The billionaire founder of Phones4u, John Caudwell, has sold his London mansion, once home to prima ballerina Margot Fonteyn, for £55 million. The 73-year-old sold the Art Deco-inspired property, Fonteyn House, after just four weeks on the market.
A Historic Knightsbridge Home
The Knightsbridge home once served as the Panamanian Embassy before becoming Dame Fonteyn's residence when she married Roberto Arias, Panama's ambassador to the UK. Over the years, the property welcomed notable guests, including Princess Margaret, Yves Saint Laurent, and Fonteyn's dance partner, Rudolf Nureyev.
Nureyev stayed at the house after defecting from the Soviet Union in 1961 while negotiating his contract with the Royal Ballet. Fonteyn and Nureyev used the second-floor bedroom suite, now a guest bedroom, as a dance studio.
Luxurious Renovations
Businessman and Labour-backer John Caudwell purchased the property in 2010 and transformed it into a 16,000-square-foot behemoth. The home, overlooking the V&A, features a 12-metre swimming pool, a cinema screen, a spa with a hot tub and ice fountain, a cocktail bar, and a gym.
Caudwell, with a net worth estimated between £1.5 billion and £2.8 billion, recently sold another multimillion-pound Mayfair property, as reported by Bloomberg. That home, once the coach house for the head groom to the aristocratic Capel family, was marketed at £20 million, though the final sale price remains undisclosed.
Other Properties and Developments
The billionaire is currently spearheading another London development at 1 Mayfair, featuring 29 homes, including three penthouses worth £200 million each. The £2 billion block will include a 1,000-book library curated with the help of the Duke of Devonshire, 81-year-old Peregrine Cavendish, who owns the book salon Heywood Hill on Curzon Street, the late Queen's preferred bookseller.
The development also offers a health spa and a 20-metre swimming pool, positioning it as the UK's most decadent new residential address.
However, Caudwell's primary residence is the Grade I-listed Staffordshire manor house, Broughton Hall. Built in the 1600s, he told the Mail it is his 'spiritual home,' purchased in the 1990s. He claims the Long Gallery is haunted by the ghost of a boy shot by Oliver Cromwell's soldiers during the Civil War. Before his move, elderly nuns lived there, using one room as their chapel.
Superyacht Titania
Caudwell also owns an £80 million megayacht, Titania, named after the Queen of the Fairies in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. The 73-metre vessel, one of the world's most elite superyachts, features personalised spas, five state-of-the-art ensuite bedrooms, and a Michelin-star chef. It can be chartered for £600,000 a week and was featured in a Channel 4 documentary last December. Caudwell visits only once or twice a year, as wealthy VIPs charter it the rest of the time.
