Brian Cox | House Tour | $3 Million Brooklyn Apartment & More

With successions set to return to our TV sets at the end of March, not to mention the recent breaking news that this upcoming season will be its last, I thought now would be the perfect time to take a tour of Logan Roy aka Brian Cox's home life. In these videos we don't reveal any addresses and even though I've done a house tour of my own place, please do not show up at any private residences because it's not safe for anyone. Despite being one of the most talented and highly respected actors in the world, for the most part Brian has kept most of the inner details of his personal life to himself. A couple of years ago, however, he wrote for the Wall Street Journal and in this he chronicled his heartbreaking rise out of poverty as a child living in Scotland. For starters, Brian's mother deserted her family when he was just six years old. At the time, he and his family were living in Dundee, a coastal city located on the east of Scotland. There, Brian and his family lived out of a three-story tenement building that featured just two bedrooms for all five kids to sleep in. That's how Brian wound up spending his nights sleeping in the living room alongside his brother in a bed alcove with a tiny bare bones kitchen right next to them. After his mother left, his family began searching for her and discovered that she had gone off to live with her godmother in Blackpool, England. With Brian being a little older than a child at the time, he was understandably confused by what was happening. But his father explained to him that his mother was battling mental illness and had been a semi-invalid for the first five years of his life. Eventually, Brian's father was able to convince his wife to return to her family and move back in with them in Dundee. Once she did, the family made a living by running a small grocery shop in the village. For a little while, everything got back to normal. But then Brian's father was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer when his son was eight. Just three weeks later, he was dead. To make matters worse, prior to his death, Brian's father had foolishly invested a sizable portion of the family's savings in a business venture in which his partners had taken advantage of him. In other words, basically overnight, Brian's family was destitute. Over the next few years, his sisters would help their mom with the grocery store, while his mother had to take on an extra job working as a house cleaner to pay the bills. As for Brian, well, he discovered his passion for acting as a young boy, performing for the very first time in the comfort of his Dundee living room, where his family had set up an alcove with thick curtains that served as his stage. It would take many years, but eventually Brian's talent and skills as an actor would lift his family out of poverty and ensure his own future was very much unlike the story of his past. Having found success as an actor, Brian Cox struggled reconciling the modesty of his past with the glamour of his present. That's probably why he ended up splitting the difference and moving into a gorgeous downtown Brooklyn apartment that, while boasting everything you could possibly need, is by no means the type of home you'd come to expect from Hollywood royalty. Today, Brian Cox lives with his wife, fellow actor Nicole Ansari, alongside their two sons, Orson and Torren. The German-born Nicole first met Brian in 1989 when she saw him performing as King Lear in the Royal National Theatre in Hamburg. Following that performance, Nicole was in awe of Brian's abilities and in 2002, they got hitched. After living together in Los Angeles for a number of years, they decided to sell their seven-bedroom home in Reflecting on their decision to do so, Brian joked to the New York Times, In 2007, Brian Cox was cast in the Broadway production of Tom Stoppard's Rock and Roll. That's when the family moved to the East Coast for the first time, settling into a townhouse in the West Village. A few months later, when the play ended, he and his wife decided to stick around, because their sons had settled into a routine at school and Nicole was far fonder of New York than she was LA. But even Nicole's love for Manhattan was tested after the family moved into a tiny, dark, expensive duplex with loud radiators in the world-famous Chelsea neighborhood. No matter how well-loved that part of the city is, the house just didn't suit the Cox family's needs at all. So, the search continued. With Brian in England fulfilling multiple commitments to the London Theatre, finding the perfect New York home fell on Nicole's shoulders. Brian's only demand was that wherever they moved next, he wanted to have lots of light. From there, a few more townhouse rentals were considered, but ultimately dismissed for costing too much money or needing too much work done. That's when Nicole came up with the idea of living in a doorman building, one with