Jimmy Page And Robbie Williams Are Feuding Over Mansion Renovations
Apparently, things are turning bitter in London’s famous-musician district. Led Zeppelin guitar legend Jimmy Page and former boy band star Robbie Williams are now next-door neighbors in London’s Holland Park neighborhood. Williams moved in next door to Page when that mansion’s former occupant, the movie director Michael Winner, died in 2013. (Fun fact: Page scored Winner’s movies Death Wish 2 and Death Wish 3, I’ve always wondered what the hell was going on there. The fact that they were next door neighbors makes a whole lot of sense.) Page, whose mansion is designed to look like a castle, has lived there ever since 1972, and he’s fiercely protective of his privacy. But Williams wants to do some renovations and expand his house, and Page isn’t having it.
As The Telegraph reports, Williams and his wife have applied for permission to change their house’s garden and internal layout, in order to create a “contemporary standard of family living.” But Page has written to borough planning chiefs in an attempt to block those renovations. He’s worried the building work on Williams’ house could damage his own house, and he doesn’t like the idea that Williams will now be able to see into his house. Here’s some of what that letter says:
I am extremely concerned that this work will cause vibrations and possible structural damage with my house… It appears the proposed new window is at a height that will overlook the side of my house as well as the garden at the rear of my property, thus having a significant impact on the amenity of the house and its garden… Although I understand that much of the interior was altered (and therefore compromised) by the current owners’ predecessor, I believe most of the exterior of the original building remains intact and should therefore be considered sacrosanct.
Page also invited planning chiefs to his house, figuring that they could make a better assessment of those renovations if they could see it from there. If I were a London planning chief, I would totally take him up on that, if only so I could tell people, for the rest of my life, that I’d been to Jimmy Page’s house.