Hampstead fury over £100m 'LA palace' for billionaire

A Kuwaiti billionaire's plan to build a £100 million home overlooking Hampstead Heath has caused outrage among residents.

The scheme by Robert Adam, one of Prince Charles's favourite architects, to build a 50,000 sq ft neo-classical house for Naseer Al-Kharafi has been described as a "cross between a Stalinist palace and a Victorian lunatic asylum".

Objectors include Terry Jones, the former Monty Python star, Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm, actor Tim Pigott-Smith and Wesley Kerr, the former BBC journalist who now heads the Heritage Lottery Fund's London committee.

Kerr said the design was "more in keeping with Monaco or LA". Opponents are upset at the proposal to demolish the existing Victorian mansion on the site, Athlone House, and will make their case at a planning inquiry due next year following Camden council's rejection of the plans in April.

Jones, who lives a stone's throw from the heath, accused his new neighbour and his architect of ignoring an earlier planning agreement to restore the original house dating from 1871. "I don't think they should get away with it," he said.

"The new house is the same thing but bigger and therefore not at all the same thing. My point is that if they agreed to certain conditions then they shouldn't be allowed to change them."

Hobsbawm, 93, claimed the building represents a threat to the character of Hampstead Heath. In a letter to the local authority, he said he was objecting on "behalf of all Londoners and foreign tourists for whom" the heath is an "invaluable, source of pleasure and enjoyment".

Pigott-Smith said the plan was the latest in a string of schemes from super-rich newcomers from abroad. "There is massive money coming in," he said. Adam told Building Design magazine he was stunned by the "unbelievable passions" his design had aroused. "People may or may not like the design but this is an example of things getting completely out of perspective," he said.

Married with five children, Mr Kharafi has a reported net worth of $14 billion. Head of a huge conglomerate, he is the 48th richest man in the world. Last year he was said to be involved in a bid to buy Liverpool Football Club.