There are some perks to living in one of Los Angeles’ most exclusive neighbourhoods – like hearing Stevie Wonder play live at Oprah’s house, or owning a ‘scented’ wine cellar.
But Harry and Meghan were probably not expecting their sprawling £14m mansion to be prone to mudslides.
The property’s former owner, multi-millionaire businessman Terry Cunningham, warned the royal couple the ‘dream home’ came within just 200 feet of a mudslide, triggered by heavy rains hitting the wildfire-ravaged Californian hills two years ago.
He told Mail Online: ‘We sure as hell didn’t think about it [the mudslides] when we were building but certainly it’s something I would be thinking about now.’
The 68-year-old bought bought five acres of land with his wife Randi in exclusive Montecito in 1999. He spent four years building the ‘beautiful’ 14,463-foot French-inspired estate.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex reportedly bought the property in May and were understood to have moved in six weeks ago.
Their new neighbours include the likes of Oprah Winfrey, Ellen DeGeneres, Gweneth Paltrow, Rob Lucas and George Lucas.
Mr Cunningham said the star-studded neighbourhood isn’t the only feature, revealing he paid such meticulous attention to detail that he scented the wine cellar by deliberately smashing two bottles of ‘cheap red’ during construction.
He also used extra thick plywood to stop the floorboards from squeaking.
He said: ‘I designed the wine cellar. It’s a beautiful room. It’s got gravel on the floor and I emptied a couple of cheap bottles of red on to the gravel so it smelled correctly. I thought that was kind of fun.
‘My brother owns a plywood mill. Most houses don’t have 11-ply wood and that’s why the floors don’t creak. I’m a bit of a fanatic about details like that.’
The home’s heating system was also built to ‘sense’ a fog rolling in from the Atlantic. The heater ‘shuts down or spools up’ based on changes in the fog, Mr Cunningham said.
Harry and Meghan were undoubtedly attracted by the privacy afforded by the mansion.
Mr Cunningham was ‘hooked’ on the ‘private park-like’ feeling of the original estate.
But the tycoon warned Harry and Meghan may have to contend with the neighbours when they throw a party – like Oprah did in 2004 for her 50th birthday.
He said: ‘Oprah’s 50th birthday party was on the next-door neighbour’s property and that was fun because we got to listen to Stevie Wonder play live. That was kind of cool.’
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