The facade of 2-8a Rutland Gate, which is thought to be the most expensive home ever marketed in … [+]
AFP via Getty Images
The most expensive home sale on record for Britain will soon begin a renovation expected to cost nearly as much as its original $275 million purchase price. Rutland Gate, the 62,000 square foot mansion overlooking Hyde Park in London’s Knightsbridge neighborhood, was purchased last year by Cheung Chung Kiu for $210 million pounds (approximately $275 million dollars), exceeding the previous sales record in 2011 of a $183 million home in Henly-on-Thames by Russian billionaire Andrei Borodin. Hedge funder Ken Griffin previously held the London record for his $122 million Carlton Gardens purchase in 2019. Cheung is the founder of and chairman of Hong Kong-listed CC Land Holdings.
ADVERTISEMENT
Cheung has just received permission from the local city council to carry out extensive renovations—including adding 11 feet of height to the building. Plans also call for tearing down the upper levels in order to rebuild them completely, excavating part of the basement and replacing part of the building’s facade. The website detailing the application process for the renovation estimates it will take several years before it is completed, at which point it will become a private home for Cheung and his family.
Experts have commented to the local media that the extent of these renovations will cost the equivalent of approximately $275 million dollars, roughly in the same neighborhood of what he paid for the building.
Peter Wetherall, one of London’s experts in high end real estate, was quoted as saying it could raise the value of the property to “anything from 310 million pounds to 500 million pounds, either way the most valuable private home in London.”