Historic London Victorian Haven Relaunches as £15 Million Luxury Apartments Overlooking Kensington Palace

A boutique super-prime development of six residences just a stone’s throw from London’s Kensington Palace has launched, with prices starting at £15 million. One Palace Green overlooks the gardens of the palace, which serves as the home to several members of the UK royal family. The Prince and Princess of Wales keep an apartment in the building as their official London home, though their main residence is in Windsor. Prince William’s brother Harry and his wife Meghan also lived in a cottage on the grounds when they were first married, as did the brothers’ mother Diana after her divorce from Prince Charles.

The 150-year-old 19,200 sq ft home, built in the Arts and Crafts style, is an immediate neighbour of the Israeli embassy, while the ambassadors’ residences of both France and Norway are a short distance up the road. Current or previous owners of homes on the road, which merges into Kensington Palace Gardens, include billionaire steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal, socialite Tamara Ecclestone, businessman Len Blavatnik and oligarch Roman Abramovich. The embassies and presence of super-wealthy individuals mean the street is ultra-private, with highly secured properties where photography is forbidden nearby and manned barriers prevent vehicles from entering the broad tree-lined avenue from Kensington High Street.

The redevelopment of the building has taken developer Redd Real Estate five years due to its Grade II listed status, which meant there were exceedingly tight restrictions on the alterations that could be made. Heritage officials insisted it remain as true to its original appearance as possible, down to the colour of the paint on its stone stairs and the motifs on the walls of the dining room. The restoration has reversed unsympathetic alterations introduced during the building’s years as offices, utilizing archive images to piece together original features.

Completed in 1870, the building originally started life as a single home for landscape painter and politician George Howard, later the 9th Earl of Carlisle, and his wife Rosalind, a radical political and temperance campaigner. Howard was friends with Alfred, Lord Tennyson, served as a trustee of the National Gallery, sat in the House of Commons as an MP, and presided over his ancestral home of Castle Howard in Yorkshire. The Howards were part of the influential Holland Park Circle, a group of artists, architects and patrons who made this corner of west London a centre of Victorian artistic life.

Designed by architect Philip Webb, known as the father of the Arts and Crafts movement, Howard’s London home strayed from typical designs of the time by creating bright rooms designed to be used as an artist’s studio or gallery. The interiors were shaped by William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones, who revolutionised Victorian interior design with handcrafted, nature-inspired items, jewel-toned stained-glass windows, block printing and rich tapestries.

Redd Real Estate brought the development—comprising five apartments and a coach house—back to life with the Martin Kemp Design team and architects Pilbrow & Partners. A freshly commissioned portrait of the Howards sits in the concierge area, while armchairs, desks and doorknobs nod to Morris’s signature style. The walls are adorned with art curated by Daniel Morris Art Advisory, including three paintings by Howard. The standout room is the meticulously restored dining room, spanning the ground and lower-ground floors, featuring a patterned ceiling, deep jewel-toned colours, gilded panelling, and the words to Morris’s epic poem Earthly Paradise inscribed on the wall.

Howard’s original studio has been transformed into a living room with a 4.5-metre ceiling height. The development includes enhanced security, five-star concierge and property management, private parking, branded lifestyle partnerships, landscaped gardens, and a state-of-the-art ground source heating and cooling system.

Russell Smithers, chief executive and co-founder of REDD, noted that One Palace Green combines extraordinary history, exceptional architecture, and a prime position on Kensington Palace Gardens. Designer Martin Kemp emphasized the challenge of knowing when to restore, reinterpret, or step back to ensure the interiors continue the building's story for contemporary living. Joint selling agents for the property are Beauchamp Estates, Savills and UK Sotheby’s International Realty.