Spoon-bender, psychic superstar, mystifier and confidant to A-isters including Elvis, John Lennon, Salvador Dali and Elton John, Uri Geller has been a household name since the 1970s.
Now 76, he says a powerful source of his energy over the years has been his Thames-side mini-estate in the upmarket Berkshire village of Sonning, which he has owned since the mid-1980s, and which he is now selling for £7,950,000 .
‘Sonning Court is an incredibly special place, with its waterside setting on the bend of a river,’ says Uri, who has hosted Prince Michael of Kent, Michael Jackson and illusionist David Blaine at the property, and whose neighbors include George and Amal Clooney , Jimmy Page and Theresa May.
‘As soon as I came up the driveway in my Cadillac, I knew it was the house I was looking for. Its positive energy just exploded in my mind – the feng shui was exactly right.’
Once inside, Uri fell even harder for the house, and says he ‘telepathically psyched out’ another interested party, to ensure he and his wife, Hannah, made the higher offer.
‘The symmetry and power of the house were magnificent,’ he says, ‘with all nine bedrooms overlooking the river.’
Uri continues: ‘In the grounds there is a yew tree grown from a seed from the tree under which the Magna Carta was signed. I knew immediately what I wanted to do with the house.’
The Gellers have extended and renovated the 1970s-built home, which comes with a mind-bending 250 meters of River Thames tow path and 1,500 sq meters of mooring, accommodating up to 18 boats.
Within the 1,477 sq meters of interior space, there’s a huge glass atrium, two dining rooms and a vast kitchen (plenty of drawers for spoons, then – Uri claims to have psychically bent more than one million of them over his career).
A lower level has a bar, custom-designed cinema room, gym and panic room.
The 3.6-acre grounds are even more fantastic, with Japanese water gardens featuring a red bridge, three interlinked ponds and a six-foot waterfall.
Beyond, there’s a glass meditation pyramid, heated covered pool and helipad.
The property was briefly on the market in 2015 for twice the price, before the Gellers decided to rent it out, to settle in Old Jaffa, in Tel Aviv – Uri runs a museum there dedicated to his life’s work and featuring celebrity exhibits including Harry Houdini’s handcuffs and Pablo Picasso’s easel.
So can Uri predict who will buy Sonning Court? If they are really lovely people, he says, he will consider including some of the extraordinary fittings in the sales price.
Viewers might like to know that there is a ball of rock crystal, which once belonged to Albert Einstein, buried under the pyramid.
Plus, in one of the living spaces sits a fireplace salvaged from the old Rockefeller mansion in New York.
Uri also owns an uninhabited island in the Firth of Forth in Scotland, which he has declared a micronation – he offers citizenship of it for one dollar, with the proceeds going to Israeli charity Save a Child’s Heart.
For now, he lives in a tiny apartment furnished from Ikea, chosen for its views of the Old Jaffa’s ancient buildings.
‘I don’t need great luxuries any more,’ he says. ‘But a part of me will always be in Sonning. I know that whoever buys it will have great good fortune.’
Find more information on Sonning Court at Savills.
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