But when Mark Carney arrived in London in 2013 to run The Bank of England, he chose unflashy West Hampstead as his base.
Perhaps it was the area’s famously excellent transport links, or the down to earth tastes of the future Canadian prime minister that guided his move to its streets of Victorian terraces and mansion blocks.
During his stay, first in Parsifal Road, then Compayne Gardens, he was spotted collecting his fish and chips from Nautilus in Fortune Green Road, getting a trim at a barber in Mill Lane, dropping his kids off at South Hampstead School, and jogging down Finchley Road to Threadneedle Street.
Future Oscar winner Dame Emma Thompson still lives on the road where she grew up – with husband and fellow Sense and Sensibility star Greg Wise.
Mum Phyllida Law lives opposite, and friends Downton Abbey butler Jim Carter and wife Imelda Staunton of Harry Potter and The Crown fame are down the road.
Dame Emma has often said she loves moving make-up free around the neighbourhood where she went to school (West Hampstead Primary followed by Camden School For Girls) without being mobbed.
Stephen Fry is a past resident and Bill Nighy (Love Actually, Living) is also a fan, often spotted along its bustling high street.
Restaurants include the Wet Fish Cafe, there are pubs such as The Black Lion and Alice House, and independent bookstore West End Lane Books.
Over in Mill Lane there’s cosy bistro The French Society, The Enterprise pub and the 80-capacity live music venue the West Hampstead Arts Club.
Like its flashier neighbour up the hill, the name has its roots in the Anglo-Saxon word ham meaning home, and stede meaning place.
And the neighbourhood also has bags of community.
Locals pulled together when West Hampstead mum Nazanin Zaghari-Radcliffe was imprisoned in Iran on trumped up spying charges and a tree in Fortune Green park tied with yellow ribbons was a focus of the successful campaign to bring her home.
And for years a group campaigned semi-successfully to join up the three stops on the transport network called West Hampstead – the Tube, Mildmay Line and Thameslink stations – all in West End Lane.
You can certainly get anywhere you like from West Hampstead but the people who love it are sure it holds everything you could need.
