Wetherell, in a joint instruction with United Kingdom Sotheby’s International Realty, has brought to market the sixth and seventh floors of Aldford House, one of Park Lane’s most storied Art Deco apartment buildings. Both floors are currently in shell condition, extending to 18,910 sq. ft. in total, with planning consent for two units per floor, and are guided at £50 million.
Aldford House occupies a prominent corner position at Park Lane, Park Street, Aldford Street and South Street, and is widely regarded as one of Mayfair’s most distinguished 1930s apartment blocks. Constructed in 1930–31 by the architectural partnership of George Val Myer and F. J. Watson-Hart, the practice responsible for the BBC’s Broadcasting House, the building was redeveloped on the site of an earlier 1890s mansion built for the diamond magnate Sir Alfred Beit. Sir Edwin Lutyens, one of the twentieth century’s most celebrated architects, acted as consultant on the design.
The sixth and seventh floor apartments (Nos. 61, 62, 71, 72), currently in shell condition, extend to 18,910 sq.ft. in total, with planning consent for two units per floor. Apartments 61 and 71, on the southern side of the building, enjoy outstanding views over Hyde Park and down Park Lane toward the Wellington Arch, together with outlooks over South Street and the historic terrace at 8, 10 and 12 Park Street. Apartments 62 and 72, to the north, are marginally larger, with views over Hyde Park toward Marble Arch and down Aldford Street to the Grosvenor Chapel on Audley Street. Both north-facing apartments benefit from elevated views across the London skyline toward the City and Canary Wharf.
The two shell floors represent a rare opportunity to acquire substantial floorplates within one of Park Lane’s most architecturally and historically significant buildings, one that has counted British cinema’s biggest star of the 1940s among its residents.
Aldford House’s Beaux-Arts and Art Deco detailing remains a defining feature of the Park Lane streetscape: Portland stone banded with London red stock brick across the principal elevations, vertical articulation to the massing, deep apartment balconies, and a striking high-level gable feature above the eighth floor, all characteristic expressions of the movement toward Art Deco design in the early 1930s. Portland stone, quarried on the Isle of Portland and long associated with London’s grandest public buildings, remains the primary facade material and will form a central part of the building’s forthcoming restoration, now that residents have collectively acquired the freehold.
Aldford House’s cachet is not confined to its architecture. From 1950 until 1964, the top-floor apartment was home to Dame Anna Neagle, one of the most celebrated British film actresses of the twentieth century, and her husband, the producer and director Herbert Wilcox. Neagle was voted Britain’s most popular film star in 1949, having brought glamour to wartime and post-war British cinema through a run of Mayfair and Park Lane-set romantic comedies made with Wilcox — including Spring in Park Lane (1948) and Maytime in Mayfair (1949) — as well as through celebrated portrayals of historical figures such as Queen Victoria, Nell Gwyn and Florence Nightingale.
A green plaque commemorating Neagle and Wilcox’s residency was unveiled at Aldford House on 30 May 1996 by HRH the Princess Royal, cementing the building’s place in Mayfair’s cultural history alongside its architectural credentials.
Proposals for the building include the reinstatement of Art Nouveau-style iron and glass entrance doors to the Park Street entrances, replacing later, out-of-context timber additions, as part of a wider upgrade to the building’s common parts.
Peter Wetherell, Founder and Executive Chairman of Wetherell, says: “Now that the freehold has been purchased by the residents this is an opportunity to be part of the restoration of one of Park Lane’s ‘Grande Dame’ buildings from the 1930’s building boom.”
Simon Burgoyne, Sales Director at United Kingdom Sotheby’s International Realty says: “To buy into Park Lane at £2,500 per square foot is a rare opportunity to create large lateral apartments no longer possible with current planning constraints”.
The Aldford House Sixth & Seventh Floors (Flats 61, 62, 71, 72) are currently in shell condition, at a Price Guide of £50,000,000, offered on a 999-year lease with a share of the freehold.