In the last couple of weeks, comedian, chat show host and Eurovision star Graham Norton has put two of his homes on the market: one in London and one in New York. “We’ve been thinking about it for a couple of years and I finally feel brave enough to make a huge change to my life,” he told The Sunday Times.
Norton, though, has a soft spot for beautiful houses, and has acquired a portfolio of homes around the world. “I find that I respond to (houses) in a very emotional way,” he wrote in his memoir, So Me. “Because they are real estate and therefore ‘an investment’ I somehow get away with buying them, but in reality to me they are a huge indulgence, way beyond clothes or hotels, and yet like a combination of both.”
From his listed Wapping townhouse to his West Cork bolthole, here’s where Graham Norton lives.
Norton’s Pier Head property is for sale for just under £5 million
Daniel Lynch
At the end of April, Norton listed his 3,701 square foot house on Wapping High Street for £4.95 million with Knight Frank.
Set down its own private lane, the property is a four-storey, Grade II-listed Georgian townhouse with an adjoining building —a former warehouse— to the rear. The house’s kitchen and five bedrooms are contained within the townhouse, while the warehouse, spread over two floors, has been converted into a vast lounge and reception area with a dramatic vaulted ceiling and views of the river.
Complementing the building’s large windows, high ceilings and period features, Norton’s interiors are elegant: wooden floorboards throughout, white walls and a mixture of vintage and more contemporary furniture.
Famously a dog lover, there is a drawing of a dachshund hung over the fireplace in one of the bedrooms, two paintings of wagging dog tails in another, and a large dog portrait in the hallway. “I am crazy about dogs,” he said in a 2014 interview. “It doesn’t matter how often I remind myself they’re just dogs, the emotional bond with my fur babies is profound and, as nuts as it seems, fully reciprocated.”
Norton has outdoor space too: there’s an inner courtyard, with outdoor seating and a private garden, while the house also shares the ownership of a large, communal riverside garden and beach, which is revealed twice a day at low tide.
Now, after more than 20 years in the property, he has chosen to sell. “My favourite times have definitely been enjoying a drink sitting by the river on a summer’s evening,” he told The Sunday Times. “My least favourite memory in the house was that time one of the dogs got stuck in a neighbour’s shrub.”
Norton bought the Manhattan house from Claudia Schiffer
Corcoran
Graham Norton’s Manhattan home lies metres from the Empire State Building, on a private gated mews. His and the nine other houses on the mews were built as horse stables by John Sniffen between 1863 and 1864, and converted into homes in the early 20th century.
Norton bought his two-bedroom house in 2002 from model Claudia Schiffer, although it had also once been owned by the illusionist David Copperfield. The street has been popular with other celebrities, including Cole Porter and Lenny Kravitz.
“There was only one (property) that had stolen my heart – and it would steal a huge chunk of my wallet,” wrote Norton in his memoir, The Life and Loves of a He Devil. “I adored its setting in a little mews, its old-fashioned front door, the leafy roof terrace with its view of the Chrysler Building.”
Norton briefly lived at the property full time while he was presenting NY Graham Norton, but it quickly became his pied-a-terre in New York and he began to rent it out. “My relationship with New York is like that of one with a mistress: exciting, sexy and dangerous, but I’m always aware that I’m playing away,” he wrote. “London is my life and Manhattan is my bit on the side.”
Nevertheless, Norton kept hold of the property and recently undertook a full renovation by New York designers Gachot Studios. According to the New York Times, Norton’s plans changed after he married his husband, the Scottish filmmaker Jonathan McLeod, in 2022. At the beginning of May, days after listing his Wapping home, Norton put the house on the market for $5.595 million (£4.24m) with Corcoran.
Inside the house’s Great Room
Corcoran
Standout features include the house’s “Great Room” with 15-foot-high ceilings, a double-width window and a lilac stone feature fireplace. Above, a clerestory window runs the full width of the house, bringing in lots of natural light. There’s also a library, a sunny roof terrace and a marble ensuite bathroom for the primary bedroom.
