The Apprentice's £17.5m Mansion: Staggering Rent and Essential 'Upgrade' - OK! Magazine

The iconic Apprentice mansion, where candidates bunk up in single beds and decompress after tense boardroom meetings, is more than just a set for the BBC show. This year's hopefuls are bedding down in the lavish £17.5 million Huxley House on Billionaires' Row in Hampstead, North London.

The property features eight bedrooms, nine bathrooms, and is reportedly the priciest house ever featured on the programme. But it's not all luxury and glam, as former 2024 candidate Paul Bowen revealed that it needs some serious upgrades.

Speaking to the Mirror last year, Paul, who left the show in week two, shared: 'It's such a big house, it's the biggest house I'll ever get to stay in that's for sure.' He added: 'But, even still, they could do with upgrading the beds; those beds were only Ikea – considering it's a multi-million-pound house, they could spend another tenner and get us a decent mattress.'

Besides housing The Apprentice contestants, Huxley House has also graced our screens on Channel 4's Britain's Most Expensive Houses, and it's rumoured to cost a cool £100,000 a month to rent.

Paul, a connoisseur of pies, revealed further behind-the-scenes details during the competition as he mentioned: 'There's a cinema room, although you can't watch proper telly, you can watch films and stuff like that.' Sharing more about the camaraderie in the house, Paul said: 'But to be honest, because there's always so many of you in the house you've always got someone to speak to, everyone's got so many stories. We spent a lot of the time getting to know each other and getting to know each other's stories.'

Paul, who befriended fellow pie company expert Phil Turner on last year's show, spoke about how his friends and family encouraged him to join the show, but he was unprepared for the emotional toll of being cut off from them. He confessed: 'I think the no contact had a bigger impact on me than I thought it would. Obviously you can speak to friends and family but you can't have your mobile on you. So just getting a text off someone or a quick message, you'd be surprised if you take that away completely how much it affected me.'

Reflecting on the isolation from loved ones, Paul admitted: 'I was quite surprised. I remember my fiancée saying, 'You won't miss me' and I thought, 'You're probably right, I won't'. But, after a few days without speaking to her I nearly bust into tears, I missed her.' He also remarked on the gruelling schedule: 'That was the bit of the process that I didn't realise. And it is a long day – you are up at three in the morning and I've done long shifts with my work but even that was a bit much for me.'