The Naval Club building at 38 Hill Street in Mayfair is for sale for £35m.

The 17,131 sq ft (1,591.5m2) freehold building has been home to The Naval Club since 1946. It now provides an opportunity for future use as a single mansion, multi-unit residential development, 5-star hotel or Embassy building: the freehold for sale exclusively via joint sole agents Wetherell and Gerald Eve.

As a single private mansion, 38 Hill Street could be configured to provide over the basement level a professional kitchen, staff quarters, wine vaults, home cinema and a health and leisure complex with a swimming pool, gymnasium and spa. The ground and first floors would provide an entrance hall, grand staircase and five main reception rooms, including the vast first floor Louis XVI style drawing room, with up to 16 bedrooms on the upper floors. There could also be a courtyard garden terrace reinstated to the rear façade and a roof garden on the top sixth floor.

As a 5-star boutique hotel, the building could provide up to 30 keys, including bedrooms and suites, alongside concierge reception, lounges, cocktail bar, fine dining and entertaining rooms on the ground and first floors with a gymnasium and back-of-house facilities on the basement level. Other alternative future uses of 38 Hill Street could include a multi-unit residential development, an Embassy or Ambassador’s residence, a private member’s club or headquarters for a corporation or a Private Family office.

Peter Wetherell, Founder & Chairman of Wetherell commented: “It is extremely rare in Mayfair to have the opportunity to purchase the freehold of an entire mansion building of this size which is still configured as a vast single property. I know The Naval Club exceptionally well as I attended The Nautical College Pangbourne and served as an RNVR so 38 Hill Street is somewhere I have socialised and stayed many times. The principal rooms in 38 Hill Street are magnificent and only Dudley House on Park Lane and Ancaster House in Chesterfield Gardens rival in terms of grandeur. If remodelled into a super-prime mansion 38 Hill Street would be one of the most valuable, largest and prestigious private homes in Mayfair.”

Lloyd Davies, Partner at Gerald Eve, added: “Located on a wide and deep plot, 38 Hill Street is an extremely large property which lends itself to a range of potential commercial or hospitality uses. It is a rare opportunity to secure one of the finest freeholds in Mayfair.”

Peter Wetherell, Founder & Chairman of Wetherell said: “The sale of 38 Hill Street is part of the ongoing residential renaissance of Mayfair which has taken place over the last decade. There have been a series of grand mansions, which were used after World War 2 as commercial buildings, which have now been turned back into palatial private homes. Dudley House on Park Lane, served as offices, and is now a private palace, Aberconway House was used the HQ of the Rank Group, Wetherell sold this and it has been turned back into a private home. Likewise Lombard House on Curzon Street, was bank headquarters, I sold the building, and it is now a private mansion. Most recently three adjoining townhouses on Mount Street, which were being used as offices, have now been turned back into three private homes.”

Peter continued: “The billionaire buyer is likely to be a family person, with an art collection and a portfolio of beautiful homes around the world. In my opinion the top five countries where the buyer could originate in rank order are Qatar, India, Britain, America or China, or if not Qatar then one of the other Gulf states such as the UAE or Saudi Arabia. It was always said that at the height of the British Empire the world was run from the mansions of Mayfair, now the people who run the world all own a palatial home in Mayfair, the district has become the London address of choice for the super-rich who run and own the world.”

Peter added: “The other possibility in my view is a Government buying 38 Hill Street for use as an Ambassador’s Residence or Embassy. The building has a consented flag pole, so a state would be legally able to fly their flag from the building, and Hill Street is the widest avenue in inner Mayfair, so a country owning the property as an Embassy would be very high profile.”

38 Hill Street is for sale for £35,000,000. For further information contact joint sole agents Wetherell on Tel: +44 (0)20 7529 5566 and Gerald Eve on Tel: +44 (0)20 7333 6242.