£100m For A Flat? Is This London’s Poshest Address?
London is a city of iconic addresses, like 10 Downing Street, One Hyde Park or Number one Mayfair with addresses we’ve learnt to memorise since childhood from Buck House to the Blue Peter Garden. But next year we’ll see another address added to the iconic address hall-of-fame when the Old War Office opens, the most exciting hotel launch of 2022. Even, at risk of sounding hyperbolic, of the decade.
Staying at the Whitehall hotel is sure to be quite the experience, we’re promised sumptuous everything and it’s run by the guys who brought us Singapore’s Raffles. But right now there’s a chance to one-up the celeb or world leaders staying in even the most luxurious suites in the building; because for a relative snip (if you’re a hedgefund manager or the CEO of a cat meme website) and a starting price of £5.8m, you can own one of the 85 apartments in the OWO.
The iconic building has been split into two parts, the hotel, facing out onto Whitehall and guaranteed to be the place that power-brokers head for drinks, dinner and affairs of state, and the residences.
Guaranteed to be the place that power-brokers head for drinks, dinner and affairs of state...
The residences will include a private garden and pool and while the prices start at £5.8m for a two-bedder, the prices for the most sought-after apartments are rumoured to potentially top out at around £100m.
Two apartments that are particularly attractive to investors are the corner ‘pepperpot’ flats, occupying the turrets at either end of the hotel. These rooftop spaces are almost certainly going to be the subject of fierce bidding wars.
Two apartments that are particularly attractive to investors are the corner 'pepperpot' flats...
The flats are being developed by EPR Architects (who have already got The Ned and the Rosewood under their belts) and at first glance they look every bit as jaw dropping as you’d hope with a price tag three times the entire GDP of island nation Tuvalu.
Of course owners will be buying not only London’s most super-prime real estate, but a history to match. This is the building that used to house MI6, where Churchill won the second world war and which Daniel Craig’s Bond stood on top of at the end of Skyfall. There is a real sense of ‘if these walls could talk’ …
Of course owners will be buying not only London's most super-prime real estate, but a history to match...
The flats are on sale now, being sold by Strutt & Parker and Knight Frank, and if you currently have a smooth £100m burning a hole in your bank account then the walk from Coutts to the OWO is mercifully short and could be paid for in just 1,531 wheelbarrows-full of banknotes (a productive half hour was taken working out that particular factoid), preferably on a non-windy day…
To register your actual interest, or if you’re up for feigning Escobar/Bezos levels of wealth to get a viewing, check out the OWO website. You bring the top hats, we’ll meet you there…
