London mansion, once home to Maharaja Duleep Singh’s son, goes on sale for 15.5 million pounds
garden,” said Jeremy Gee, managing director of Beauchamp Estates, which is organising the sale.
“It is located in one of southwest Kensington’s most sought after residential addresses,” he said.
Upon completion in late 1868, the grand home was purchased by the quasi-government owned East India Company and registered as an investment property to be leased for rental income.
The East India Company, which had governed India until the British Crown took over its assets in 1858, leased the property for a token peppercorn rent to the displaced Duleep Singh family. Besides the mansion, the displaced dashing” prince, Victor Jay was educated at Eton College and Cambridge University. In 1898, the prince married into nobility after much initial resistance by both families.
The wedding, which took place at St Peter’s Church in London’s Eaton Square, was made possible due to the intervention of Prince Victor’s gambling buddy, Edward, then the Prince of Wales and subsequently King Edward VII. Prince Victor is known to have loved the high-life, including gambling, horse racing and partying at Claridges Hotel in London’s Mayfair as a favourite haunt.
Despite his grace-and-favour Little Boltons home and an annual allowance of 8,250 pounds and his wife’s income of 2,500 pounds per year, Prince Victor was declared bankrupt in 1902 with debts totalling GBP 117,900 , a huge sum at the time.
The Prince and his wife spent the World War I years in Monaco, where the Prince died aged 51 in 1918. His widow, Anne, continued to have use of The Little Boltons house until her death aged 82 in July 1956.
The 1871 Census shows the house registered under East India Company ownership and staffed by a butler, two maids, a governess for English language lessons and a gardener. According to Beauchamp Estates, the property eventually went into private ownership and in 2010 it was refurbished and modernised, including a stylish and contemporary extension to the lower ground floor level.
The 5,613 sq ft large Italianiate-style villa includes two large roof terraces, two formal reception rooms, an informal family room, a family kitchen and breakfast room, five bedrooms, including a “sumptuous” principal bedroom suite, a gymnasium and two staff bedrooms.
“The entire first floor provides the principal bedroom suite... During the Victorian and Edwardian eras when Prince and Princess Victor Duleep Singh lived at the house this floor provided them with two VIP bedroom suites, the royals sleeping separately and meeting for breakfast together on the rear bedroom terrace,” the listing notes.