450,000 on a Costa Brava villa near the Tossa de Mar family home of her Spanish boyfriend, male model Andrés Velencoso. Although her accountant father Ron is fifth-generation Australian, her mother Carol (née Jones) was born in Maesteg near Cardiff, where her family ran the local post office.

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One of America’s greatest living artists, Jeff Koons, has splashed out £13 million on a six-storey Manhattan mansion that formerly belonged to society hostess Barbara 'Bobo' Rockefeller. The 10,000sq ft Upper East Side property, described by a porter as "in complete disrepair", boasts a 70ft marble drawing room, squash court, swimming pool and 10 bedrooms.

The Pennsylvania-born artist, famed for his giant steel balloon-animal sculptures, bought the adjoining house last year for £7.8 million. With his works selling for up to £16.6 million each, he can well afford the massive restoration costs that will result in one of Manhattan’s grandest private residences. He will share it with his second wife, artist Justine Wheeler.

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National Lottery presenter Jenny Powell can expect to receive between £1.5 million and £2 million when she sells her Cheshire family home shortly. The sale follows the Ilford-born builder’s daughter’s recent divorce from flooring magnate Toby Baxendell, by whom she has two daughters, Connie and Pollyanna.

"When Toby moved out it felt as if I’d been bereaved," says the Loose Women panellist of her ex, who had an affair while she was pregnant with Pollyanna, her youngest, now 18 months old.