“Basically when I bought the house, it was just the ground floor and then one floor up,” explains British socialite, billionaire, and Formula One heiress Petra Ecclestone of how she managed to transform the magnificent and historic Sloane House into an even more desirable home teeming with amenities. The property is a late 18th-century Georgian mansion with a neighboring lodge and extensive garden areas, located in exclusive Kensington and Chelsea. “We just kept the foundations. We had fallen in love with the shell of the house and the outside. But the house was pretty much demolished and rebuilt,” Ecclestone says.
A large hallway that acts as a foyer in the main home showcases Ecclestone’s design signatures: A spectacular custom crystal light fixture, a sofa inspired by the black panther (her favorite animal), and lots of incredible modern art, often on rotation. And while the children hang out in this space a lot, the room doubles as a quintessential party spot complete with a faceted mirrored bar that converts into a DJ station.
Courtesy of SOCIETY GroupEcclestone, who purchased the home in 2010 with her then-husband James Stunt, worked with design firm Casa Forma for almost five years to renovate and reimagine the home with modern luxuries in mind. “We even dug down 15 meters deep,” says Ecclestone, who built both up and down to ensure the property had everything it needed. The new basement, for instance, now includes an indoor swimming pool, a gym, a spa, a hammam, a salon, a kid’s playhouse, squash courts, and a screening room. Ecclestone says, “The house had such potential to be more of a ‘wow’ property. We opened up the house to be more special.”
Ecclestone—along with her four young children and her fiancé, real estate agent Sam Palmer—would eventually spend the majority of the pandemic experiencing every inch of that ‘wow.’ “We were very, very fortunate,” Palmer says of their time together there. “Honestly, it was probably our favorite time as a family, to the point that it would make it very hard to let this house go, because of the children’s connections to it as well.”
Petra Ecclestone and Sam Palmer.
Courtesy of Maddox Gallery“If I didn’t have multiple small children, I would be in there a lot,” Ecclstone says of the salon she had built out in the lower level. “I just do my hair and makeup wherever the kids are, really.”
Courtesy of SOCIETY GroupStill, it is their Brentwood, Los Angeles, home that the family now counts as their primary residence, and while it might be “hard” to sell the London property, they are absolutely open to it. In fact, Ecclestone—who quietly offered the property in 2019 for 150 million pounds (one third more than was inaccurately reported at the time) — has made it known that offers will once again be entertained. Purchased more than a decade ago for over $80 million and then renovated for an additional $34 million, this souped-up version of Sloane House would require offers of at least 175 million pounds, the family says.
No stranger to mega-deals either, Ecclestone once owned the 56,500-square-foot Holmby Hills, Los Angeles “Manor”, notoriously built and occupied by Aaron and Candy Spelling, only to then sell it for nearly $120 million, almost doubling her initial investment in just five years later. Coincidentally, both that L.A. estate and Ecclestone’s Sloane House each feature 14 bedrooms. And still, while there certainly is room to add one in, the London home does not have a dedicated gift-wrapping room like Ecclestone’s former estate in Los Angeles. Palmer adds, given that they have four kids, “we really use nearly every room in the house.”