Billionaires Row: Mansions on London’s poshest street set to disappear
The number of multimillion pound mansions available at one of London’s poshest postcodes are set to vanish over the next three years, as property developers look to tear down the flashy pads and transform them into apartments.
Bishops Avenue, nicknamed ’Billionaires Row’, in north-west London is one of the richest streets in the capital, with some homes nestled in the private road worth up to £350m.
It’s home to sultans, sheiks and newspaper magnate Richard Desmond, who City PM is told remains a longstanding resident of the infamous strip.
The late Princess Diana and her two sons were also said to be frequenters of the street, forming part of the glitterati who would visit King Constantine II of Greece at his Hampstead pad.
But in the last decade or so the street’s opulent image has been tarnished – largely by wealthy international families buying flashy mansions on the private road and then leaving them to rot.
“Bishops Avenue is an area that they’re always developing because a lot of owners of the houses are overseas sellers, some of them don’t even come back to the UK so the houses get very dated and start falling apart and then they end up selling them,” one estate agent familiar with the road said.
A royal Saudi Arabian family once frantically bought 10 homes in the midst of the Gulf War, but reportedly never set foot in them.
City A.M. was told that this slew of derelict mansions was bought by a developer for circa £70m over a decade ago, with planning still underway to transform them into a mix of 10 apartments and homes.
A further five mansions on the row are also set to be torn down and transformed into over 350 homes.
Trevor Abrahmsohn, self proclaimed estate agent to the rich and famous and founder of Glentree Estates, which handles the majority of sales on the street, said these development schemes will be a chance for the “pauper to live with the prince”.
He said: “It’s the objective and aspiration of all town planners, that they want a variety of people in every row that don’t want it all at one end of the demographic scale or the other.”
While the apartments would be significantly cheaper than splashing out on a mansion, Amrahmsohn said they would still sell for around £1m each – remaining to cater for the upper echelons of London’s buyer market.
Property developer Valourn is currently working on a £200m development to transform the Oak Lodge mansion, which was damaged in a fire last summer, into a block of 30 flats.
Luxury living developer Riverstone is also currently building 96 retirement flats at the vacant Barons Court, a mansion at 56 The Bishops Avenue, which is set to open in 2025.
Bambos Haralambous, chief operating officer of estate agent Goldschmidt & Howland, said: “While the demand for these sprawling estates endures, it has become more discerning, influenced by a cautious investor mindset amidst a shifting global economic and political landscape.
“Scrutiny on the lifestyles of the ultra wealthy and concerns about property ownership transparency have also shaped buyer sentiment.”