Bling on wheels! It’s as large as a home and costs £4,000 a night and comes with a butler and vibrating bed… all aboard the celebs’ favorite campervan
The £750,000 bus was hand constructed for Formula 1 driver Jacques Villeneuve
It was later utilized by British racing driver Jenson Button on the F1 circuit
Other celebs to make use of it embrace Tiger Woods, Dannii Minogue and Mick Jagger
The motor house is stocked with the finest champagne and caviar
By Petronella Wyatt for MailOnline
Published: 17:01 EDT, 9 May 2014 | Updated: 21:45 EDT, 9 May 2014
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As I recline on my bed, adorned with pillows of gold and silver, I sip from a flute of champagne, feeling completely arrange for my afternoon nap. This is my sort of bedroom.
But then a whirring sound appears to come from the luxurious carpet beneath me. Slowly, beginning from one corner of the room, the carpet magically folds itself away, concertina-fashion. Then, immediately, similar to Alice in Wonderland, I begin to get a shrinking feeling. Rather alarmingly, the walls of my room are starting to slide slowly and intentionally towards me.
I hold my breath, alarmed – but luckily, they cease some toes away. Now the room itself begins to maneuver and from a window I can see trees and fields begin whizzing previous.
Daily Mail writer Petronella Wyatt loved a short tour across the £750,000 SEVEN star camper van which is now owned by Icon Experiences
This isn’t a waking dream nor the consequences of one too many. I’m within the world’s largest, most luxurious and most expensive motorhome. It is being pushed by my host Andrew Morris of Icon Experiences by way of the English countryside. While it’s parked up, it’s the dimensions of a veritable palace. But when it’s on the move it turns into the size of your average massive coach – all thanks to fiendishly clever moveable extensions that may be adjusted at the push of a few buttons.
This, it seems, is the only means to show a 30ft huge luxurious holiday retreat into a 15ft car that complies with the Highway Code. It’s a reasonably surreal experience – particularly after a few glasses of fizz.
But that is the long run. Your conventional no-star, turf artificial grass diy no-comfort caravan with Formica finish and foam-stuffed cushion beds is somewhat passe. The new pattern is camping de luxe, as exemplified by this ‘glampervan’.
However, Icon Experiences, suppliers of ‘high finish, bespoke’ autos, prefer to describe it as ‘a seven-star lodge on wheels’. It’s obtainable for hire at £4,000 a evening (with extras equivalent to helicopter and limousine transfers you possibly can simply double the fee) to anybody with a love of the outdoors, but an aversion to slumming it.
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The luxurious motorhome comes equipped with each conceivable comfort, together with butler Lila Arora, 19, and a plentiful supply of champagne
Guests have 500 square feet at their disposal: a grasp bedroom with ensuite bathroom, a residing room and dining room, a fully fitted kitchen, a second bedroom and round-the-clock service from a Michelin starred chef and a workforce of butlers and waitresses.
Hand-constructed for £750,000 by the American firm Newell for Formula 1 champion Jacques Villenueve as a home from house on the motor racing circuit, this lavish cell palace was purchased by British racing driver Jenson Button and used as his tour bus until 2011.
Those who have sampled its opulence embody golfer Tiger Woods, Kylie and Dannii Minogue, F1 boss Bernie Ecclestone, Lewis Hamilton, Lily Allen, Donna Air and Mick Jagger.
It’s presently parked up in the grassy grounds of Langar Hall, a seventeenth century resort in Nottinghamshire. Sadly, once i visit, neither the limousine nor the helicopter is put at my disposal, so I’m pressured to arrive in a humble taxi.
The cab driver pulls up with a start. ‘What’s that thing?’ he asks. I see his point. From the surface, unextended, my ‘seven star hotel’ resembles a large blood sausage, painted an indignant crimson with nice purply black swirls. The quantity plate is Icon F1.
One shopper needed to hire the camper van to remain in the grounds of Highclere Castle, extra generally often known as Downton Abbey
Andrew rushes out to fulfill me. ‘Isn’t it fab?’ he says. I nod, speechless. I put on my sunglasses. This lessens the purple glare barely. Andrew presses what is the first of many buttons on a brilliant-dooper remote management. A door slides open and a flight of stairs descend.
I journey up the steps and enter the lounge. My first impression is of being in an unlimited padded cell. It is coated from flooring to ceiling in comfortable beige leather-based. There may be a big leather sofa and leather-based arm chairs, certainly one of which is rocking.
‘That’s the therapeutic massage chair,’ Andrew says. ‘You transfer this lever right here and it massages your whole body.’
There’s a 42in plasma Tv with a DVD player, Sky tv and a high-of-the-vary Bose sound system. An iPod dock is in the nook, and encompass-sound speakers are positioned in each conceivable nook and cranny.
The furnishings are coated with velveteen satin cushions and pillows in a form of glittery shade that would be greatest described as Seventies disco. There may be a big table which, Andrew assures me, is made of pure granite and gold. There’s a mirrored bar, heaving with shelves of crystal glasses and champagne buckets. Restraint, I’m starting to suspect, is a 4-letter word to the Glamper-van tribe.
