Skip to content

French style apartment put on the market in London for £6.5 million

Its French owner has turned the three bedroom apartment in a prime spot overlooking Hyde Park into a mini palace of Versailles.
From the outside it gives nothing away, looking like the other townhouses in the street.

But inside it is decorated in opulent 18th century French style with elaborate hand gilded plaster moulding, antique chandeliers and mirrors.

Many of the rooms are based on real French buildings. The ceiling of one was inspired by the chateau of Mme De Pomadour, the powerful mistress of Louis XV, while the dining room echoes the library at Versailles.

The owner began collecting 18th century furniture many years ago when he realised he could buy antiques more cheaply than new furniture and he fell in love with 18th century style.

In his spare time he researched the techniques needed to reproduce the opulence of great houses in France and searched for suitably skilled workmen all over France who could reproduce the look.

The estate agents description says that ‘the floors are wooden, and in the Versailles style, the mirrors antique, the gilding applied by hand in the traditional way. A little modernity creeps in, as an antique mirror swings open in the Chinese Boudoir to reveal the latest flat screen TV, and in the master bedroom, cunningly hidden on a mezzanine, is the dressing room done in the Directoire style’.

Three full length French windows open out onto a balcony overlooking the communal gardens and Hyde Park.

Related