I was looking for a house in the United States and, in 1975, a friend in real estate showed me pictures of the Pink Palace on Sunset Boulevard, in Holmby Hills, the area of Los Angeles that is home to the likes of Hugh Hefner and Burt Rey-nolds. My friend said: “The Pink Palace belonged to Jayne Mansfield.”

It was strange: I had met Jayne in England in 1967, just before her fatal car accident. She had said, “You must visit my home”, and given me her address and phone number. Two weeks later, she was dead.

I felt it was a point of destiny or fate, and I bought the house sight unseen. It had been built in 1929 and was in the hands of Jayne’s estate; it was in bad need of repair because Jayne had been dead a while. I paid £700,000 for the house, including thecost of its restoration, which took six months.

It was Spanish in design and pastel pink on the outside. I once painted it off-white, but the house lost its personality, so I painted it pink again. It withstood a lot of earthquakes. We had some tremendous shake-ups; once my daughter, Louise, got thrown off the bed and against the wall. There was hardly any damage, though, just a little to the roof.

There were three floors and 40 rooms, including seven bedrooms, each with a walk-in closet and ensuite. There were 13 bathrooms — even one in the office. Jayne must have liked bathing! There was a heartshaped bath off the master bedroom. It was a real Hollywood star’s bedroom: very glitzy, with glass walls and a stained-glass headboard. Everywhere you looked, you looked in a mirror. I kept the headboard and mirrors, but removed the bath and redid the ensuite in a more manly style.

The house was gorgeous. It had a sweeping metal staircase, like in Gone with the Wind, and my living room was 70ft long and 20ft wide, with a 24ft ceiling. Balconies on the second floor meant you could look down into the living room, and there was a 12ft-long, 200-bulb chandelier.

The television room had a ceiling made entirely of copper. The walls were lined with petrified wood — wood that is thousands of years old and has turned to stone. It costs about £250 just for a small piece, and there was plenty in there! Off the copper room was the dining room, then you went into the kitchen and on to the menial quarters; I had two live-in staff.

Downstairs was my studio, where I had a bar, a pool table and, being English, a dartboard. There was also a big projection screen that would come down from the ceiling and over the fireplace. It must have been installed so Jayne could see her movies. From the studio, you went out into the barbecue area and down the steps to the swimming pool. It was heartshaped, and had “I love you Jaynie” written on the bottom. Helicopters carrying sightseers used to hover over it, so I removed the sign. I kept the heart shape, but used rocks to make it look more masculine, filled in the heartshaped spa bath/paddling pool and concreted it flat. One day, Mariska Hargitay came over. She was Jayne’s daughter by her husband, Mickey Hargitay, who had been Mr Universe, and she went to school with Louise.

Mariska said: “Where is my paddling pool?” I said: “We filled it in because we never used it.” The very next day, we had a slight earthquake and the entire heart shape of the spa bath came out of the ground. I said to my wife, Patricia: “That is a sure sign we have to put it back.” So we did.

When Jayne lived there, she had some wonderful Hollywood parties. She kept a lion in a cage near the barbecue, and guests would throw pieces of meat into the cage. We didn’t have a lion, but we had some wonderful parties. One was a Friends party. I was a big fan, and the cast were invited to the house. They all came. Jennifer Aniston was with Brad Pitt then, but she came on her own. I wished he had come, because I am a big fan of his, too.

I owned the Pink Palace for 26 years. I was touring the world and slipping between America and Leicestershire, where I have always kept a home. I wanted to scale down, as our children had left home and my wife and I were living in this huge house. Also, Sunset Boulevard had become increasingly dangerous. It’s a race-track where people drive like lunatics — during the time I lived on Sunset, there were 50 fatalities outside my house. Now I live in Bel Air, which is quieter.

The Pink Palace sold for £4m in 2002, and I was told it was going to be put back into pristine Hollywood condition. Two weeks later, it was demolished. I was amazed that such a historic home had gone. There were only three long-term owners: Rudy Vallee, Jayne and me. Nothing has been built in its place; people are so rich in this area, they can just sit on the land. It is sad to see my old home gone. I wish it were still there, so that every time I drive past, I could say: “Hi, Pink Palace!”

Times recommends

• Second homes: credit crunch casualty or money-spinner?
• How I built my own sliding house
• Top 10 incentives for house buyers