Loan Maturity Prompts £250M Sale Of London’s Most Expensive House

A 40-room London mansion that once housed a prominent property developer has been put on the market with a £250M price tag after the loan secured against it was not refinanced.

Knight Frank and Beauchamp Estates have been appointed to sell The Holme in Regent’s Park in central London, after receivers were appointed by the lender to the scheme, React News reported. 

If it sells for more than £210M, it will become London’s most expensive house, exceeding the £210M paid by Chinese billionaire Cheung Chung-kiu for 2-8a Rutland Gate in Knightsbridge, near Hyde Park, in 2020. 

The Holme was built in 1818 and has a 4-acre garden overlooking a lake. It is situated essentially inside London’s famous Regent’s Park, on the Inner Circle road that circumvents part of the park.

While the current investment has been put into receivership, the mansion was originally constructed as the home of a property developer, James Burton, who built many of London’s most famous streets and squares. Those include Bloomsbury Square and York Terrace, which are also now the sites of ultra-expensive London mansions. 

The house is currently owned by a Guernsey-based vehicle, the beneficial owners of which include Abdullah bin Khaled bin Sultan Al Saud, a member of the Saudi royal family, React reported. A three-year, £160M loan secured against the property was issued in 2019 and was not refinanced when it matured last year. 

Changing structures within the Saudi royal family have led to some members selling assets to raise finance, React said.