Sarah Ferguson is preparing to flee the UK and swap Windsor for her daughter’s £3.6million mansion in the ‘Hamptons of Europe’ on Portugal’s Atlantic coast this winter, it was claimed today.
Princess Eugenie and her husband Jack Brooksbank are said to have prepared a ‘grand suite’ in their oceanfront villa for the 66-year-old to settle down after getting kicked out of Royal Lodge.
The former Duchess of York has lived with her ex-husband Andrew since 2008 despite the pair divorcing in 1996.
But unlike Andrew, who will move into a property on the private Sandringham estate in Norfolk, Fergie will now go it alone and make her own living arrangements, it is understood.
And there is space in Jack and Eugenie’s plush mansion in the exclusive CostaTerra resort, already beloved by celebrities including Hollywood royalty.
‘The word here is that Fergie will be arriving sometime in January’, one wealthy neighbour of Eugenie and Jack has said.
Princess Eugenie and Jack Brooksbank may be offering her mother Sarah Ferguson a place to live abroad, it has been claimed
Fergie is expected at the CostaTerra Golf and Ocean Club (pictured), a luxury resort an hour south of Lisbon on Portugal’s picturesque Atlantic coast, from January, according to a neighbour of Eugenie’s
Madonna, Scarlett Johansson and Nicole Kidman have property there with Ms Kidman reportedly applying for Portuguese residency after she split from her husband Keith Urban.
Alicia Vikander, Michael Fassbender and their two children spend months of the year at CostaTerra Golf and Ocean Club, which is around a 90 minute drive south of Lisbon.
‘How long she’ll stay is anyone’s guess but if it’s a long-term move, I can guarantee she’ll fit well into the social scene. Scores of celebrities and stars have been snapping up properties in the area’, a source told the Daily Express of Fergie’s reported move.
The Daily Mail has asked a spokesman for Ms Ferguson to comment on the report.
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle were rumoured to be shopping for a home in the area because the couple remain close to Eugenie and Jack – and want a European base.
The area, with its secluded beaches and surfing waves, has been compared to St Tropez in the 1960s and Ibiza before they became holiday hotspots.
CostaTerra Golf and Ocean Club calls itself a ‘luxury resort community’.
It has a Wellness centre, equestrian centre, community village, 18-hole golf course, 146 family homes and 29 larger residences belonging to the club.
According to the CostaTerra website it is a, ‘flourishing community and thriving ecosystem grounded firmly in the values of sustainable development’.
It describes itself to potential buyers as ‘your family’s private European escape.’
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle were rumoured to be looking to buy on the same Portuguese resort
A publicity picture of the CostaTerra Golf and Ocean club, where the former Duchess of York may soon take up residence
CostaTerra Golf and Ocean Club is in Comporta, around 90 minutes south of Lisbon towards the Algarve
Despite luxury and green promises, the Google reviews for the resort leave much to be desired – with many Portuguese people upset by the foreign development.
Many are upset that the land has been developed for the super rich and that locals can’t afford it.
Andrew’s fate remain in the air but King Charles is said to want him to move to Sandringham.
Although several sources have said to the Mail that Portugal, with its golf and expat social scene, would suit him.
The Prince and Princess of Wales will be pleased that William’s errant uncle will no longer be their neighbours as they moved into their ‘forever home’ in Windsor a few weeks ago.
Charles will not punish Andrew much more because his ‘pampered’ brother can’t ‘cope’ without a coterie of servants and a regal mansion, according to royal biographer Tina Brown.
Ms Brown, a friend of Princess Diana who was editor-in-chief of Tatler and Vanity Fair, also believes the monarch has an interest in bankrolling Andrew’s 5-star lifestyle away from Windsor’s Royal Lodge to keep him quiet.
The King and Prince William have taken away his titles and home – and will banish him to the 20,000 acre Sandringham estate in Norfolk – but they will not go much further for now, she claims.
Ms Brown said: ‘Charles, I am told, is not looking to punish his pampered brother to the point, he says, that he can’t “cope”.
‘If Charles were not to pay his brother’s bills and ensure a certain level of comfort, Andrew would have only his secrets to sell’.
Writing on her Fresh Hell Substack, Ms Brown, the highly respected author of The Palace Papers said that Charles is ‘more aware than anyone that Andrew has been served all his life by a cook, a butler, and a valet who used to accompany him on foreign trade trips, lugging a six-foot-long ironing board through the lobby of five-star hotels’.
Tina Brown said Andrew will be dreading the move because he will be totally isolated in Norfolk with few local friends. She claims his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson has already ‘evaporated’ now her ‘freebie digs’ in Windsor has gone.
‘I have no idea who he will socialise with’, one Norfolk grandee told her.
King Charles believes his brother can’t cope without a life of luxury so will pay to support him at Sandringham, with servants, and to keep him quiet, Tina Brown has claimed
Andrew has been kicked out of Windsor’s Royal Lodge, much to the ‘relief’ of his neighbours the Prince and Princess of Wales – and is expected to move to Sandringham.
Ms Brown added: ‘Calling Andrew entitled is beside the point. He was raised with no economic purpose and now he finds himself as a connector to whom no one wants to be connected’.
‘Andrew’s banishment to an as-yet unnamed property in windswept Norfolk on the Sandringham estate seems to have evaporated Fergie’s much-vaunted loyalty to her ex-husband, now that her freebie digs in a wing of Royal Lodge, 25 minutes from London, will soon have the locks changed‘.
Ms Brown has said that she believes he will end up in Wood Farm, where Prince Philip lived when at Sandringham.
But she added that the state beloved by the King and his parents has 150 properties, so there are plenty of options for him to choose from.
She said the King sometimes uses Wood Farm when the main house is closed down.
Ms Brown wrote: ‘How could Andrew argue that what was good enough for his father and is fitting now for the king is not acceptable for his humbled self?
‘Two other Sandringham candidates for his future home are Park House, where Diana grew up, which would need a gut reno after its use as a home for the disabled, or York Cottage, said to be gloomy and damp, which is now divvied up for holiday rentals and staff accommodations.
‘And I can’t see Mr Mountbatten-Windsor tolerating the status reduction of the six-bedroom Gardens House, which accommodated the former head gardener. But we shall see’.
