Second home owners have something of a rotten reputation in Little Tew, a quaint village of honey-hued cottages in the Cotswold Hills.
There are just 253 residents here: some families have been part of the community for generations and, for the most part, everyone knows everyone else.
Part-timers risk upsetting a delicate social Âecosystem, so one can only imagine how locals feel about Ron Burkle, the American business Âmagnate worth £2.5 billion.
Already the owner of six homes, albeit all of them in California, where his portfolio includes Michael Jackson‘s Neverland Ranch, he has now set his sights on expanding his property empire in Little Tew.
Here, on an 11-acre site, he hopes to build a grand country mansion, the likes of which this small parish has never seen before.
Residents of Little Tew are worried the new development could spoil the peaceful feel of the village
An artist’s impression of the country mansion proposed for the 11-acre site
The house, dubbed Serpentine Lodge, would boast six bedrooms, a gun room, lift, entertainment room and wine store, as well as several reception rooms, a butler’s pantry and a domed entrance hall said to be inspired by the ÂPantheon in Rome.
Around it are planned landscaped gardens and a natural swimming pool and bathers’ pavilion in an area dubbed the ‘pleasure ground’, as well as a stable block and estate manager’s cottage. There’s also a circular lawn that looks like a helipad.
And the locals have certainly made known their feelings about a project that’s been dubbed a ‘McMansion’ and ‘more suited to Disneyland’. They are aghast.
As one resident told the Mail this week: ‘How dare these American billionaires just grab land and say they want to do whatever they want with it.
‘They want to turn this place into the Hamptons. The reason this place is beautiful is because it has been protected from this sort of development.’
Meanwhile, the 29 objection letters published on the West Oxfordshire District Council’s website, where the planning application – an amended version of one rejected in 2022 – was lodged in mid-July, include descriptions such as Â’grotesque’ and ‘ludicrous’ and ‘an inappropriate, non-isolated, habitat-threatening, polluting, un-enhancing and insensitive monstrous carbuncle’.
Ron’s billions might be able to afford him a fleet of luxury cars, a helicopter, a private jet and around £19 million of art, but he is painfully publicity-shy.
The 71-year-old, who was born in Pomona, California, has done only a handful of interviews in his career and once said he disliked the experience so much he’d ‘rather have a root canal’.
But this week he broke his silence to speak exclusively to the Mail in response to the locals’ attacks. ‘I grew up with an English grandmother on my mother’s side and a Cherokee [an indigenous tribe in North America] grandmother on my father’s,’ he says.
‘My English grandmother taught me, ‘If you can’t say Âanything nice, don’t say Âanything at all,’ so I won’t react to Âcomments from people I’ve never met. With a brief amount of homework, anyone would know my passion is great architecture.’
Though he adds, more diplomatically: ‘Wherever I end up living, I want to be a good neighbour, support local charities and community organisations.’
California to rural Oxfordshire is quite the leap but the location of the proposed development is far from random. It is about three miles from Soho Farmhouse, the chic country outpost of Soho House, the £2,950-a-year global private members’ club founded by British entrepreneur Nick Jones, and whose regulars include Taylor Swift, Margot Robbie and Tom Cruise.
By the early 2000s, Ron Burkle was Âmoving in celebrity circles, rubbing shoulders with the likes of Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York
However, Ron hasn’t picked the spot because he wants to hobnob with A-listers. Rather, since 2012 he’s been executive chairman of the company, for which he paid £250 million when he purchased a majority stake.
It’s not the only business interest he has in the area, either. He’s also behind plans for the Mullin Automotive Museum, a controversial Â’billionaires’ club’ comprising a race track and exclusive residences in nearby Enstone, which was approved by the same council last year.
Ron bought that site from the late American philanthropist Peter Mullin and has been ploughing ahead with the scheme, despite almost 200 objections from residents there.
When it comes to Little Tew, Ron says he is still in the Âprocess of purchasing the land and the current owner had drawn up plans for development before he got involved.
He will only proceed with his purchase if planning approval is given, though he adds he’s open to making changes afterwards to keep everyone happy.
‘I have an option on the property [land], but as a condition it has to be a buildable home site before I buy. If it is a buildable site, then we would modify the plans to make it something everyone, including the community, would be proud of.
‘I would like to have a home in the area and I was advised this was the right path.’
Such advice has come from a design team that is a veritable Who’s Who of experts, which Ron has spared no expense in hiring to get the application through planning. The plans they’ve produced span three volumes and 267 pages.
Among them is award-winning architect Francis Terry, 55, who says it’s important to focus on the ‘positive aspects’ of the house, especially its eco credentials.
‘If this is built, this will be, to my knowledge, the first classical ‘Passivhaus’ [a German term describing a style of house that is so energy efficient, it doesn’t need a conventional heating system] in the country, perhaps the world,’ he told the Mail.
‘Passivhaus are generally modernist, but that does not have to be the case. This will hopefully make Passivhaus standard Âpalatable to people who don’t have modernist taste.’
But the plans are anything but palatable to locals in Little Tew, many of whom fear the deep-pocketed developers will steamroller their objections.
