How Sugababes star turned factory into lavish home split into zones with vintage car on display & shrine to popstar past
FOR 11 years, Heidi Range thrilled fans as part of the Sugababes, one of the best-selling girl bands in the country.
And her stunning home in Chelsea, London, proves her impeccable taste goes beyond music.
Fans can now get a glimpse inside the fabulous home she shares with her property development husband Alex Partakis and their two children Aurelia, five, and Athena, two, thanks to a new ITV show.
In Celebrity Homes with Abbey Clancy the model tours the houses of stars with a passion for interior design.
In the first episode, Heidi, 40, reveals she transformed her home from an old, abandoned laundry into a lavish living space for her family – complete with a Ferrari in the living room.
“When we bought it, it was an empty warehouse,” she says. “It was just three empty floors, no rooms, no walls and no stairs. A blank canvas.”
Heidi reveals she was against buying the building but her husband convinced her with a sketch of how the open-plan home could look.
Here, we take a closer look at the former Sugababe‘s stunning three-storey home and its many incredible features.
Different zones
On entry to the plush home, a huge chandelier lights the way into the lounge area. Heidi says the fitting frustrated the movers because they couldn’t fit it through the main entrance.
The living room area, where the family can relax and watch television, is decked out with three stylish and modern sofas in blue, pink, and grey with unique lamps on side tables beside them.
Explaining the chic design, Heidi tells Abbey: “Because it’s an open plan room we wanted to make different zones.”
A huge floor-to-ceiling wall cabinet holds books, ornaments and one of Heidi’s priced possessions – the Brit Award she won with the Sugababes in 2003.
An angel ornament she took from her late grandmother’s garden sits on top of the cabinet and an emotional Heidi explains she placed the figurine up high as she believes her gran watches over the home.
Below the bookcase is one of the house’s most distinctive features – a red vintage Ferrari that sits inside a glass case. Heidi jokes that she never drives it as she “doesn’t want to be responsible” should anything happen to it.
A second zone of the vast room is a play den for her two kids with a collection of colourful toys and a rail of dressing up clothes overlooked by a huge painting of a tiger on the wall.
Liverpudlian Heidi describes her interior style is “fun” and says she enjoys bold colours and prints. The open space allows her to keep an eye on her kids when they’re playing, she says.
Heidi’s stylish kitchen is decked out with a long row of dark grey cabinets with glass doors and internal lighting. Slatted blinds cover the windows and portraits of the family are lined up on the window sill.
The unique triangular island in the centre proved a nightmare to source.
She says: “We struggled to get that made because what we wanted to do was regulate the space of the living room and what we were left with was a triangle for the kitchen.
“We went to quite a few places that did not want to make the island in that shape. They said it wouldn’t work.”
To help bring her vision to life, Heidi enlisted the help of an interior designer.
“They obviously know things you would never ever think of,” she says.
“Like this is a really angular-shaped building so they said, ‘You’d want to get many rounded objects into the house to soften it.’
“Which is why we’ve got all rounded lamps, and we’ve got a lot of round mirrors and it really does have that effect, which is something I would never know.”
The quirkiness extends to the dining area, where the table is made of two wooden doors. Heidi says she bought the furniture from a warehouse in Spain, where her parents-in-law live.
Shrine to the past
Upstairs, Heidi reveals the ultimate shrine to her former life as a pop star – a dedicated wall that pays homage to the girl band’s hitmaking days featuring plaques, posters, and sold-out tour memorabilia.
After she joined in 2001, following the departure of original member Siobhan Donaghy, the group scored six number-one hits, and sold millions of albums across Europe and Australia.
The group, which includes Keisha Buchanan and Mutya Buena, recently reformed with its original lineup.
Moving to the couple’s bedroom, Heidi tells Abbey she opted for a minimalist feel as there are so many “trinkets” and pieces in the rest of the house.
The couple’s bed features a huge floor-to-ceiling headboard and a pink chaise sofa sits in one corner.
The bathroom has a black-and-white theme, which Heidi says was chosen in tribute to the Savoy Hotel where they spend their wedding anniversaries.
Next to the bathroom is a dressing room where Heidi keeps the stunning wedding gown she wore to tie the knot with Alex in Florence, Italy in 2016.
Daughter Aurelia’s has a fairy-themed bedroom which Heidi reveals is the room she dreamed of when growing up.
Unusually, Heidi’s laundry and utility room is a upstairs, away from the kitchen.
On the third floor is a the least completed room of the house, with a bar and a comfy sofa, which Heidi describes as the “adult space.”
“Alex and I love coming up here to watch a film,” she says. “We would bring a pizza and a bottle of wine.”
Abbey Clancy: Celebrity Homes airs on ITVBe and ITVX on Thursday.