A London 45-bedroom mansion overlooking Hyde Park has been placed on the market for a record £300m asking price. The 60,000 square-foot palace was previously owned by Lebanon's late Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri, and was consequently passed on as a gift to Sultan bin Abdulaziz, crown prince of Saudi Arabia, after Prime Minister Hariri's 2005 assassination.
The stucco-fronted mansion, which stands seven stories tall, is believed to be the largest family home in the capital and is speculated to include a swimming pool, underground parking, bulletproof windows and millions of pounds worth of gold leaf decoration. The mansion is said to have originally been built as four separate homes but has since been converted to one large mansion.
Should this estate sell for its asking price, it will break the current record for a house sale in the UK that was set in 2010 when a penthouse flat at One Hyde Park sold for £140m.
Oliver Hooper, from high-end property purchasing agency Huntly Hooper, told The Daily Mail:
The property is one of London’s most unique residences and really only comparable to two others. Those are Bridgewater House next to St James’s Palace, which is owned by the Latsis family, and Dudley House, in Mayfair owned by Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, who is the Emir of Qatar. As Bridgewater House and Dudley House are not for sale, I suspect this will be the only chance to get a house of this size in the area for a good number of years. We heard it might be coming up for sale about six months ago and there will be a number of potential buyers for this despite the price tag. The house is located overlooking Hyde Park, but there are security screens on the windows so no-one can see inside. I suspect the buyer will be foreign and the purchase of it kept very confidential.
