Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich has purchased all nine flats of a prime London block by Harvey Nichols and Harrods.
Spread across two stucco-fronted properties in Lowndes Square in London, the eight-bedroom building is expected to be worth up to £150million.
The development, over five storeys above ground and three basement levels, boasts a cinema/entertainment room, an indoor pool, steam room and sauna, as well as a children's study and entertainment room.
All six family bedrooms have en suite bathrooms, as do the two guest rooms. In a linked mews development behind the main building, four flats above a multicar garage will be used as staff accommodation.
The total size is 30,000 sq feet, five times the area of a normal five-bedroomed family home.
The home is currently two adjoining townhouses, which were split into nine apartments in 1998.
Mr Abramovich has been buying up the individual flats over the years to convert the building into the single home, but did not change the exterior.
He first bought a flat there in the late Nineties, spending £1.2million. He and his then wife, Irina, spent a similar amount gutting and remodelling it and it was their London home for several years.
'I knew he was buying property in the square,' said a property expert. 'But I didn't realise all of them were in these two buildings. He was obviously determined to acquire them and just waited patiently until, one by one, they came on the market.'
By cannily buying up individual flats, the Russian has ended up paying between £15million and £20million for the two historic houses, a great deal less than their eventual worth.
He bought the freehold for the buildings from Sun Life for only £1.8million.
Abramovich's property portfolio also includes a luxury flat at the new Bridges Wharf development next to Battersea heliport; an £18million, 420-acre estate, Fyning Hill, in West Sussex; a villa in the South of France; a house in Tuscany; a hotel complex in Cyprus and a holiday home in Montenegro.
There is also a house in Moscow and a palatial St. Barts compound purchased last year.
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