Jamie Oliver's latest recipe for property success has a surprising new ingredient - the house next door.
The millionaire chef and TV presenter recently bought his neighbours house for £3.25 million in August 2008 about a year after moving into the area and now has planning permission from the London Borough of Camden to create a 19-bedroom property by knocking through the two homes into one.
Jamie and his wife Jules are spending some £150,000 to alter the front façade of the building to make it into one home including replacing the windows, front balustrading and render as well as the addition of a glazed extension and new stairs at the back.
Local estate agents in the area say the combined house could be worth £7 million, even though individual houses on this road only go for £3 million each and the new mega-home won't feature a particularly large garden, even now that's doubled in size.
But nevertheless there's plenty of space inside - which is being remodelled by one of Jamie's restaurant designer chums, Martin Brudnizki - and the basement of the first house has already been turned into a lavish kitchen.
The chef is also lucky to get the planning permission for the conversion - as Madonna was refused permission to knock her two adjoining properties in Marylebone into one by Westminster City Council.
