A LITTLE familiarity with the seriously moneyed property sector breeds a certain ennui. A flat with an eight-figure price tag usually means exaggerated opulence, a surfeit of veneer, inlay and gadgets in a space seemingly inimical to the activities of everyday life. But the second-floor flat at 76 Eaton Square, now on sale for £12 million, contrives to be expensively decorated and equipped and also a place in which you could imagine yourself leading a normal existence.
You could, for example, see yourself sitting in the light-filled breakfast room eating toast. But it would probably be a slice of sourdough loaf from Poilâne, the exclusive French baker. There is a branch on nearby Elizabeth Street, Belgravia’s version of a local high street.
Anyone who is still reeling from the idea that any three-bedroom flat, however exclusive its location, can cost £12 million (60 times the average UK house price) should understand that 76 Eaton Square offers almost everything that the super rich require from a London home. This is a list that includes high ceilings and proximity to Harrods and Harvey Nichols. Eaton Square’s handsome white stucco exteriors exemplify British tradition. For Americans, in particular, this style of architecture possesses maximum “kerb appeal”.
Eaton Square may be London’s best known and grandest address, but there is a hierarchy within this territory. The most desirable properties are on the sunnier, northern side and at the west end, equidistant from Knightbridge and Sloane Square. Number 76 qualifies on both counts.
The wealthy of all nationalities are increasingly security-conscious, which means that they like flat-living, with its porters and other conveniences. But the moneyed also have a big thing about space: the flat’s 4,000 sq ft area equals that of two more modest average family homes combined. For the target market, the interior also justifies the £3,000 per square foot price tag (now standard for elite SW1 real estate). The property’s owners — who are moving to something smaller close by — have spent two years perfecting every detail, such as the shutters on the huge drawing-room windows that close with a whisper. The decor, devised by the architects James Gorst, is contemporary without being wacky. You suspect that most prospective purchasers will make an offer for the flat and the furniture, although those with the funds to afford such a pad are rarely looking for ways to economise.
The floors throughout most of the flat are made of glossy brown panga-panga wood; the doors of similarly burnished oak. Marble is the material of choice in the master suite bathroom, a space as large as a FTSE 100 company boardroom laid out to ensure domestic felicity. There are his and hers loos and dressing tables with basins, and separate wardrobe space for each partner runs along each side. The bath and the shower are both large, but not outlandishly so, underlining the sense that this is not a show flat but a home — albeit one for a billionaire. ANNE ASHWORTH
Chesterfield & Co, 020-7581 5234
W A Ellis, 020-7306 1610
. . . BELGRAVIA OR MAYFAIR?
MAYFAIR is a corner of London beloved of Monopoly enthusiasts and millionaires. It is also home to a handful of grand foreign embassies, so it seems only right that it should provide the first apartment, at 44 Park Street, designed to appeal exclusively to ambassadors.
Considering that house-hunting foreign ambassadors in London must be few in number, this approach by the developer Northacre takes niche marketing to a whole new level. Especially at an asking price of £11 million. John Hunter, Northacre’s chief executive, confidently expects it to sell for “more like £12.5 million” — not bad for half a house. Having been given a sneak preview, I predict that “The Ambassadorial”, as agents Knight Frank have christened it, will appeal to the flashier sort of foreign diplomat.
Number 44 Park Street’s imposing 1920s Portland stone Classical façade is currently obscured by scaffolding, as are several other properties on this architecturally diverse street. Its history is typical of the area. Mayfair was home to many a noble townhouse until the Second World War, when its aristocratic social whirl came to an abrupt halt. Stately homes became offices.
Then, in the late 1990s, a combination of a change in planning rules, a shortage of Central London housing and a surge of foreign buyers reawakened the residential market.
Developers are now hastily reconverting offices back to houses to cater for buyers eager to take advantage of prices that “haven’t yet caught up with Knightsbridge, Belgravia and Kensington”, says Hunter. Number 44 Park Street has been partly merged with its neighbour at number 46, into which six four-bed flats (starting at £4.5 million), have been squeezed. The ambassadorial extravaganza is spread across 7,
287 sq ft of the basement, ground and first floors of number 44, the second floor having been sacrificed to the flats next door.
The ambience is majestic, and the layout and decor (by Lifestyles Interiors) has been designed for formal entertaining. A grand marble entrance hall is dominated by a huge chandelier and silver gilt Corinthian pilasters. The soft furnishings in the five bedrooms are luxurious, but the ambience is overwhelmingly hotel.
The best room is the curved first-floor ballroom, where Churchill apparently held Cabinet meetings. Throw in a fabulous bathroom with ornate cornicing and a starkly modern egg-shaped bath, a self-consciously masculine study, and a pointless second staircase leading to a blank wall where the second floor once was, and you have the measure of the property — grand, clever, beautiful in parts, but with a layout and decor that occasionally disappoint. Ferrero Rocher, anyone? LUCY ALEXANDER
www.knightfrank.co.uk, 020-7173 4900
www.northacre.co.uk, 020-7349 8000
www.lifestylesinteriors.com, 020-7349 8020
An £8 million Victorian pile
