Lansdowne House is an £8m Holland Park gem
Fifteen million doesn’t go far in parts of Kensington, where average house prices on Britain’s most expensive street hit £30m. But you only need to head slightly west to Holland Park to get more for your millions. Lansdowne House is a vast, light-filled four-bedroom apartment is over the ground and lower ground floors but has two mezzanines as the ceilings are so high (plus garden terrace and parking). It is not onlygrade-II listed but comes with its own blue plaque and musical heritage.
Lansdowne House is steeped in rock’n’roll history. From 1958 to 2006 the building was home to Lansdowne Studios, London’s first independent recording studio renowned for the clarity of its output and a mecca for chart-toppers of the day, including Shirley Bassey, Donovan, John Lennon, Rod Stewart, Queen and Sinead O’Connor.
In 1976 the Sex Pistols recorded Anarchy In The UK here, their first single. When the eight-storey building was converted into 13 apartments in 2006, a small recording studio was retained.
Built between 1902 and 1904 by the Scottish architect William Flockhart, who specialised in country houses for the newly wealthy, this Holland Park landmark originally contained artist studios. Early 20th-century occupants included the artists Charles Ricketts, Charles Haslewood Shannon, Glyn Philpot, Vivian Forbes, James Pryde and Frederick Cayley Robinson – all of whom are commemorated on the blue plaque.
As artists’ studios, the light flooded in and this apartment has double-height rooms, dramatic arched windows and a pitched skylight, totalling 5,338 sq ft, plus the terraced garden and parking. The ground-floor formal reception room (one of three) has 17ft-high ceilings, parquet floors and a fireplace. An architectural staircase leads down into the open-plan chef-grade kitchen, dining and reception rooms, which might be on the lower ground floor, but the 15ft ceiling has a lantern glass roof that diffuses light into this social hub of the home.
The master bedroom has an Art Deco vibe with a marble fireplace and en suite (all four bedrooms are en suite). And the apartment has all those enviable extras already in place – your own screening room, snug, wine storage, gym, sauna and steam room. Whoever lives there now, I’m intrigued by their stylish interior design. This homeowner simply doesn’t do boring.
• Lansdowne House is on sale with Domus Nova for £7.75m; for more information go to domusnova.com