Built where Mussolini’s United Kingdom ambassador once lived – boasts a four-car garage, private spa, cinema and a 1,251 square-foot roof garden.
This is the most expensive new home in London. Inspired by La Maison de Verre in Paris, the £50m Glass Mansion provides 13,583 square feet of living space, is located on the site of italian Count, Dino Grandi’s ‘lost’ mansion.
Glass Palace on Myfair, Down Street Mews is listed for sale for a £50million – and has instantly become the exclusive London district’s most expensive new home.
The stunning mansion is situated behind a private gated courtyard in Mayfair’s Down Street Mews and is situated on a half-section of land section of land site that used to house previous Italian Count, Dino Grandi’s, who was Italy’s UK envoy under Mussolini.
The two bordering houses are prepared for sure fire occupation, and were made by Richard McCarthy of design practice Scott Brownrigg and a Mayfair engineer.
The main glass house gives 6,619 square feet of living space, with a 543 square-foot rooftop garden and 226 square foot of yard. The second offers 6,964 square foot of living space, with a 708 square foot rooftop garden.
The two houses have a whole floor committed to an extravagant private spa. In the main house the spa has a pool, 8.15m long, 1.35m profound, with submerged LED lights and a Jetswim wave machine exerciser.
Down Street Mews was originally occupied by a black brick Edwardian mansion and stables, built in 1920, accessed by a gated carriage driveway off Down Street. In August 1932 the mansion became the London home of Count Dino Grandi, Benito Mussolini’s Ambassador to the UK.
At his mansion Count Grandi entertained Lady Alexandra Curzon, his mistress and the wife of ‘Fruity’ Metcalfe, equerry to Edward, Prince of Wales, and other Italophile guests including Diana Mitford, ‘Fruity’ Metcalfe, Lord Lloyd, Lloyd George and Wallis Simpson.
In July 1939 Count Grandi was recalled to Rome by Mussolini who was under pressure from Adolf Hitler, enraged by Grandi’s attempts to deliver peace between Italy and Britain. In 1940 a Luftwaffe bomb destroyed Grandi’s Down Street Mews mansion, with only the stables by the entrance courtyard surviving; in 1943 Grandi got his revenge, triggering the coup which overthrew Mussolini and started peace negotiations with the Allies.
After 1945 Grandi’s mansion site off Down Street Mews was divided with the front portion, including the courtyard and surviving stables, transformed into commercial premises, with the remainder to the rear turned into post-war housing. Five years ago a Mayfair developer acquired the commercial premises fronting onto the mews courtyard with a vision of returning the site to it’s residential origins.