Inside abandoned celeb homes – disgraced sports star’s £12m villa ‘used for porn film’ to pad sold after tragic accident
MOST of us would love the chance to snoop around a celebrity’s house – but sometimes what’s lurking through the keyhole isn’t what you’d expect.
Recently photos of a former home of Parisian fashion designer Coco Chanel went viral, after an urban explorer called Matt visited the derelict property in the Scottish Highlands.
Coco lived there with her lover Hugh Grosvenor in the 1920s – but the once glamorous home has been left to go to rack and ruin.
Sharing the footage to his YouTube account Finders Beepers, Matt told how “one room had bottles of beer and sherry as well as barrels of wine inside”, and admitted he felt “on edge” due to strange noises.
The eerie images show the walls featuring scraps of Coco’s hand-blocked floral wallpaper, a lone chaise longue in a damp corridor, and a bathroom with a gaping hole in the floor.
Despite its sorry state, Matt said the 22-bedroom house, built in 1873, “smells just like Chanel No. 5” perfume.
We take a look inside other abandoned palatial piles left to rot by their famous owners.
Boris Becker’s Spanish villa
Boris Becker bought the stunning 12-bedroom villa Finca de Son Coll on the island of Majorca for £422,000 in 1997.
It also featured a tennis court, which had the Wimbledon net from Becker’s first 1985 finals win.
The former champ spent a fortune adding a pool, a Moroccan-style pool house, a guesthouse and a basketball court, but in 2004 he was served a £190k fine for work that was not approved by the authorities, and ordered to tear them down.
Three years later he attempted to sell for £12m but no buyer was found.
Facing financial ruin, after his £11m divorce from first wife Barbara in 2001, Becker struggled to keep up the maintenance and in 2011 he was sued by his gardener for £246k owed in salary.
The property was confiscated until the money was paid and, in 2014, it was confiscated again over £312k outstanding for building work.
The German ace – currently in prison for fraud – managed to get the property back, but lost it again when he was declared bankrupt in 2017.
After that squatters who called themselves the Intergalactic Auxiliary and Rescue Command moved in.
Since their eviction by court order in January 2020 the house, which is still owned by the state, has reportedly been used as a set for an adult movie.
Courtney Love’s graffiti-strewn ruin
Hole may be the name of Courtney Love’s former band, but it could also describe her country home in Olympia, Washington.
The three-bed, two bathroom cottage, which sits on seven acres of land, was bought for £340,000 by the singer in 1995, a year after the death of husband Kurt Cobain.
But in recent years it has been abandoned and, in 2019, she put it up for sale for £243,000, making a loss of £97,000.
The real estate blurb described the property as a “major fixer” that required “a ton of work”, adding that it needed “everything” done – and that’s no exaggeration.
The property is comprised of a main house and several outbuilding including a guest cottage, which has obvious fire damage.
The eight-stall stables are covered in graffiti, with bricks on the floor, and the interior of the main house is totally neglected.
Luckily the knockdown price attracted a buyer, so hopefully the country house is now getting some TLC.
Mike Tyson’s Ohio mansion
Mike Tyson‘s old £890,000 five bedroom Ohio Mansion once famously featured tiger cages, a basketball court, full-size swimming pool and gold-plated fittings.
The entrance featured an imposing gate with the boxer’s name emblazoned on it, while the entire pad was decked out with crystal chandeliers.
The former heavyweight champ was forced to abandon the property after his rape conviction in 1992.
It lay untouched for 10 years before it was bought and converted into a church in 2020.
The dilapidated pool has since been turned into a sanctuary, the living room is now a gathering place and the old fireplace was made into an indoor waterfall.
Liza Minnelli’s childhood home
When film director Vincent Minnelli died in 1986, he left his estate – including his LA mansion – to his superstar daughter Liza.
As a child, the singer and actress spent six months a year living at the 19-room house, following her father’s divorce from her mother Judy Garland.
But a clause in the will stated his fourth wife Lee Minnelli would have use of the house as long as she was alive.
In 2000, however, Liza decided to sell the house and offered her 94-year-old stepmother an apartment.
When she found a buyer in 2002, Lee refused to move out and Cabaret star Liza stopped paying the electricity bills and the staff — who continued to work for free.
