During the course of more than 50 years of marriage, she was unwaveringly loyal to her husband, former Tory Party treasurer Lord Magan, as he carved out a fabulously lucrative financial career which yielded an estimated £200million fortune.
In addition, they enjoyed a unique portfolio of luxury property and priceless art, including a £6million town house in Kensington, a £25million estate in Shropshire, a £30million collection of Old Masters and what is, rightly, often described as the most beautiful house in Ireland, Castletown Cox in County Kilkenny.
But it has all turned to ashes.
Indeed, I can disclose that Lady Magan, 77, is in the throes of a protracted, painful divorce and is trying to come to terms with the fact that she could lose her home.
‘[Magan] trustees have issued her with notices of eviction,’ a family friend tells me.
Wendy Magan, who married in 1972 and had three children with her husband, George, from whom she is now estranged, declined to comment last night.
But I’m told that the desperate situation stems from a combination of alleged financial mismanagement by trustees and her husband’s unwillingness to let her know how precarious their circumstances had become.
None of this seemed conceivable in 1999 when George, the son of Brigadier Bill Magan, a remarkable head of MI5, bought Castletown, which he lavishly and expertly restored, and dressed with matchless Old Masters.
Lord Mangan pictured with his estranged wife Wendy, who may be left homeless by the loss of his fortune
In 2019, Mangan sold Castletown Cox for £18million in a deal that allowed him to remain there as a tenant. The deal speedily unravelled, however. A subsequent High Court action heard that he owed £500,000 in rent
‘It was extraordinary – quite unlike anywhere else,’ one visitor, still awed by the memory, tells me.
But by 2019, Magan, 79, who made his first fortune with Hambro Magan, the private equity firm he founded with banker Rupert Hambro, had sold Castletown Cox for £18million in a deal that allowed him to remain there as a tenant.
The deal speedily unravelled, however. A subsequent High Court action heard that he owed £500,000 in rent. Months later, in 2020, Magan was declared bankrupt.
Wendy Magan could, at the time, at least console herself that they still had their delightful house in Kensington, long the family home in London, which they owned jointly. But she was mistaken.
‘The property was so heavily mortgaged as to become unsustainable,’ alleges a family friend.
Shocked when the truth emerged, Wendy separated from her husband after the house was sold.
‘Her equity in the property got wiped out. She went to live in a flat nearby, owned by a family trust,’ adds the friend, before explaining that the eviction notices, just issued, have now put even that sanctuary in jeopardy.
‘George has to address his responsibilities – to acknowledge that he put everything into trust.
