The billionaire British property developer Nick Candy has said he only spends about 20 days a year in his £175m penthouse flat at One Hyde Park in London.
Candy, 51, who developed the “superluxe” Knightsbridge apartment building overlooking the royal park and acquired one of the flats for himself, said it irritated him that he was paying service charges of up to £161,000 a year (or £3,000 a week) when he was rarely there. The development has a private cinema, 21-metre lap pool, as well as sauna, gym, golf simulator, wine cellar, valet service and room service from the five-star Mandarin Oriental hotel next door.
“I’ve got a penthouse … and I’m there like 20 days a year, and I pay the service charge [like] the guy who uses the pool everyday,” Candy said during a discussion about rarely-used luxury properties in London at a wealth management conference at the Savoy hotel in London.
When asked by the Guardian why he spent so few days a year in the apartment, which occupies the top two floors of block B of the development, he said he was being flippant and no longer lived in the penthouse as he spent most of his time at a £75m mansion in Chelsea, which he shares with his wife, the singer and actor Holly Valance.
“I no longer live in that apartment, I live in Chelsea,” Candy told Spear’s 500 Live event on Thursday. “I was being facetious. The penthouse in One Hyde Park is actually empty I don’t live there.”
Candy said the penthouse was “on the market for £175m”, adding that he thought the estate agent George Azar, the chair and chief executive of Sotheby’s International Realty, would achieve a sale “close to that”.
The 18,000-sq-ft (1,672-sq metre) apartment has been on the market since April 2021.
If it sells for close to the £175m asking price it will become the most expensive apartment ever sold in the UK. The record is held by the nextdoor penthouse in block A, which sold for £140m in 2014. In 2011, Ukraine’s wealthiest person, Rinat Akhmetov, bought another apartment in the development for £136.4m.
The most expensive UK property ever sold is £210m for Rutland Gate, a 45-room “private palace” that is a five-minute walk from One Hyde Park.
Candy’s penthouse has five bedrooms and eight bathrooms, two wine cellars and “wrap-around terraces”. The Sotheby’s listing describes it as “one of the finest residential real estate assets in London, offering unparalleled lateral living space, in a super prime location in Knightsbridge, with uninterrupted views over Hyde Park.
“The double-height formal reception with 8-metre ceiling height serves as the main entertaining space, adorned with a magnificent glass fireplace and offering uninterrupted views and an abundance of natural light.” There is also a Japanese-inspired kitchen of “forest granite countertops and floors”.
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The main bedroom is 2,300 sq ft and features “twin bathrooms with Jacuzzi-style jet pools and expansive dressing rooms”. There are a further four ensuite bedrooms, and two further guest bathrooms.
There is also a cocktail bar, pool table, home cinema, two studies, a private spa and a gym featuring state-of-the-art equipment.
The buyer would also get “four secure underground parking spaces, four storage units, two secondary/staff entrances, and a separate staff suite”.
The listing does not state the service charge associated with the apartment. Sotheby’s did not respond to questions about the charge, which has been previously reported to be £161,000.
Valance, who shot to fame in Neighbours and with her 2002 hit song Kiss Kiss, married Candy in 2012. She is next month co-hosting a $100,000-a-couple London fundraiser for Donald Trump’s presidential bid.