Ron with rapper Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs, who is currently facing sexual misconduct allegations from 120 victims, and in whose company Ron once invested £76 million
‘What is proposed is supposed to be a modest country house but it is completely out of keeping with the area,’ says Anthony Cripps, chairman of the parish council. ‘It is just enormous. Even the stable house part of it would be bigger than the biggest house in the village.
‘If permitted, it would encourage other development that would spoil the intrinsic nature of the enclosed village.’
Neighbour Rosalind Sword agrees: ‘My fear is that they will just throw so much money at this that it will make it very difficult for the local planners. It looks ridiculous with so many features squashed in.
‘The architect has tried to produce something to appeal to a US billionaire, not to fit in with the English countryside.’
Another says the proposed development would be ‘an eyesore’, adding: ‘It’s like parachuting in the gaudiest property in Essex and dumping it into the Cotswolds.’
Not everyone is against the proposals, however. This week, supporting comments appeared on the council website. ‘Ron Burkle has contributed so much to the surrounding economy in Oxfordshire, it is fair that he is given a chance to make a home here, too,’ writes one supporter, who lives nearly 30 miles away.
‘The project will also provide many jobs to local people, not only during construction, but also in the long term.’
So what do locals need to know about their prospective neighbour?
The son of a grocer, Ron Burkle worked in his father’s store from the age of 13, later dropping out of a dentistry degree at California State ÂPolytechnic University.
Back in the grocery trade, he turned his attention to investing and used the money he made to buy land. By the age of 29 he’d saved around £3.8 million.
In 1986, he founded The Yucaipa Companies, a private investment firm, and made his money buying and selling small supermarket chains in the US, acquiring 300.
With billions in the bank, Ron moved into private equity, with investments over the years including Airbnb, Uber, ice hockey team the Pittsburgh Penguins and, of course, Soho House.
Ron’s other famous friends in include Sir Elton John and David Furnish. Pictured here at an event in Hollywood in 2016
Of his property empire, as well as Neverland, which he bought for £16.7 million in 2020, there’s Greenacres, the £45.7 million estate in Beverly Hills; two properties previously owned by Bob Hope, together worth £21 million, in Los Angeles; a beachfront mansion in San Diego, worth £25.9 million, with a garage for 42 cars, and an estate worth £22.9 million in California’s historic Holmby Hills.
Behind his public triumphs, however, is a fraught and, at times, controversial personal life.
Ron married Janet Steeper, a clerk at his grocery store in 1974. The couple had three children, John, Carrie and Andrew. Tragically, Andrew was found dead, of unconfirmed causes, in January 2020 at the age of 27.
Ron and Janet’s marriage had deteriorated years earlier and in 1997 she filed for divorce. ‘Things had gotten so off track that I didn’t want to be married any more,’ she said at the time.
But Ron wooed her back with a diamond ring and a Mediterranean cruise. It wasn’t to be, however, and six years later Janet filed for divorce again – and things turned nasty, with Janet claiming Ron had hired a private investigator to follow her. He accused her of abducting their children.
In court, she described Ron as ‘extremely wealthy and powerful’, adding: ‘He is used to exerting control over all the people that he comes into contact with.’
By the early 2000s, Ron was Âmoving in celebrity circles, rubbing shoulders with the likes of Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York.
Former American president Bill Clinton became a friend and business partner (Ron gave him a job after he left office).
That same year, Ron held a glittering after-party for the MTV Movie Awards at Greenacres, his ostentatious Beverly Hills estate, where guests included Beyonce, the Beckhams, Cameron Diaz, Will Smith and Ashton Kutcher.
But he’s also been known to keep less salubrious company.
Michael Jackson became a friend, as did rapper Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs, who is currently facing sexual misconduct allegations from 120 victims, and in whose company Ron once invested £76 million.
For several years, he financed films with disgraced producer Harvey Weinstein, now in prison for rape and sexual misconduct. And earlier this year his name was found in sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s notorious black book.
There are no allegations of wrongdoing against Ron, but he reportedly travelled to Africa with the late financier on his private jet, the so-called ‘Lolita Express’.
He is said to have returned home on a commercial plane, referring to Epstein as ‘creepy’.
Post-divorce, Ron was gossip column fodder for American magazines – a Vanity Fair article in 2008 euphemistically described him as leading a ‘European lifestyle’.
Those days are long behind Ron, who has thrown himself into his work, his property portfolio and his passion for restoring culturally significant and historic houses.
‘Somehow success is considered a negative now, but I joined the grocery union at 13, worked hard, invested everything I made and I’ve been fortunate,’ he tells the Mail. ‘I have treated the people I worked with well… If I’ve offended anyone… then I apologise. It was out of ignorance, not arrogance.’
This rare foray into the public sphere, and apparent remorse, may go some way to appeasing the locals of Little Tew, but they might want to heed the words of Ron’s ex-wife Janet, who ended up with just £30 million from their divorce.
In court documents, she said: ‘I know he views my leaving him as a loss, not necessarily in the personal sense, but in the sense of ‘win or lose’. My husband cannot tolerate losing – anything.’
The future of this coveted strip of English countryside is far from certain yet.
Additional reporting Ross Slater
