Some interesting information about Lakshmi Mittal's Kensington Park Gardens, here in a must-read Daily Telegraph piece, and an explanation for what was happening during the empty years, between Bernie Ecclestone and its current ownership. Ecclestone is said to have fallen in love with the property, and paid £50m for it. There was a lot to fall in love with. The developer - David Khalili - had spared no expense.

Mr Khalili spent £84m buying and refurbishing the house in Kensington Palace Gardens, which previously housed the Russian and Egyptian embassies. The project, which employed up to 400 craftsmen every day, was said at the time to have been second only in cost to the refurbishment of Windsor Castle after the fire of 1992. Mr Khalili imported marble from the same quarry in Agra that provided the material for the Taj Mahal, and flew in stonemasons who were normally employed to maintain the Indian monument. The marble was used to build pillars surrounding a swimming pool, which were then inlaid with precious stones. An underground car park for 20 vehicles was also built.

Four hundred craftsman worked, daily, on the house, and it cost more than any other refurb project except Windsor Castle after the fire. Not bad. I reckon if you'd then just paid £50m for this, you'd be pretty excited about showing it to the wife. That's where it apparently went wrong.

But his formidable Croatian wife, Slavica, was apparently underwhelmed by the property and Mr Ecclestone, 78, sold it three years later without ever moving in.

Yeah, well? Taj Mahal, Taj Shmahal.

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