As Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen celebrates his 61st birthday, the celebrated interior designer and television personality candidly admits he’s living with a ticking financial clock. Best known for his work on Changing Rooms, DIY SOS, and Celebrity Bear Hunt, Laurence has accumulated wealth, but now worries about sustaining his lifestyle in the long term.
“There’s a moment when you sit down with financial advisers, and they tell you they can guarantee your current lifestyle for 20 years,” Laurence explains. “So basically, I’ve got to die at 81 or else I’m going to be in total Jane Austen penury.”
He fondly recalls a time when shopping without limits was part of his routine, often strolling through London’s prestigious Burlington Arcade after lunch and buying whatever caught his eye. However, the pandemic helped him curb his spending habits. “I knocked off the shopping addiction in lockdown,” he says.
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Laurence admits to a history of extravagance, spending around a grand on each tailored suit and gifting his wife a hat from renowned milliner Stephen Jones “just because it was Tuesday.” Trained as a fine artist, his early career included stints at luxury stores such as Liberty, Harvey Nichols, and Harrods, where he once sold jewellery to Monty Don before the gardener’s fame.
His flair for interior design led to lucrative commissions, notably transforming the elaborate boudoirs of wealthy clients in Knightsbridge, before catching the BBC’s eye in 1996. Despite the eventual celebrity status gained from Changing Rooms alongside Carol Smillie and Andy Kane, Laurence discovered that television fame did not equate to financial security. “My earnings went through the floor. You got paid virtually nothing and were put in a minicab after making the most-watched programme on BBC1,” he recalls.
At the same time, his interior design commissions declined, as his upper-class clientele hesitated to associate with a reality TV show star.
Laurence and his wife Jackie have relied on strategic property investments to build their wealth. They live in a 17th-century Cotswolds manor with their daughters, Cecile and Hermione, and four grandchildren. Laurence entered property investment at 24, using an inheritance to buy his first flat, which he sold at a loss. But subsequent purchases—a bungalow in South-east London and a property in Greenwich—yielded handsome profits. Their Gloucestershire manor has more than doubled in value, as has their second home in Cornwall.
Still, Laurence acknowledges that the property market’s golden age has passed. “We’re the last generation to be able to say that. Nobody else is going to be able to make those enormous leaps in the property market,” he warns.
Despite his concerns, Laurence remains pragmatic about planning for the future while cherishing the successes and experiences that shaped him.