Britain’s Most Expensive Houses

“Round the back of Upper Grosvenor Street in Mayfair during Georgian times was a coach house, where the Earl of Essex’s head groom and his family lived above the horses, at 25 Culross Street. The servant’s lodgings were converted into a brick-fronted mews cottage after World War I, becoming home to a local shopkeeper and renamed Culross Cottage. The documentary skated over its history. High-end estate agents who rolled up to sup champagne at an open-house evening were more interested in the Lalique chandeliers (£17,000 a pair), the subterranean kitchen (£280,000) with its four voice-activated ovens, and the glass elevator (£460,000). No one commented on the insanity of installing a lift for nearly half a million quid, to whisk you to the gym room, when you could simply start your workout by taking the stairs. Developer Kam Babaee might not have taken kindly to that. His face, when one saleswoman had the temerity to stroke the handwoven silk wallpaper (£1,600 a roll), was a silent thunderstorm.”
Christopher Stevens, Daily Mail