Alexandra Keating, the beauty mogul daughter of former Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating, is quietly selling her family home in Los Angeles' Hollywood Hills, a $2.2 million property in Laurel Canyon with a notorious past and a fresh brush with controversy.
Alexandra, 41, has shared the historic 1920s home with her husband, movie director Rupert Sanders, and their children since the couple bought it in 2018. The house was previously owned by iconic interior designer Paul Fortune, once renowned for hosting debauched parties attended by Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger and pop star Madonna.
Announcing the sale on Instagram, Alexandra wrote, "Jagger said in the 1980s, 'If you were invited up to the house, you had landed in Los Angeles'." Before he found fame, Bond star Daniel Craig bunked at the Fortune home, which was known for parties featuring celebrities, hustlers and Hollywood wannabes.
Who was Paul Fortune
British-born Fortune oversaw the interiors of celebrities including Marc Jacobs and Sofia Coppola, as well as the Tower Bar inside the famous Sunset Tower hotel. He sold the Laurel Canyon home in 2013 and moved to Ojai in Southern California, and died in 2020 from a cardiac arrest at the age of 69.
The Epstein connection
After Alexandra moved in with Sanders in 2018, the home became notorious alongside the Keating name. It was where her elder sister Katherine, who property records show once lived a 10-minute drive away, took refuge when her connections to the late paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein, his associate Ghislaine Maxwell and the former prince, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, were revealed in 2019.
Katherine was revealed to have spent time at Epstein's New York property after his conviction on child sex offences, and had partied with him in 2013 at the home of Maxwell, the British socialite accused of procuring underage girls for Epstein. Alexandra had moved to New York from Australia first, with Katherine joining her in 2010, before both sisters relocated to Hollywood.
When a Daily Mail reporter approached Alexandra's home on Jewett Drive in 2019, Katherine had just been unmasked as the mysterious brunette seen being waved off from Epstein's Manhattan townhouse by Prince Andrew in a 2010 video.
Alexandra, accompanied by Sanders and another male companion, was frantically loading suitcases into a vehicle at the time. Asked to comment on her sister's links to Epstein and Maxwell, she shook her head and said, "I'm not Katherine."
Rupert Sanders and the Kristen Stewart scandal
The Keating sisters have long experienced fame, and more recently infamy, through their family's standing in Australian politics, but Sanders is no stranger to headlines of his own. The Laurel Canyon home represented a fresh start with Alexandra after his first marriage to model Liberty Ross fell apart when he was caught on camera cheating with Twilight star Kristen Stewart in 2012, while directing her in Snow White and the Huntsman.
US Weekly obtained pictures of Sanders and Stewart kissing and cuddling in an outdoor setting. His marriage to Ross ended in divorce in 2014, and Stewart's relationship with actor Robert Pattinson ended soon after the photos emerged. Neither Sanders nor Stewart was invited back for the film's 2016 sequel.
In 2019, with Sanders by then living with Alexandra in Laurel Canyon, Stewart brought the saga back into the spotlight. "We lived in a different time then, you know what I mean? I feel like the s**t shaming that went down was so absurd," she said. "And they should've put me in that movie! It would've been better. Not to be a d**k, but... They didn't put me in that movie because I went through such a highly publicised scandal, and so they were like scared of touching that."
"That was a really hard period of my life, I was really young, I didn't really know how to deal with that. I made some mistakes. And honestly, it's no one's business," she added.
Selling the house
Announcing the sale, Alexandra did not reveal the family's next move. She appears to be seeking a private buyer, with the Jewett Drive property not appearing as an active listing on Los Angeles' major real-estate websites.
"We are selling our beloved house... the former home of Paul Fortune, where all the LA parties were," she wrote on Thursday. "Where Madonna came after hours, where LA's long lunches were hosted. We want her to go to a friend and someone who will love, appreciate and preserve her beauty and history."
She invited her 3,700 Instagram followers to share the post or message her for details.
Celebrity reaction
The post drew a strong response from celebrities, including Dirty Dancing star Jennifer Grey, who wrote, "I lived there many times, one time while I was making Ferris Bueller. It was the best and [Fortune] was the best."
British media personality Amanda de Cadenet also appeared interested, writing, "I love that house. It's so special. DM'ed you." Australian pop star Ben Lee, who also lived in Laurel Canyon with his wife Ione Skye, was seen liking the post.
Epstein emails released this year
Earlier this year, the extent of Katherine's, and by proxy Alexandra's, friendship with Epstein was exposed in a tranche of emails released by the US Department of Justice. The emails suggested Katherine and Epstein socialised between 2010 and 2013, after he had already served 13 months in prison following his 2008 conviction on child sex charges.
One email revealed Katherine had offered to bring her younger sister to a lunch with Epstein and Woody Allen, after Epstein told her the film director liked pretty women.
In a statement earlier this year, Katherine said her correspondence with Epstein stemmed from her wanting to meet "reputable and major leaders of American business" to open career opportunities she would not otherwise have had, and that she had no other reason to have anything to do with him. She said the rest of the emails reflected Epstein's habit of following up with anyone he had crossed paths with, and that what followed was persistence bordering on harassment, especially from his staff, until she severed all contact.
She said she had never visited Epstein's island, never flown on his plane, never had any inappropriate interaction with him or anyone he introduced her to, never witnessed inappropriate behaviour, and had no knowledge of the criminal conduct that has since come to light.
The Daily Mail has contacted Alexandra for comment.
