HARRY and Meghan were in such a hurry to flee their Montecito mansion that they didn’t even tell their children’s school and left koi carp behind, neighbours have revealed.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex, who quit their £11million home for the Cotswolds last month, packed up and “disappeared overnight” from the sun-drenched billionaire enclave.
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We travelled to the Californian suburb two hours north of Los Angeles and found an array of residents including some A-list names who were eager to gossip about the couple’s sudden departure.
At her £8million Provencal-style home, interior designer Penny Bianchi revealed that even the teachers at seven-year-old Archie and five-year-old Lilibet’s school were kept in the dark.
Penny, 79, whose home directly borders Oprah Winfrey’s sprawling estate, said the couple didn’t appear to have told anyone about their departure — including the exclusive £20,000-a-year school which their children attended.
She told The Sun: “My grandchildren go to the same school and my son is an alumnus so I get all my gossip from there.
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“I know Archie goes to the school and that they didn’t even know they were leaving until everyone else found out.
“They’ve been told, ‘Don’t hold a place for him as he’s not coming back any time soon’.
“They were waiting a while for Archie to get into the school in England.
“He wasn’t accepted for ages, but the moment he was, they practically left the next day.
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“They just disappeared overnight.”
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We now know that Archie is enrolled at a traditional British prep school in the Cotswolds and Lilibet at pre-prep in the same school.
Penny added that she thought the family will not be missed in California.
She said: “The school hated their bodyguards. They would drop the children off with them.
“To be honest, nobody really liked them here very much. They aren’t popular.”
Sources close to the Sussexes insisted that they had not informed the school for security reasons and added that many celeb families with children at the school used bodyguards on the school run.
Meanwhile, former Beach Boys member Bruce Johnston, who we bumped into in the community’s local cafe, said Harry had been a “jerk”.
Bruce, 84, who also lives a stone’s throw from the Sussexes’ former home, said he too was surprised that the couple had upped and left the Santa Barbara County neighbourhood.
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Bruce said: “I’m sure that Harry has gone back to tell his brother he’s sorry for being a jerk.
“His father is not well and William is going to be King, so he needs to make amends.
“But no one really knows why they left — apart from Oprah.
“They were at her home all the time — I live opposite Oprah too.”
Bruce, who joined the Beach Boys in 1965, added: “You can say Bruce Johnston told you that in four years he saw them only once, in the back of their car.
“And they did look happy, but they kept themselves to themselves. I was scared when I saw their bodyguards with guns, however, filling up their car with gas.”
Harry and Meghan’s rapid departure — weeks after a summer holiday in Britain which their spokesman described as “wonderful” — has left several lingering questions for Montecitans.
One of them is what will happen to the koi carp which have been left in the garden pond at their nine-bedroom, 16- bathroom house.
Residents were quick to tell us how worried they are for the fish, which “need to be looked after 24/7” and which Harry mentioned in his 2023 memoir, Spare.
He wrote: “The koi were stressed, the estate agent warned. So are we. We’ll get along famously. No, the agent explained, the koi need very particular care.”
One woman who runs a company providing koi “maintenance” for wealthy Montecitans, and was once employed by the Sussexes, said: “There are lots of regulations when it comes to these fish.
“If the pump which filters the water and keeps them alive goes out, then within 12 hours they will die.
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“They need the clearest water to survive and they need to be fed once a day.
“When the pump goes out, that’s when we get called to come round but if there’s only the gardener checking once a day they could miss it.
“It’s also very expensive for them. It will cost £8,000 a month for the gardener alone and then £5,000 a month for a maintenance crew like us, and that house will have taxes in excess of £125,000 a year.”
She suggested that Harry and Meghan should rent out their house, otherwise “bad things will happen”, adding: “Everyone knows it’s vacant.
“The gardeners in the area all talk and they won’t hesitate in time on a Friday night to jump over the fence with a bottle of tequila and use it to party.”
As for why the woman — who asked not to be named — ceased to work for the Sussexes, she scoffed: “We dropped them as clients.
“Let’s just say we didn’t align. You don’t air your dirty laundry in the open and go against your family.”
A source close to Harry and Meghan was quick to say that the couple had made all the necessary arrangements so that the fish are properly looked after.
A few houses down from the Sussexes’ 18,600 sq ft home, another affluent neighbour told us that “there was nothing left for them” in Montecito.
As she held back her guard dog, she said: “They had all these Netflix deals offering millions of dollars and now that’s over, there’s not much else.
“I’m sure they are still friends with Oprah but she’s always in Hawaii. They were never really part of the community.”
Down at The Honor Bar, Montecito’s favourite watering hole, the story was the same.
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A waitress told us: “It was before my time but when Harry and Meghan first moved here they came in and were asked to be put on a waiting list.
“Everyone is treated the same here, as even if they aren’t celebrities, people are in the same tax bracket.
“But they got angry and said they shouldn’t have to wait. Then they never came back.
“They still got a to-go order though, picked up by staff under different names.”
There are murmurings in Montecito that the couple will soon put their home on the market, six years after they bought it from a Russian businessman for £11million.
A staff member at estate agent Village Properties, which previously sold the house, said it is getting multiple calls a day from billionaires desperate to buy it, either to live in or to knock it down to expand their own property.
Some have even pondered turning it into a golf course.
New employee Kim, who refused to give his last name, said: “There are a lot of whispers that the house will be going on the market.
“People are calling us daily asking about it. I can’t see why they wouldn’t sell it.”
There has been talk that Harry will be a full-time dad following their high-stakes move back to Britain, and that Meghan will come and go between the Cotswolds and Montecito in order to keep her media career alive.
But Montecito estate agent David Encell, who works across the street from Village Properties, said he would be “shocked” if Harry and Meghan are still the house’s owners in a year’s time. And he said the property could fetch up to £30million if they sold it.
He said: “It’s a pretty expensive home to upkeep for a part-time place. It will be costing them about £30,000 a month for the pool guy, housekeeper, gardeners and so forth. If they rented it out, a property of that magnitude would go for £110,000 a month.
“But there are risks with renting out such an expensive place, and a lot of bad things can happen.
“The renters could potentially damage the property, so they would be better off selling it.
“They will try quietly at first, to test out how much they can get for it, and then they may put it out globally so it very well could end up on property websites to reach international buyers.
“If they aren’t coming back they won’t care about privacy.”
David, who lives a block away from the Sussexes’ place, added: “Everyone was surprised when they moved, as this is a place people move to, not from.
“It’s a beautiful house in paradise. This could be a test drive though for them in England and they are giving it a few months before making any decisions.
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“They may say it wasn’t for them and move back. I keep asking their agents — a partnership between Los Angeles and here — if it’s for sale but they are staying tight-lipped.
“We’ll just have to wait and see.”