Dressing in designer threads doesn’t hold a candle to owning a luxury brand’s former global headquarters.
A historic townhouse that once served as fashion house Gucci’s main office has hit the market. It asks $66 million and is also available to rent for a jaw-dropping $48,000 a week.
The palatial 12,621-square-foot home is located in the tony Mayfair neighborhood in London’s West End and boasts a double garage, a cinema, a sunroom, an indoor swimming pool, a marble-lined plunge pool, a steam room, a sauna and even “four secure vaults.” It is the last remaining private townhouse on Grafton Street, according to the listing, which is held by Beauchamp Estates.
The Neoclassical-style building was completed in 1772 and, before the luxury brand moved in, was home to one Lord Chancellor Brougham, who entertained the likes of Queen Victoria and the first Duke of Wellington there. Gucci moved there in 1998 when, following the fatal shooting of Maurizio Gucci by a hitman hired by his ex-wife, Patrizia Reggiani Gucci, in the lobby of the company’s Milan headquarters, head honchos decided the business needed a new main office. So they moved to the Grafton Street space, which is near Gucci’s Bond Street store.
Texan designer Tom Ford, who was named creative director of the company in 1994, moved into the gold-leaf-ceilinged first-floor drawing room — and it was there that in 2000 he “hosted and mesmerized fashion designer Alexander McQueen and persuaded him to join Gucci group,” and also where he hosted Vogue editor Anna Wintour. Many other names and historic fashion world events took place in the building until 2010 when former Gucci CEO Robert Polet relocated the company’s HQ to Switzerland and sold the London mansion.
In addition to its modern amenities — most of which are located in the basement level — the four-bedroom, seven-bathroom home also features plenty of period details, including the first-floor dining room’s carved wood chimneypiece, original Georgian fireplaces, parquet flooring and ornate plasterwork.
