Eugenie moving to live near Wills
Princess to rent Kensington Palace cottage
PRINCESS Eugenie is moving into Kensington Palace, it emerged yesterday, leaving the taxpayer-funded apartment she has shared with her newly single sister.
As the latest in a string of young royals to take up residence in the historic grounds in West London, she will count the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and Prince Harry as neighbours.
She currently lives in a fourbedroom apartment in St James’s Palace with Princess Beatrice, but will move into three-bedroom Ivy Cottage in Kensington Palace’s grounds early next year.
Sources close to Eugenie, who has a full-time job as an associate director at contemporary art gallery Hauser & Wirth, said it was time for her to get a place of her own and she would be paying ‘market rent’. A comparable threebedroom mews house in walking distance of Hyde Park would cost £3,500 a week – the equivalent of £182,000 a year. It is not clear how much Eugenie will be expected to pay.
The news came as her mother the Duchess of York firmly denied reports the ‘blissfully happy’ princess plans to get engaged to long-term boyfriend Jack Brooksbank ‘by the end of the year’ and marry in 2017. Her spokesman said: ‘This is absolutely not true.’
A source close to the family – who are currently holidaying with the Queen at Balmoral – added: ‘They are all together at the moment and are utterly bemused as to why anyone has suggested this.’
Buckingham Palace declined to comment on the claims made in the Sunday Express.
Eugenie and Mr Brooksbank, manager of celebrity hotspot Mahiki, have been dating for six years after being introduced by friends in the Swiss ski resort of Verbier, where the Yorks have a £13million property.
It was eight years ago her sister Beatrice moved in to the St James’s Palace apartment, when a student at Goldsmiths College in London.
Palace aides spent more than £250,000 of taxpayers’ money bringing it up to scratch for her, claiming it was more cost effective given the increased cost of security that living in student digs would entail.
This included a new fitted kitchen and bathroom, along with timber flooring in the two main reception rooms.
No one was able to confirm whether public money would be spent on Eugenie’s cottage in Kensington Palace. A source said: ‘The matter is still under discussion, but it is likely that she will take over the property in the next few months..
‘What can be said with all certainty is Jack will not be moving in with her and nor are they planning to get married.
‘He is a lovely young man and there is little doubt that they will settle down together some day. But Eugenie is only 26 and although Jack is three years older he isn’t at a stage yet where he is able to support her. He will do, one day, just not now.’
Prince and Princess Michael of Kent used to live in a grace-and-favour home at Kensington Palace given to them by the Queen following their marriage, which cost them only £69 a week to rent.
Following a public outcry and calls by MPs, they now pay what has been described as ‘full market rent’, rumoured to be £120,000 a year.
‘Jack will not be moving in’