In return, Lee took Liza to court for breach of contract, elder abuse, and infliction of emotional distress.
The lawsuit was dropped in 2002 and Liza reached an agreement with the new buyers – who shelled out £1.8million – that she would pay rent for Lee to stay there.
Lee died in 2009 aged 100 and was left abandoned in serious need of renovation for years after squatters and urban explorers broke in.
It’s believed renovations started on the property in 2018, with a new structure added to the back of the house.
‘The house that Steve Jobs hated’
Steve Jobs bought the Jackling House in Woodside, California, in 1984.
The 14-bedroom mansion, built in 1925 for copper mining magnate Daniel Cowan Jackling, boasted spacious balconies, a games room, marble bathrooms and elaborate chandeliers.
But the co-founder of Apple quickly fell out of love with the property after marrying Lauren Powell, in 1991, and welcoming their first son Reed.
The family relocated to a home in San Francisco Bay, in 1994, and Jobs applied to have the mansion demolished and replaced with a smaller house.
But locals – who dubbed the mansion ‘The house that Steve Jobs hated’ – were up in arms and years of legal wrangles followed.
The former grandeur of the Spanish style property began to rot away, with paint peeling, plaster crumbling from the walls and vines growing inside the rooms.
Jobs eventually won his case and the bulldozers moved in 2011, but not before locals removed chandeliers, door handles and a huge pipe organ with 3,300 pipes.
In a cruel twist of fate the former Apple CEO lost his fight against pancreatic cancer and died eight months later.
Dave Gilmour’s haunted stately home
Hook End, in Oxfordshire, was built in 1580 for the Bishop of Reading and once served as a mental hospital. It was bought by Pink Floyd guitarist Dave Gilmour in 1980.
Two of the band’s albums were recorded in the studio at the house, which was sold on to music producer Trevor Horn in 1986, amid rumours that Gilmour’s wife Ginger believed the house was haunted.
The Smiths singer Morrissey, who stayed at the house in the 1980s, claimed he saw the ghost of a monk who appeared in the early hours to summon residents to prayer.
Horn used the property as a studio, with acts including Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Rod Stewart and the Manic Street Preachers recording there.
But in 2006, Horn’s wife, Jill Sinclair, was shot accidentally shot in the neck with an air rifle by their son, Aaron, and fell into a deep coma. She never fully recovered and she died in 2014.
Following the tragic accident, Horn sold the property to producer Mark White for £12million and, while he invested in the studio, the house fell into disrepair.
Hook End now has new owners and has been renovated.
Michael Jackson’s Neverland
Michael Jackson bought Sycamore Valley Ranch in California for £23m in 1988, five years after staying there with Paul McCartney to record their hit Say, Say, Say.
The Thriller star renamed the property Neverland, after the magical land in Peter Pan, and set up a fairground in the grounds, with two railways and a station, a petting zoo, a ferris wheel, pirate ship and carousel.
The 2,698 acre also included three guest houses, a pool house, waterfall, tennis court and a 5,500-square-foot cinema and stage.
Jacko hosted the 1991 wedding of his close friend Elizabeth Taylor to Larry Fortensky at the ranch but suspicions were soon raised about the children he invited to the six-bedroom Tudor-style mansion, sometimes without their parents.
In 2003, when Jackson was accused of abusing a 12-year-old boy, Neverland was searched by police.
He was acquitted in 2005 but moved to Bahrain and abandoned the mansion. Struggling with a £215m bank loan, he closed the house as a cost cutting measure, owing staff £244k in back payments.
The singer stayed away until his death in 2009, and the ranch fell into disrepair. The fairground rides were removed and the stunning grounds, with formal gardens, a stone bridge and four lakes, became overgrown.
Following his death the house was renovated by property developers Colony NorthStar, joint owners with the Jackson estate, before being put on the market for £80million.
The sellers stipulated they were looking a buyer that would not turn the ranch into a “museum” dedicated to the singer.
But the famous and tainted Neverland failed to sell until December 2020, when it went for just £16.2m.
Billionaire businessman Ron Burkle, a family friend of the Jacksons, bought the 2,700-acre estate after spotting it from the air while viewing a nearby property by helicopter.