The residents of Notting Hill could be dashed to learn that prices in their hip West London neighbourhood have fallen by an average of 11 per cent in the past six months, according to Savills. Those who prefer to see such things in context will point out that the pace of growth in 2007, of 30 per cent-plus, was unsustainable and that the area remains the summit of the nesting aspirations of hedge fund managers and film stars. The most recent buyers are said to include Jake Gyllenhaal and Reese Witherspoon, a Hollywood couple who embody Notting Hill's mix of commercial success and indie chic.

Westbourne Grove, Notting Hill's most upscale shopping street, runs east from Portobello Road to Queensway, serving as an escape route on Saturdays when Portobello and its market are busiest. The richest Italian tourists abandon the market's antiques stalls and go to pose on the outside tables of 202 Westbourne Grove, the café that is part of the Nicole Fahri shop. On their way they drop into some of the street's other stores: Joseph, Ralph Lauren and Twenty8Twelve, the fashion business run by Sienna Miller and her sister Savannah Miller, the designer. In the past five years, the street has regained the status it enjoyed in the 19th century; in 1873 it was called the “Bond Street of the West”.

You can observe the retail and social scene from the upper window of 223 Westbourne Grove, a terraced mid-Victorian house directly opposite 202 and on the market for £2.55 million. But almost as intriguing as the goings-on outside is this four-storey property's decor, largely unchanged since Westbourne Grove's boho era of the early 1980s. At that time, the local intelligentsia, now Tory-leaning, were members of the SDP (as in the Social Democratic Party). They were also pro-funked-up Art Nouveau patterns.

Every room in the house is an idiosyncratic mixture of bold colours and ethnic fabrics. The worn carpets are mended with gaffer tape, and the artist owner's own canvasses and shell collection line the walls. The well-thumbed books in the scruffy study are scholarly, rather than artfully placed objets. The tiny self-contained basement flat, included in the price, is also picturesquely down-at-heel. Dewey Atkin, of Bective Leslie Marsh, estimates that refurbishment could cost from £50,000 to £500,000. The bill would depend on the scale of the makeover. The buyer could choose merely to redecorate or he could opt for the standard-issue, Noughties Notting Hill aesthetic. This involves knocking down walls to produce a series of white spaces. In such a makeover, the flat would be reincorporated and turned into a family room that opened on to the patio garden. I suspect there would be no room for the shell collection.

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