The Grade II Listed Edwardian mansion-townhouse at 26 Upper Brook Street offers views of Hyde Park and provides almost 13,928 square feet of palatial accommodation, including a central courtyard garden and a mews house to the rear.
Most recently used as an office building, the property has received positive feedback from Westminster City Council to revert to a single-family residence.
If converted back into a private home with offices in the mews, the property could be worth up to £55 million upon completion.
The five-storey mansion features a Tudor-style Portland stone façade with bay windows and a gable bearing the Auchincloss-Coats family crest.
Inside, the interiors combine Newport and Mayfair fashions of the Edwardian era, with neo-Georgian style entrance hall and ground floor rooms, and French Neo-Rococo first-floor drawing rooms.
If converted back to residential use, the house would provide a grand entrance hall with staircase, a passenger lift, ground floor family kitchen and breakfast room, and four reception rooms.
The principal bedroom suite would occupy the second floor, with additional bedrooms on the third and top floors.
The property’s versatile layout makes it suitable as a private family home, an Embassy or Ambassador’s residence, or a private family office headquarters.
After 1953, the property was converted into offices and for many years served as the London offices of the Bank of Africa.
The mansion was originally built in 1908-9 for wealthy American James Monro Coats, the son of Anglo-American industrialist Sir James Coats and his American heiress wife Sarah Anne Auchincloss.
James Monro Coats was born at Hammersmith Farm in Newport, the Auchincloss estate on Rhode Island, which was the childhood holiday home of Jackie Kennedy.
The Coats and Auchincloss families shared origins and history, with both originating from Paisley in Scotland before moving to America to make their fortunes in the textile industry.
Their business partnership was cemented when Sir James Coats married John Auchincloss’s daughter Sarah Anne.
In 1951, Hugh D. Auchincloss Jr sent his two stepdaughters, Jackie (22) – later US First Lady Jackie Kennedy – and Lee (18) – later Princess Lee Radziwill – to Mayfair on the start of a three-month grand tour of Europe to visit relatives and tourist attractions.
Joint sole selling agents Wetherell and Knight Frank are now marketing the freehold.
Peter Wetherell, Founder & Chairman of Wetherell, has the listing.
