Bernie's £65m London palace

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What sort of house would Formula One chief Bernie Ecclestone purchase other than one with a Grand Prix? His newest property is Britain's most expensive house - with a price tag of £65 million.

The country's third richest man has invested some of his estimated £2 billion fortune in 55,000 square feet of accommodation, shared among eight lavish suites each with its own bedroom, bathroom, dressing room and sitting room. Some of the marble in the house is taken from the same quarry as that used in the construction of the Taj Mahal.

The house, which has spent months on the market, is so large (the average British home is 1,000 square feet) it has underground parking for 20 cars. It features a huge ballroom, an oak-panelled picture gallery and an antique crystal chandelier hangs from the dining room.

In the basement of the five-storey property there is a Turkish bath with a marble massage slab, spa pool, hairdressing salon and a swimming pool.

Mr Ecclestone was reported to be looking at the property last November. The house had been put on the market a few months earlier, after Iranian-born scholar Dr David Khalili lovingly restored what used to be the Egyptian and Russian embassies.

Having been run down over the years, it took him a further six years to complete the restoration. Dr Khalili, who has lived in Britain since the Seventies and has an English wife, described the renovation as an example of his desire to "make a major contribution to this country".

The property is impressive even by the standards of its neighbours in Kensington Palace Gardens, long known as "Millionaires' Row". Casual visitors are deterred by security officers stationed at both ends of the road and the street, which was home to the Princess of Wales, plays host to diplomats and minor foreign royalty.

It had been put up for sale with an initial asking price of £85 million. The list of people who could afford such a home was very short, including vacuum cleaner inventor James Dyson, or possibly Sir Paul McCartney.

A claim for it to be the most expensive house in the world has been eclipsed by two other properties. The world's richest man, Microsoft founder Bill Gates, is building a hi-tech palace in Seattle at a cost of £75 million. Oracle founder Larry Ellison is reported to have spent £70 million already on his Silicon Valley home, and spiralling costs could take the total to more than £100 million.

It is believed Mr Ecclestone bought the property as an investment, not to live in but to sell on. The Land Registry records the long leasehold interest in this property was transferred in October 2001 to a company named Corfiducia Anstalt, incorporated in Lichtenstein, "as a trustee of the SE Property Trust, of 2 Sloane Street, London SW1". The price "stated to have been paid" was £50 million. The freehold is owned by the Crown Estate, on behalf of the Queen.

Secrecy surrounds the ownership. The joint agents for the property, FPD Savills, of Knightsbridge, insist the property is still on the market. Jonathan Hewlett, responsible for the house, said today: "The person instructing me is the same person that was instructing me this time last year. We are still marketing this house. When I last visited it, which was recently, Bernie Ecclestone was not there."

Mr Ecclestone, who lives with his wife, Slavica, in a £4million house in Chelsea Square, was unavailable for comment.

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