Billionaire entrepreneur John Caudwell has unveiled the first fully completed residence at 1 Mayfair, as the landmark development he hopes will be regarded as ‘the finest residential scheme in London’ prepares to welcome potential buyers from next week.
Spear’s was the first media organisation to be able to report from inside the £2 billion scheme, where Caudwell claimed Elon Musk would buy an apartment if the SpaceX founder were looking for a place in London.
Caudwell acquired the site – formerly home to a multi-storey car park – in 2011 for around £150 million and has described his ambitious plans for its redevelopment as ‘unprecedented in style and grandeur’. It is scheduled to be fully completed next year.
The ‘Georgian-inspired’ exterior, in Portland stone typical of the distinctive buildings seen throughout Mayfair, was designed by the late New York architect Robert AM Stern. The grand neo-classical interiors of the reception halls and other communal areas are by Paris-based American-Chilean designer Juan Pablo Molyneux whose ‘Crystal Gallery’ is intended to evoke Louis XIV’s Hall of Mirrors at Versailles.
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When complete, 1 Mayfair will have 24 ‘principal residences’ ranging from 3,100 sq ft to 16,500 sq ft in size – a combination of lateral apartments, penthouses and townhouses. Advertised prices start from £35 million and, Caudwell told Spear’s, the asking price for the largest penthouse will be £200 million or more.
The show residence visited by Spear’s is 6,523 sq ft in size and listed at £83,700,000. The price, which includes the furniture and art, as well as all fixtures and fittings, equates to £12,832 per sq ft. If achieved, it would be a record for a residence in a new-build development in London.
One industry insider who spoke to Spear’s noted that, on a price per square foot basis, the highest achieved price for a new-build apartment in London is thought to be a penthouse at the Peninsula London in Belgravia. The property reportedly sold for around £10,000 per sq ft (with a purchase price of £100 million) to US hedge fund billionaire Ken Griffin. To achieve a materially higher value per square foot ‘would be uncharted territory,’ said the insider.
Asked whether he felt the £83 million residence was priced keenly, Caudwell told Spear’s: ‘[I]t’s very difficult to say. […] What I know is the value that we’ve put into it, which is huge. People are getting tremendous value because of all the quality that’s gone in.’
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Caudwell suggested best-in-class super-prime residential property assets were not subject to the same forces as the wider real estate market. ‘Look at all the billionaires in the world. You know, we’ve now got a trillionaire. I don’t want to sound blasé, but 200 million is sort of petty cash to some of those people.
‘If Elon Musk were coming to London and wanting an apartment, there’s probably only one apartment in the whole of London that he would buy, and that’s Penthouse One [at 1 Mayfair]. He might buy Penthouse Two or Three [as well]. He might buy all three. If he bought all three, he’d be into 600 million. Out of a trillion dollars, it’s not actually very much.’
Musk, who has previously described a civil war in Britain as ‘inevitable’, seems an unlikely buyer. He also tweeted in 2020 that he would ‘own no house’ and has said in interviews that his main residence is a $50,000 property near SpaceX’s Texas launch site.
However, as far back as 2024 Caudwell’s firm announced that more than 600 centi-millionaires and billionaires had registered their interest, resulting in what the company described as the world’s ‘longest waiting list’ for an upscale residential building.
Many have been waiting longer than they would like. The development was initially scheduled to be completed in 2025 but will not now be finished until late 2027, Caudwell told Spear’s. He admitted that some people who might have been interested ‘three or four years ago’ may have moved on to other options ‘because they wanted somewhere more immediately’.
Those prepared to wait will finally be able to view the development in person from next week, where they will be able to tour the completed show residence with interiors by Jamie Drake. The New York designer counts Michael Bloomberg and Madonna among past clients.
The timing of the launch can be seen as a double-edged sword. On one hand, the top end of the London property market faces a number of headwinds. On the other, those interested in acquiring large new-build residences in prime central postcodes now have limited options, partly because of a 2021 change to Westminster Council planning rules that largely prohibits new-build developments above 200 sq m (around 2,150 sq ft) in size. Available options with larger footprints include schemes at Chelsea Barracks and St John’s Wood Square, as well as a limited number of unsold apartments in the OWO Residences or the Whiteley. None of these is in Mayfair, however.
The UK has seen several of its billionaire residents leave in recent times. An analysis published by Bloomberg suggested the holders of half the country’s billionaire wealth had left or loosened ties in the past two years. However, London remains a crucial hub for the world’s wealthy, according to Caudwell, even though it may no longer be their tax residence. ‘It’s a financial centre, cultural centre, an interesting city,’ he said. ‘I still think people, on average, think it’s the best city in the world.’
‘You’ve got competition from New York, maybe Paris. That’s probably the only real competition. Then you’ve got the tax competition from places like Dubai and Monaco, but just as a pure city – forgetting tax reduction – I think London is the number one. Virtually every wealthy person would want a lovely base in London, and to have something like this, which is unique and unrepeatable, I think it’s a very special opportunity for them. And we have got people in the tens of billions of net worth interested in the properties.’
Caudwell’s in-house team, led by Christian Horner, is overseeing sales. Selected brokers from firms including UK Sotheby’s International Realty, Beauchamp Estates, Wetherell, Savills and Knight Frank have been briefed and may also introduce potential buyers.
