What do you do with all that money when you're divorced from a man worth £770 million?
Valeria, the ex-wife and right-hand woman of multi-millionaire Brexit donor Paul Sykes, sank some £70 million into restoring a Grade II-listed manor house in Ripon, North Yorkshire, and opened it as a five-star hotel with the help of her new boyfriend, Colin Little, a former canon of Ripon Cathedral.
Sadly, her dream has had no happy ending, as I can reveal that she has now split up with Little.
'It's a terrible shame, but it's all over,' one of her friends tells me. 'Colin was a very supportive partner while she was doing up the hotel.
'They shared a huge passion for the project — and each other — but some things just aren't meant to last.'
Valeria, the ex-wife and right-hand woman of multi-millionaire Brexit donor Paul Sykes, sank some £70 million into restoring a Grade II-listed manor house in Ripon, North Yorkshire
The coal miner's daughter, 78, met Little through her then-husband after he paid £500,000 for new doors at Ripon Cathedral.
She split up with Sykes, one of Britain's richest self-made men, in 2012 after 44 years of marriage.
Little then played a large role in the three-year refurbishment of the town's historic Grantley Hall. Surrounded by 30 acres of wooded parkland, it was once the family home of Fletcher Norton, Speaker of the House of Commons and the 1st Baron Grantley.
It played host to Queen Mary in 1937 when she stayed there with her daughter, Princess Mary, and son-in-law, Lord Harewood.
The coal miner's daughter, 78, met Little through her then-husband after he paid £500,000 for new doors at Ripon Cathedral
Ambitious 'Yorkshire lass' Valeria bought it in 2016 for an undisclosed sum — it had been on the market for £5.95 million — and turned it into a luxurious 52-bedroom hotel with four restaurants and a spa with a 60ft pool, snow and steam rooms, an altitude training room, underwater treadmill and cryotherapy chamber.
'I feel sad when I see beautiful old buildings like that. I just want to save them,' she said.
'I love restoring properties and, after taking advice, I knew I could do it. I had this vision of it as a first-class hotel and I turned to Colin and said: 'I'm going to buy it.' '
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