ROMAN ABRAMOVICH is not a man given to sentiment. Some of his one-time business partners have become sworn enemies, and a succession of managers at Chelsea Football Club have been shown the door, even after winning trophies.
This hardheaded approach may explain why, despite having a fortune calculated at £9.5 billion, the tycoon has put the first property he bought in London, a relatively modest maisonette, on the market.
As one might expect with Abramovich, there is a twist. Since acquiring the property in Lowndes Square, central London, a decade ago, the oligarch has secured all nine flats in two interconnecting 19th-century townhouses. The huge property is now being marketed for £70m.
The sale does, however, mark the end of Abramovich’s dream of creating a 30,000 sq ft super-mansion spread over five floors as well as three basement levels. Planning permission for the renovation expires today and the oligarch has not applied to renew it.
The planned three-year redevelopment would have meant the demolition of the buildings, save for the classical frontage.
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Planning records show permission for “a substantial single family dwelling” with “numerous reception/dining rooms, a double-height swimming pool, exercise room and four bedrooms”.
The mews houses at the back of the site would have been knocked down and rebuilt to contain one single-bedroom flat and one studio flat, as well as five garages, staff changing rooms, office and plant rooms.
Abramovich and his former wife Irina bought the original flat in Belgravia for £1.2m. Over the next few years, Abramovich, now living with his girlfriend Daria Zhukova, spent almost £20m acquiring the other eight flats in the two Thomas Cubitt-built townhouses. By Belgravia standards, the property is scruffy, with the paintwork in need of attention. “It’s habitable, but dated,” observed a estate agent who has shown prospective buyers around.
With property in the area selling for about £4,000 a square foot, the house, once refurbished, could sell for as much as £120m.
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Hanover Lodge in Regent’s Park, the most expensive house in the capital, sold earlier this year for £120m to an anonymous Ukrainian.
One source said: “Whoever buys it would almost certainly start again and do a total refurbishment either as flats or a big house . . . You would need to buy it at the right price, probably at about 50% of the final sum, so about £60m.”