Harry Styles buys second north London house: £8.8 million property is a stone's throw from One Direction star's first buy

Harry Styles is buying a second house in north London, a stone’s throw from where he first climbed on the property ladder aged 18.

The singer-songwriter, actor and model invested his share of boy band One Direction’s lucrative debut record deal into a £2.95 million, four-bedroom home in an exclusive residential road in 2012.

He made improvements, including a drinking den known as Harry’s Bar, and it could now be rented out for up to £3,000 a week.

In his latest investment, Styles, 25, has paid more than £8 million for a five-bedroom Georgian semi. It went on the market for £10 million last autumn.

It could mean Styles is keen to spend more time in London after putting his West Hollywood mansion on the market for £5.8 million. He is also understood to own a £6.7 million loft apartment in Manhattan.

One local estate agent suggested Styles could be planning to let his first house and move into the more spacious property.

It is a quiet spot for the former X Factor competitor who partied all night after co-hosting the Met Gala in May with US Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour, Lady Gaga and Serena Williams at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

James Morton of Dexters estate agents suggested this may be part of the appeal. “It’s a very exclusive, very prestigious address, quite quiet but maybe that’s what the joy of somewhere like that is,” he said.

“Somewhere to escape to but still very convenient for getting in and out of the centre of London.”

Styles’s latest purchase is a white stucco, Grade II-listed property, featuring panelled doors and original fanlights. There is also a garage and private outside parking.

It is decorated in a faux Regency style, with chandeliers, ornate cornicing and curtain swags at the windows. The grand sitting room, which leads into a dining room, boasts floor-to-ceiling windows.

A curved staircase leads to the first-floor bedrooms, while there is a screening room and games room in the basement.

Styles is the wealthiest member of One Direction, who found fame on the X Factor and took a break in 2015.

He is the second-richest young musician in the UK after Ed Sheeran, with a reputed fortune of £58 million.

He has hinted he will release a second solo album this year and is rumoured to have been working with producer Mark Ronson.