EDEN CONFIDENTIAL: Bernie Ecclestone puts £50m Hyde Park pad up for sale

He has, at various times, snapped up what was Britain’s most expensive private house – just yards from Kensington Palace, its pillars were hewn from the same marble as the Taj Mahal – a £30million yacht and a £23million chalet, ‘Le Lion’, in the Swiss resort of Gstaad where, in 2012, he married his third wife, Brazilian Fabiana Flosi, who’s a foot taller than him and 46 years younger.

Not bad for a Suffolk trawlerman’s son who admits to no particular talent other than being ‘a used car dealer’.

So I’m intrigued that ex-Formula 1 boss Bernie Ecclestone, whose fortune is about £3billion, has decided, aged 95, to offload one trophy from his collection – the 11-storey, glass-fronted Knightsbridge property which served as both his F1 headquarters and his London residence after he parted from his second wife, statuesque Croatian model Slavica Radic, by whom he had two daughters, the unforgettable Tamara and Petra.

Ecclestone has slapped a £50million price tag on the building – something of a bargain for any fellow billionaire who fancies working from home.

Its four-bedroom penthouse – occupying the top four floors – enjoys ‘unrivalled views across Hyde Park’. Staff quarters are confined to the ‘lower ground floor’, from which Bernie and Fabiana were insulated by offices on the first to fifth floors.

Once playfully described as looking like a tortoise in an Andy Warhol wig, Ecclestone declines to comment.

But the building is now empty, and it seems that the couple, who welcomed a son, Ace, in 2020, intend to spend more time in Portugal where Fabiana has reportedly bought a £35million retreat overlooking the Atlantic with a pool, tennis court and internal lift – useful for Bernie, a great-grandfather via his daughter Deborah, his only child by first wife Ivy.

A glorious beer after Goodwood for Francesca

Glorious Goodwood marks the end of the season, after which London society heads abroad. 

And ITV Racing presenter Francesca Cumani will raise a glass to that! 

Forsaking the more traditional Pimm’s or champagne, she opted for a chilled lager after finishing work at the West Sussex meeting which Edward VII memorably described as ‘a garden party with racing tacked on’. 

‘Beer o’clock,’ jokes Francesca, 43, who posted the photograph online. Despite being known as ‘racing’s best dressed authority’, she put comfort before style as she wore trainers while carrying her pair of black heels. 

‘There’s a boring element of practicality when I’m dressing,’ admits Francesca, who is married to triathlete Max Johnson. ‘I have to make sure I’m not too cold or too hot, or that my shoes don’t hurt, or my hat doesn't pinch my brain.’

Alex googles ‘droopy cheeks and chin’

As she approaches her 50th birthday next year, The One Show presenter Alex Jones admits she is considering cosmetic intervention.

‘I’m starting to think that everything seems to be losing gravity around the mouth-chin area,’ says the Welsh broadcaster.

‘I did a bit of googling and asked, “What is the best thing to do for droopy cheeks and chin?” It came up with all sorts of things... like fillers or a facelift, basically.’

Alex, who has three children, adds: ‘I’d never say never because we live up to impossible goals. Everybody’s doing it, and so everybody looks like they never age beyond about 35 to 40 any more.’

Further to my item yesterday about Tony Adams selling his £4million Gloucestershire home and moving to London, where his wife, Poppy Teacher, is going to university, I hear about one property they looked at in Camden. The seller was unaware of the identity of the former Arsenal footballer. He asked Adams if he knew the area, as he was moving from the Cotswolds. Wryly, he replied: ‘I worked in north London for 19 years.’ 

Show must go on, says Gracie 

Musician Gracie Friel won’t forget her debut festival performance in a hurry.

Just one minute into her set at Latitude in Suffolk, the 21-year-old daughter of Marcella star Anna Friel was hit by a power failure.

Gracie, whose father is Harry Potter star David Thewlis, was forced to perform a cappella until she was lent a guitar by a fellow musician. ‘Thank you to everyone who came and stayed to hear us play unamplified after the power cut,’ she said. ‘It really was very magical.’

Watching was mum Anna, 50, who says she ‘couldn’t be more proud’ of the performance.

Pop star Shania Twain, who has been known to take horses on tour with her, says she sleeps in the stables.

‘My time with horses is so necessary and I will go out in the middle of the night and I will sit with them in the field or in the stall and just be with them,’ the Canadian singer, 60, tells the Fashion Neurosis podcast. ‘I’ll fall asleep with them there. My husband will come looking for me at 3am and he’ll know where to find me.’ 

She adds: ‘They can step on you when you’re sitting down in their stall, they can hurt you very easily. They can bite you, they can kick you. But if you’re in their frame of, I guess, emotion, they will just love you and it’s just so gorgeous.’

Mumford faces Carey music ban

Although Carey Mulligan is married to rock star Marcus Mumford, silence is golden at home.

The Mumford & Sons frontman, 39, reveals the actress, 41, has banned music indoors because it distracts him too much. ‘We had a party – it was Carey’s birthday – and someone was, like, “There’s no music!”’ he explains. ‘I was, like, “Yeah, we don’t really play music.”’

The singer, who married the Great Gatsby star in 2012, adds: ‘If music’s on, I want to lean in and listen to it. I can’t switch that part of my brain off.

‘So Carey doesn’t like having music in the house because I just stop having a conversation.’