Woman owner of £50m home was once a penniless refugee

Hourieh Peramaa fled her native Kazakhstan aged 17 and was forced to live in an Iranian refugee camp.

There she met her future husband, a medical student from a wealthy family, and together the couple launched a property business.

After almost 60 years of keeping her identity hidden by buying properties through trusts, the property magnate was last week named as the new owner of Toprak Mansion in The Bishop's Avenue, Hampstead.

The secretive 75-year-old has a property portfolio worth £1 billion, which spans Europe and the Middle East, and splits her time between London, Toronto and southern France.

She plans to spend a further £30 million on renovations to the £50 million London property, overseen by her daughter-in-law Yassmin, 33, who revealed her family had been looking for a London home for two years before settling on the house.

She said they had originally planned to buy a penthouse property at One Hyde Park for £112 million, but instead opted for Toprak Mansion.

Miss Peramaa added: "My mother-in-law has always had high standards. We thought we might buy one of the penthouses at One Hyde Park, but they were asking £112 million, it had a communal entrance and communal pools, and it was only 20,000 square feet.

"The layout was all wrong and the walls come only in magnolia. To have any wall covering or interior design done was going to cost another £8 million. This was the best she could find.

"She looks at this house as an investment. It's one of the most substantial houses in the world."

The house was bought from Turkish businessman Halis Toprak who had marketed the home with nine bedrooms, five reception rooms and 16 bathrooms for two years.

The redevelopment will see the four-storey home extended by 19,000 square feet to 42,000 - dwarfing the 25,000 sq ft home of next door neighbour, steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal.

They have also changed the name to Royal Mansion. Yassmin has been flying out to Italy in the family jet each week to liaise with one of the country's top interior designers employed to carry out the work.

The refurbishment includes plans for a £500,000 helicopter pad which will sink, James Bond-style, into the garden, a 30-seat cinema and even a small river complete with canoe. All doors will be automatic or operated by fingerprint recognition and two huge Venetian chandeliers have been ordered to hang over an elliptical pool and double curved staircase.

Work is expected to begin in March, with 50 builders taking 18 months to develop the property.