Rich List 2017
102 • thesundaytimes.co.uk/richlistPeople still hook up
and need somewhere
open late at night to
buy a sexy outfi t”
Fawn & India Rose James
Heiresses to porn king Paul Raymond’s property empire
T
he Look of Love , Michael Winterbottom ’s
biopic of Paul Raymond starring Steve
Coogan as the porn-and-property baron
who made Soho Soho, begins with
Raymond driving his Rolls-Royce Silver
Shadow down Old Compton Street with his
granddaughter, Fawn, then only six years old, sitting
in the back seat. “Why do you buy so many houses,
Grandpa?” she asks after he tells her how many shops,
bars, restaurants and theatres he owns in the area.
“I buy them for you and your sister. One day you will
own the company,” he replies.
He was as good as his word. “We own this place,”
says Fawn James, now 31 , as she welcomes me to Soho
House on Dean Street. “We own all the Soho House
properties in Soho,” adds her sister, India Rose, 25.
The pair became heirs to Raymond’s porn-and-property
empire after their mother, Debbie, died of a heroin
overdose in 1992, aged 36. The portfolio is so big that
the sisters admit they do not know how many buildings
the family fi rm, Soho Estates, owns. “There’s a map in
the offi ce that’s got like loads of pictures of the
buildings,” India Rose says.
I check with John James , India Rose’s father and
Fawn’s stepfather , who runs the company. He can’t give
me a precise number either. Whatever the right fi gure,
no one disputes that the sisters control the biggest
privately owned property empire in Soho — and it’s
about to get a whole lot bigger.
Soho Estates is investing £200m to redevelop a large
chunk of W1. At Walker’s Court , the site of the strip
club and Soho institution the Raymond Revue ba r,
India Rose has set up an art gallery called the Revue in
homage to her grandfather , which she curates. The
company is also building a theatre, the Boulevard ,
whose artistic programme Fawn will direct. The old
Foyles bookshop on Charing Cross Road is being
reborn as an eight-storey building with 114,000 sq ft ofoffi ce space, plus shops, restaurants and fl ats. Another
expanded branch of Soho House, on the site of the
original, just off Old Compton Street , is also under
construction. The developments, which will open from
next year, will double the rental income of Soho Estates
to £55m a year, pushing the business’s valuation to
£1bn, the sisters hope. That’s almost double our
current £530m valuation of the si sters, which ranks
them 234= in this year’s Rich List.
Their redevelopment is controversial, to put it mildly.
It has meant the closure of the Pink Pussy Cat (a
lap-dancing bar, if you really have to ask), put
prostitutes and their “maids” out of business, and
temporarily shuttered Madame Jojo’s , a venue much
loved for hosting up-and-coming acts and for its famed
Tranny Shack transvestite night. Londoners infamous
for misbehaving, notably Rupert Everett and Stephen
Fry , have accused Soho Estates of “taking the sex
out of Soho”.
Fawn and India Rose don’t see it that way. By opening
a theatre, they are continuing and updating Raymond’s
life’s work. “Papa started as a theatre man, fi rst as an act
— he was a mind-reader on Clacton Pier — then as a
theatre owner and impresario,” says Fawn.
Whether it was porn or property, everything was
business to Raymond, who died nine years ago. If it
made money, he did it. “Our grandfather moved with
the markets. He gave people what they wanted. We’re
doing nothing diff erent — we’re moving with the
times,” says Fawn. “Soho has continuously reinvented
itself. It started as a place of tailors and shoe making,
before it moved into the risqué side of things. Lately,
it has become a hub for creative industries, especially
post production for fi lms.”
The trouble is, many buildings in Soho are too
small and old-fashioned for movie types. “A lot of
people are moving out because they need bigger
buildings, like the warehouses in Shoreditch.“
234 = £ 530m ▲
FAWN AND INDIA
ROSE JAMES
PropertyPHOTOGRAPH
DAVID VINTINERTHE
RICH LIST
INTERVIEW
JOHN
ARLIDGE