What makes the area so special?
I think it’s lovely how the history and that traditional British heritage have been retained around St James’s and the parks. When you live there, you really feel as if you own a piece of that history. You’ll find some of the grandest buildings there, so you get a real impression of what society was like back in the day. On St James’s Square, for example, we just sold a property in which the Queen Mother took ballet classes as a child. There are so many of these fascinating stories. And, of course, the grandeur and the scale of the buildings is unbelievable. There are few places in London where you can find buildings of such architectural merit.
Who lives there?
A lot of Brits, and often they’ve owned the properties for generations. Many of these properties are incredibly rare, so if one comes up, people tend to buy and hang on to them.
What kind of properties can you find there?
There’s a real mixture, from one-bedroom flats to mega, mega apartments – there’s one that has its own ballroom. The properties on St James’s Park are some of the only ones in London that look directly over the park, without a road in sight. They’re newer builds, so they’re really practical and the views are stunning. Elsewhere you’ve got some amazing, almost ambassadorial residences that are 20,000 sq ft and upwards. We’ve just sold a new-build where they’d dug three storeys down, and you’d never get planning permission for that now. So there really is something for everyone.