Aside from Norton’s Great Room, with its herringbone wooden floors, serene white walls and curved staircase, Norton appears to have opted for more maximalist interiors for his Manhattan home. The kitchen has green cabinetry; the primary bedroom has rich blue walls and a teal dressing room. The dining room, painted bright orange, has an Andy Warhol painting of Jane Fonda on the wall, with a colourful abstract painting by the New York-born artist Heather Chontos.
“It’s a great house for entertaining with the roof terrace for summer and the working fireplace in the winter,” Norton told the New York Times. “There have been lots of parties, big and small, over the years.”
Graham Norton’s secluded seaside home in Ireland
www.provision.ie
Norton grew up in Bandon, a town in Cork, and in 2003, he bought a house an hour’s drive away, in the seaside village of Ahakista.
Norton’s sister found the house, and when the comedian first viewed it, he was assured that it was nothing like the photos. “The estate agent wasn’t wrong. The photographs of rooms filled with plump chintz sofas and gilt-framed oil paintings were in reality grim bare cells with pigeon droppings on the floors and strange fungal growths stuck to the walls,” he wrote in his autobiography. “The one thing that remained intact was the view…It was paradise.”
Still, after a complicated sale, he bought the period property for a reported €1.6 million and hired local practice Edge Architecture to help with the renovations. The house spans some 4,000 square feet, with views over Dunmanus Bay.
“It is a paradise. I love it,” he told The Irish Times. “There is no denying it is a gorgeous part of the world. It is far less exploited than Cornwall or Devon, which are similarly beautiful, but it is so much more remote and unexplored.”
The ONE Blackfriars building, also known as The Vase
Supplied
After selling his house in East Sussex in 2018, Norton is rumoured to have purchased a luxury apartment at the then-newly completed ONE Blackfriars building.
The 170-metre-high tower has panoramic views over London and offers residents amenities like a 24-hour concierge, swimming pool, steam room, gym, “snow cabin”, gym, golf simulator, wine cellar and private screening room.
Bexhill-on-Sea, East Sussex
Norton paid £1.35 million for the award-winning, architect-designed house in 2009
Norton bought his architect-designed, modernist beach house in Bexhill-on-Sea for £1.35 million in 2009. Clad in African iroko teak, the property had balconies on every level overlooking the ocean, as well as its own private beach, an outdoor swimming pool and landscaped gardens.
According to Land Registry records, Norton sold it in 2018 for £1.85 million – £450,000 less than he had originally listed it for.
Norton bought a house in Cape Town after visiting a friend there
AFP via Getty Images
After flying to Cape Town to visit his friend Tim Lord in the early noughties, Norton was charmed by the city and decided to buy a holiday home there. “Cape Town is as close to paradise as I have found on earth,” he wrote in So Me. “The people couldn’t be nicer, the weather more beautiful, the setting around the slopes of Table Mountain more spectacular…from the moment I got off the plane I was in love with it.”
Four days into his stay, he visited the house he would eventually buy, at the foot of Table Mountain. “I walked into the house and immediately felt like it was mine,” he wrote. I pretended to do sensible things like ask about the hot water and how old it was, but all I really wanted to do was yell ‘Sold!’ and start buying furniture.”
He reportedly listed the property for £510,000 in 2009 and sold it within four days.
Norton’s properties hitting the market within quick succession have prompted speculation about what might be next for the comedian. Where will he choose to live next?
There are rumours that Norton may be shifting his focus west. Though he has sung the praises of east Londonindustry insiders suggest that he may be house hunting around Regent’s Park. The area, of course, is home to some of London’s most expensive properties, including the grand John Nash-designed regency terraces that have attracted celebrities like Tom Ford, Stefano Gabbana, Sasha Baron Cohen, Damien Hirst and property developer Christian Candy.
W1B, which runs from Piccadilly Circus up towards Regent’s Park, is the most expensive postcode in England and Wales, with a median property price of £4.375 million. The area encompasses streets like Park Crescent and the exclusive Regent’s Cresent development, with 67 Grade I-listed apartments and nine garden villas. Last year, The Holme, set inside Regent’s Park, became the second-most expensive property transaction recorded in the UK, after it sold for £138.9 million.
Norton did say he was looking for a change, and the grandeur of Regent’s Park would certainly mark a departure from Wapping High Street. Could this be his next home?