So who do we need to thank for this relatively distinctive inside design? One Dannii Minogue, former girlfriend of Jacques Villeneuve, who selected every merchandise herself. I ponder in the event that they broke up over the livid orange blinds on the darkened ‘privacy windows’?
The £750,000 motorhome was hand constructed for Canadian racing driver Jacques Villeneuve
Former Formula 1 world champion Lewis Hamilton used the luxurious motor dwelling as well as Jensen Button
Australian singer Dannii Minogue has additionally been one of many celebrity company who have enjoyed the opulent luxury of the motorhome
We then stroll by way of to the fully fitted kitchen. ‘It’s an American kitchen,’ Andrew announces. I ask what the distinction is between an American kitchen and an English one? Does it sing The Star Spangled Banner?
‘American fridges, as you may see, are very massive, excessive-tech and have ice makers,’ he says. Chastised, I admire the ice-maker.
Another button is pressed on the distant management and a shiny golden kitchen cabinet door slides open with a woosh, a bit like a sound effect from Star Trek. In reality, every part is finished by distant management, presumably so celebrities don’t have to do something as onerous as getting up. There are buttons to dim the lights, buttons for air conditioning and but more buttons to adjust the underfloor heating.
Singer Lily Allen, pictured, can also be known to have stayed in the £4,000-a-evening motorhome which boasts its own butler and chef
A peek inside another door reveals a larder stocked with champagne and costly goodies. You don’t go hungry here. On arrival, friends are introduced with a bottle of Sir Winston Churchill Pol Roger 1999 and a luxury hamper, in case they get peckish earlier than the chef prepares their meal.
So the place are the workers? Are they clinging to the spare tyres beneath like determined migrants from Calais? No, no, I be taught. The chef and butlers journey in a separate support automobile.
Next, we’re in a granite and marble hallway. Another door reveals the guest toilet, which is black with, dare I say it, extra gold fixtures. A speaker signifies that one can carry out one’s essential ablutions to music.
But it is when i enter the master bedroom that I’m wondering if it is admittedly true that the majority celebrities are as style-free as a frozen Cornetto.
The bed is coated in a artificial materials boasting a brown and gold zebra print. There is a walk-in wardrobe supported by gold columns. A dressing gown is laid out for me, subsequent to a single pink rose.
Andrew leaves me to get snug and that i sit, gingerly, on the edge of the bed. I put on the towelling gown, and unwrap my hamper with its pretty crimson bow. There is a knock on the door and a waitress enters with champagne and a vase of flowers on a silver tray. Lazily, I nibble on a house-made biscuit from my hamper and push a button to activate my digital Tv while admiring the countryside.
I’m starting to suppose my glampervan is not so bad, and that I am being petty concerning the decor. Then I uncover a panel with switches next to the bed. I flick one and the lights dim. I flick another and the bed starts to move – rocking gently upwards. As it does so it makes a form of moaning sound. ‘Help!’ I shout. Andrew rushes in. ‘The mattress is supposed to do this,’ he says, flushing. I search for and word that the ceiling is mirrored.
Tiger Woods is among the many celebrities who has used the motorhome. Guests usually receive a bottle of Sir Winston Churchill Pol Roger 1999 and a luxury hamper upon arrival
Andrew begins talking in a short time. In the event you loved this article and you wish to receive more details concerning Turf artificial grass diy kindly visit our page. ‘This is going to be a really, very romantic experience for people. They’ll have anything they need.’ He quickly adjustments the topic away from the rocking mattress. ‘There is an extension on the again with a gazebo. On warm days, we create a gorgeous out of doors dining space. Within the evening, we make a pathway of candles to the desk and put up fairy lights.’
Aside from celebrities, who on earth would stay in a place like this? Andrew is clear that the marketplace for the glampervan is large: ‘It’s going to be great for festivals. We’re taking it to the Goodwood Festival of Speed and varied music festivals. But you choose the place you need to be and we helicopter you there or send the limo. Then your seven-star lodge is ready for you in lovely countryside.’
Later in the yr a shopper has requested that the motorhome be taken to Downton Abbey – also known as Highclere Castle in Berkshire. What will Lord Grantham say?
It has started to rain, but a waiter is gamely organising a desk for me on the lawn, complete with extra champagne. I determine to enter the spirit of the glampervan and slip right into a little bit of bling. I put on a shimmery, off-the-shoulder frock and silver heels with diamante straps. Then I totter on the marble flooring in the direction of the door.
‘You can have anything you want,’ Andrew says. ‘Caviar, lobster, music. If something is for sale we’ll buy it. Would you like a cigar?’
That is all very effectively. But it’s turning into clear you can’t purchase charm or taste. I sit within the drizzle trying yearningly at the lodge in the space. It has bedrooms with 4-poster beds, old paintings, and furniture made from wood.
I’m a woman who has never turned up her nostril at luxurious vacation, however after a day spent in my glampervan, I am longing to walk up a flight of creaky stairs, snuggle up in one of those four posters with plain, white pillow circumstances and be capable to look at the ceiling with out seeing my reflection.
Gold-fitted, turf artificial grass fantasy motorhomes are all very properly for celebrities and oligarchs, but I choose the comfort of a stationary building or even the simplicity of a tent.