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Richard D. & Lili Fini Zanuck.

Article Excerpt
Byline: Renovation Architecture by Fox Linton Associates Text by Steven M. L. Aronson/Photography by Jonathan Pilkington

THE OSCAR-WINNING PRODUCERS' NEW TOWN HOUSE IN LONDON

Richard D. Zanuck, after years of being occasionally in London on location, is now actually located there. Ever since the acclaimed producer of Jaws , The Sting and The Verdict started serially making movies in England with director Tim Burton ( Charlie and the Chocolate Factory , Sweeney Todd and the forthcoming 3-D version of Alice in Wonderland ), he and his wife and producing partner, Lili Fini Zanuck, had entertained the idea of buying a place.

The three-story Georgian town house in Chelsea that they settled on is the third establishment Lili Zanuck has masterminded for the couple. She had been an eager, adventurous and energetic participant in the designing, building and decorating of their house in Sun Valley, Idaho--"kind of a Frank Lloyd Wright--inspired chalet-looking thing"--and their Edwin Lutyens--inspired high-style Georgian "dream house" in Beverly Hills. "Building and decorating those houses was as exciting to me as making any movie," says the woman who coproduced Cocoon and Driving Miss Daisy (among others) with her husband and who went on to direct a slew of prizewinning music videos as well as the film Rush . "I really do get the same kind of adrenal surge."

Certainly every...