full-service staff on call, something they never had before. Shortly thereafter, she found a rental building where a 51st floor apartment fit their exact bill, loads of light, and three bedrooms. So, the Cox family, alongside their cats Princess and Pishy, moved into a new home with a terrace and views of the New York City skyline, including the Statue of Liberty, One World Trade Center, and the Verrazano Bridge, to be enjoyed from the top floor of a downtown Brooklyn high-rise. Inside, the heavy, dark furniture that once worked so well for the family in sunny Los Angeles proved unsuitable for this new spot. So, they made a pit stop at Ikea and bought a boatload of new furniture. With only three bedrooms, Brian and Nicole's sons bunked together in one room. Meanwhile, their parents each claimed a room for their own. And according to them, that's the key to marital bliss. But for those of you concerned that means Brian and Nicole must not spend that much time together, worry not. Because whenever they do feel like sharing a bed, they head down to a much smaller studio apartment that they rent out of the same building on the 45th floor. Something that might come across even more surprising is that of the two bedrooms they share in the main apartment, Brian's is the one with the massive walk-in closet. His reasons for needing that much space tie into his difficult childhood as he explained to the New York Times, telling them, I have more clothes than Nicole and the boys put together. I'm a hoarder. When you've grown up in poverty as I did, you can't throw anything away. Speaking of hoarding, why don't we take a closer look at some of these objects Brian has held onto to decorate his home and hold so much meaning to him? As Brian and Nicole headed from Los Angeles to New York, they had to determine which meaningful treasures they'd bring with them. And they settled on a number of unique objects. For instance, one item they selected was a large wooden statue that depicts a young Buddhist priest, which had been given to them as a gift from a friend. They also brought along an armoire decorated with images of Krishna as they also brought along an armoire decorated with images of Krishna and a wooden boat from Thailand that was cut in half and refashioned as an open cabinet. Another sacred Cox family artifact is a different kind of icon, the former schoolroom desk that once belonged to notable novelist and playwright Norman Mailer. Nicole filled the New York Times in on the backstory, revealing a friend of ours was once engaged to one of Norman's sons and she sort of stayed in the family. She got the desk and for some reason, she gave it to us. When our sons were younger, they would use it to do their homework. As the elected rector of the University of Dundee, Brian was also once gifted a scarf from none other than the Dalai Lama as a traditional Buddhist token of honor and thanks when Brian welcomed the religious leader to campus. Brian's fiercely protective of that scarf, just as he is the one picture he still has of his father. He describes the story behind the image to the New York Times. We were at a place called Lotham staying with friends of the family who had a rose covered cottage. My dad is pinning a rose on my lapel I was probably four. There's also a cabinet in the narrow hallway leading to the bedroom wing that holds the family's extra plates and dishes. It gives the home a feeling of cozy normality that honestly most celebrity based homes don't have. But as much of a home as Brian and his family have turned this Brooklyn based apartment into, when it comes time for entertaining, there really isn't much in the way of space. That's why the family also owns homes in the Primrose Hill section of London, as well as Hillsdale on the Massachusetts border in upstate New York. Unfortunately, we don't know much about those homes or even what they look like aside for this brief glimpse just outside of Brian's bedroom door at his place upstate where he sat down for a remote interview. However, now that he's about to have a lot more free time on his hands with succession coming to an end, maybe Brian will finally take a much needed vacation from New York City to share a few images of his two other homes with us in the near future. But for now, that'll bring this latest house tour to a close. Thanks so much for watching. And before you head out, consider answering the following question. If you grew up poor but became wealthy as an adult, would you have a hard time adjusting to your change in fortune? Let me know how you'd reconcile your past with your present in the comments down below. Otherwise, like, subscribe and turn on your notifications to never miss an episode. My name is Kara and if you dug this episode looking into one of the most talented leading men from across the pond, then why not check out our recent look into the home of former 007 Pierce Brosnan. Then afterwards, I'll see you all on the next tour. Bye.