Material girl-next-door

After years desperately seeking a London home, Madonna has finally found it. Step forward Kirstie Allsopp, house-hunter to the stars.

YOU'RE A major celebrity, one of the richest and most famous in the world. Along the road to success you have gathered a family and an incredibly large entourage. Your pad just can't cope. Even your dietician is threatening to leave you: "If I have to spend one more day clambering over your publicist, stylist, personal trainer and driver, just to make the wheatgrass juice, I'm off."

What you need, desperately, is a new home. One that can accommodate your unique celebrity-driven needs. But house-hunting? Ugh. None of us is keen, but for the rich and famous it's a double trial. They can hardly pop on the dark glasses and skip along to their nearest branch of Fox & Sons. The chances of them having something suitable on their books is remote. And until a few properties have been viewed, an agent won't really get to grips with your requirements. Such a bore.

This was basically the scenario facing Madonna when she announced two years ago that she would like to buy a home in London.

She has finally settled on a property, a semi-detached villa in the Boltons, South Kensington, for a reported pounds 4m. What is seriously pissing off the capital's estate agents is that is was a private sale. They missed out on one hell of a nice commission, plus the free publicity that would have gone with it.

But while Madonna's property saga has a happy ending, relocation agent Kirstie Allsopp says the Material Girl could have saved herself a lot of time and heartache by-passing estate agents altogether.

Allsopp is one half of a business partnership with Miranda Brankin-Frisby. Together they run a company called Kirmir - house-hunters to the stars, glitterati, literati and "people who work too hard".

Advertising executive Derek Draper, who used Kirmir to buy his Primrose Hill home, described viewing with them "like taking along a combination of wife, mother and girlfriend rolled into one".

Kirstie is also widely rumoured to have found Madonna her new home - but naturally, she's too discreet to confirm it. "I would rather die than divulge who my clients are," she scolds. "The whole point is that they come to me because I understand the predicament of a celebrity house-hunter."

They do the looking for you - charging 1.5 per cent of the property value - whittling the choice down to a few properties and then arranging a viewing at the client's convenience.

"Madonna was looking for one hell of a long time," says Kirstie who will confirm that she was involved in the rental of a Campden Hill home to the star when she was pregnant and recording the soundtrack to Evita.

"If she had employed a good relocation agent, she would have found the right place two years ago. Instead, estate agents were running round like headless chickens trying to sell something - anything - to Madonna without focusing on what she really wanted."

So does your average superstar require solid gold taps, jacuzzis in every room, and so on? "People with big money to spend aren't bothered about the decor in the bathroom or whatever", says Kirstie. "People with big money to spend like somewhere to look nice but they want to make their own mark once they move in. What she required, more than anything, was somewhere set back from the road with a garden out the back that wasn't overlooked, and a driveway."

Kirstie interviews every client to find out any specific requirements - for example, an acre for the organic vegetables, a large mantlepiece for award statues, equally famous neighbours or auspicious Feng Shui. So, what does the celebrity-about-town require?

"A driveway is most important," says Kirstie, "because it means they can sweep up to the house and get out of the car without being bothered by fans. I mean, just look at the Gallaghers' place [in North London]. It's like a peace camp, always someone hanging around there. They don't have a drive. It must be very trying.

"But Madonna was shown places where the front door opened out directly on to the street. She was never, in a million worlds, going to take such a place."

Miffed estate agents are telling anyone who will listen that her entourage is to blame, for disagreeing about what she wanted. "I don't think that's true," says Kirstie. "Yes, dealing with an entourage is a bit like a game of Chinese whispers. But Madonna knows her own mind and she's canny. She really did see so many properties, because she kept being shown the wrong sort of places.

"They also expected her to spend big money. But anyone who knows anything about her will tell you that she would never have splashed out the kind of money they were asking for some of the places shown. I doubt she even paid pounds 4m for the home she settled on."

So what does Kirstie think of Madonna's choice? "I'm surprised. I thought she'd be more Portobello. But it's quiet in the Boltons. It's not a through road to anywhere and off the tourist routes. No one is going to be in a taxi and say: `swing past Madonna's gaff, can you?'"