Some of the grandest country houses in England are to be found in and around the matchless woodland of Burnham Beeches in Buckinghamshire. And now you can live in one of them. Dropmore Park , converted into luxury flats with prices from £850,000, was once as famous as its near neighbours, Cliveden and Stoke Poges, and it rejoins them as a place for idyllic retreat 40 minutes from Central London. Here you can live in 220 acres of glorious,pampered seclusion.

Dropmore was built in the 1790s for a prime minister of George III, Lord Grenville, “who found a wilderness and left a paradise”. In 1945, after rough wartime use, the house was dazzlingly restored by Viscount Kemsley, the proprietor of The Sunday Times, and filled with fine paintings, furniture and books. After his death in 1968 it was sold to an American university and then to the Ambassador of the United Arab Emirates, Muhammed Mahdi al-Tajir. Although an indoor pool was added, the house was rarely used. In 1990 Dropmore was ravaged by a fire that took four days to extinguish, then another in 1997 that left the house uninhabitable.

Now Dropmore is restored to glory, as a result of the patient diplomacy, determination and savvy of Andre Meyer. The 44-year-old developer, who has specialised in restored historic buildings such as Kinmount House, a Georgian mansion in Dumfries and Galloway, bought the house in 2000. His company, Corporate Estates, spent six years negotiating planning permission. He explains: “We were blown away by the beauty of the place. Our original idea was to create a boutique hotel, which appealed to the Von Essen group next door at Cliveden, as we have the one thing they lack: complete seclusion and privacy.”

The planners thought differently, but then Papa Architects, a London firm, negotiated a scheme that not only restores the Regency mansion and the Edwardian stables but a whole collection of garden extravaganzas, including a Chinese tea house and aviary, linked to an enchanting series of trellis pavilions and colonnades. Pretty trellis verandas are also being rebuilt along the undulating garden front, a delightful composition of three gentle bows capped by the trademark saucer domes of the architect Samuel Wyatt. It is Regency architecture at its most perfect, with cream stucco that glows in the sun and cheers the spirits.

Walking round you encounter marvels great and small: a table tomb to Grenville's dog Tippo (brought to Dropmore after he was found wandering on a beach, the lone survivor of a shipwreck), and a large Italianate formal garden with elaborate wrought-iron gates.

Dropmore takes smart country house makeovers into new territory. Cars are parked in a large garage beneath a mound in the front lawn, with direct access to the 17 two and three-bedroom apartments in the mansion house. The grandest of these occupies the east end of the house to the left of the columned entrance hall.

Every space from cellar to attic has been turned to advantage. The brick-vaulted basements have become a cosy kitchen. Other arched cellars contain a sauna and exercise equipment. In the main rooms you enjoy views over the gardens through floor-to-ceiling Regency sash windows. With such perfectly proportioned spaces the problem is where to put the en suite bathroom without biting an ugly chunk out of a corner. The Meyers have neatly inserted it behind the grand four-poster bed.

The stable courtyard is being divided into a further 13 apartments, and there will also be a new block of 23 two-bedroom apartments overlooking a lake, each with a balcony or roof terrace. It's all about selling a lifestyle with spa and treatment and exercise rooms, a 24-hour concierge and management team, and a 1-mile perimeter fence. Buyers receive a year's complimentary membership of the swanky concierge company Quintessentially, which will book restaurants, polo tickets and tee-off times, and hire chauffeurs and private jets.

The first phase consists of six apartments: one three-bed in the mansion house, two three-beds in the courtyard and three two-beds in the new-build block. Even if you buy one of the more modest two-bedroom apartments, you will be able to enjoy a summer of al fresco living. It's like having 220 acres of Windsor Great Park to share with a few neighbours.

www.dropmorepark.com

WHAT YOU GET: 17 two and three-bed apartments in the Regency house; 13 two and three-bedroom apartments in stable courtyard; 23 new-build apartments; two-bedroom house in Edwardian water tower. From 900sqft (new-build flats) to 2,700sqft (flat in mansion house).

WHERE IT IS: Buckinghamshire. Five miles from Windsor, ten from Heathrow. Central London is 40 minutes via the M4. WHERE TO EAT: Waterside Inn, Bray; Fat Duck, Bray.

PRICE: From £850,000 to £4 million in the mansion house. Contact Savills: 01344 295375, savills.co.uk

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