Movie hardman Jason Statham and his supermodel fiancee Rosie Huntington-Whiteley might get quite an eyeful when they fling open the curtains on the first morning at their new £25million beach home on the south coast.
For the Daily Mail can reveal that the pair have perhaps unknowingly chosen a 20-acre spot for their futuristic new-build ‘forever home’ on a naturists’ beach.
Actor Statham, 58, and model Miss Huntington-Whiteley, 39, are no stranger to nudity themselves, having posed before either for fashion shoots or movie scenes in the altogether.
Just this week Rosie cemented her place as a top supermodel on the red carpet at New York’s Met Gala in a revealing off-the-shoulder gown.
Statham’s purchase of the site was revealed at the weekend.
The huge house is being built in a brutalist architecture style and has five bedrooms, its own private beach, an enormous treehouse for their two children Jack, eight, and Isabella, four, and even a 42,000 sq ft boating lake and wild swimming pond.
In a separate building behind the main house a horse stables is under construction from where Rosie can indulge her horse-riding passion.
And of course for the super-fit couple, a large gym is planned, plus there is an indoor lap pool – a long narrow swimming pool designed specifically for fitness training by swimming laps rather than for recreation.
Jason Statham and his supermodel fiancée Rosie Huntington-Whiteley have bought a new £25million beach home on the south coast
Land Registry records show that Statham, who has amassed a fortune of £90million from the Fast and Furious franchise and other hit movies such as Snatch and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, paid £20million for the waterside site which contained a gatehouse, the under-construction modernist home and a separate outhouse in January 2024. Finishing the build itself is expected to cost a further £5million.
The house was originally designed by one of the Royal Family’s trusted architects. It was then taken over and turned into a minimalist modern home in line with Statham’s tastes.
The sprawling single-level U-shaped building is designed around a strict three-dimensional grid and has a square central courtyard with a lap pool enclosing the fourth side.
Although contemporary in design, the house is built of traditional materials such as clay brick, cedar shingle, lead and oak.
The location could not be more idyllic for the family – making it what one person called their ‘forever home’.
Its seafront location includes its own 1,200ft-long private beach dotted with wooden groynes every 30ft. The naturist haven is next to this and further down the coast, while there is a nature reserve nearby popular with birdwatchers.
This week, families with children in prams and lone dog walkers were seen on the public beach next to the house and on the footpath running past the new property.
When our reporter visited the beach next to the house at low tide one day last week, the only sound was the twittering of birds and the distant whirr of speed boats.
Meanwhile wild horses from a nearby national park were roaming free on the beach right outside the new property.
Statham has paid £20million for the waterfront site, with building works expected to cost another £5million
Designs of their new house are shown in plans submitted to the local authorities
Immediate neighbours of the property are equally high-profile and wealthy, although it seems construction of the new house was causing some annoyance among locals in less grand homes a little further inland.
One house, passed regularly by construction vehicles working on the site, had signs outside either side of its driveway which read: ‘NO CONSTRUCTION TRAFFIC’.
A lay-by also meant exclusively for public-beach users was also filled with construction vehicles for the new-build this week.
Burberry, Victoria’s Secrets and Marks & Spencer model Rosie, who is herself worth £30million, recently spoke of moving to a more bucolic life.
The couple, who got together in 2010, have been gradually breaking ties with their former Hollywood lifestyle, having recently sold up their £15million Malibu beach house to spend more time at their other home, a £7.5million townhouse in Chelsea, west London.
But in recent weeks Rosie revealed the move here is actually part of a long-term masterplan for a rural family life back in the UK.
She told Australian Vogue that she was preparing for a major shift: a move to the English countryside near the New Forest, where horses, she said, are finally re-entering the frame.
Speaking of their previously unknown-about home, Rosie said ‘There’s an incredible dressage school around the corner.’ Riding was central to her childhood, but living in London and LA for two decades made it logistically impossible, reported the magazine.
‘I’ve been dreaming of this since I left home,’ she said. ‘It will be mud and kids climbing trees. London at the weekends can feel very destination-driven. I want peace.’
Indeed, even before the beach home has been completed, Statham has been spotted by locals walking dogs on the beach with his friend and Lock Stock co-star Vinnie Jones.
One local told the Daily Mail: ‘I had to do a double take – it was very surreal. All of a sudden, walking past me was Vinnie Jones, Jason Statham, and a couple of dogs. Yes, so it appears Statham and his partner, the model (Rosie) have bought this plot of land and are building a kind of “forever home”. It’s stunning.’
The pull of the countryside is natural for Rosie. She grew up in rural Devon, a life which she described in Vogue as ‘rustic, outdoorsy, wild, simple’, adding: ‘Home was a cottage on a couple of hectares with animals everywhere’.
Rosie told the magazine: ‘There was tack being cleaned in the back kitchen, usually some animals – a bird Mum was trying to bring back to life.’ Her parents still live there. ‘Mum has dogs everywhere and muddy boots, and it’s perfect for them. The house is completely untidy. They live a bucolic life – very bohemian.’
Rosie’s mother is a fitness instructor before working in a local jewellery shop and her father a chartered surveyor.
‘We lived within our means; we had enough,’ she said. Enough meant pocket money that started at £10 a month and increased by £1 a year – and she earned it too.
‘Mucking out the horse every day, school uniforms ironed by me,’ she said, adding that she also cooked for her siblings after school. ‘It instilled self-sufficiency,’ she reflected.
At 14, Rosie started a weekend job as a housekeeper at a local B&B, then as a waitress. She wanted her own money. Perhaps she wanted out, too. ‘I always had this desire to see more,’ she says.
Her bedroom walls weren’t plastered with bands but torn-out fashion editorials, campaigns and backstage images along with make-up and styling details. ‘All my girlfriends had posters of boys,’ she says. ‘I had fashion photography.’
There was no Instagram or YouTube back then, and hardly any behind-the-scenes access. ‘The industry was opaque unless you knew someone inside it,’ she says. ‘From my bedroom, it was just a dream.’
Raising her children in a world full of social media and constant advertising – and with the wealth her parents didn’t have – raises new questions, she admits.
Rosie says that when her mother said no, it meant no. ‘Now, when my son says, “I want new trainers” and I say no, he’s like, “But why?”‘
She says she tries to instil a sense of gratitude in her children. ‘It’s a fine balance; they’re still little,’ she notes, adding that her mother used to tell her: ‘Life’s not going to hand you things on a silver platter.’
The issue of naturism can be a contentious one. The British Naturism organisation says it’s all perfectly natural: ‘Millions of people in the UK and around the world have discovered this wonderful way of life; a national survey by Ipso in 2022 discovered that there are 6.75 million naturists in the UK.
‘There are thousands of holiday resorts and other places serving the community. Plenty of people skinny-dip, go topless on beaches and spend time naked at home.
‘There are plenty of beaches around our beautiful coastline for naturists, from wide stretches of fine sand close to popular tourist spots to more secluded locations far from the crowds. On a hot day, there is nothing better than getting an all-over tan, skinny-dipping and enjoying the company of like-minded people on a lovely beach.’
