Property of the Week: Knightsbridge Gardens – Prime Rental in London

When the first residents move into Knightsbridge Gardens in the coming weeks and months, they are — given the super-prime Knightsbridge location — likely to be well-travelled sorts from all over the world, possibly with homes in several countries. But there’s little chance of waking up and momentarily forgetting where you are, as this is an address steeped in London icons. This is a first for prime rental in London. 

Knightsbridge Gardens’ 33 apartments form the residential section of The Knightsbridge Estate, a 3.5-acre ‘island’ site bookended by Harrods at one end and Harvey Nichols at the other. Burberry, Rolex and a new, ultra-sustainable Apple Store are among the new occupants of this red-brick run of historic buildings. Cut through a historic alleyway across the road and you’re in Hyde Park, should you fancy a stroll or a run; wander down Brompton Road to take in the latest exhibition at the V&A.

The apartments range from 744 sq ft to 2,925 sq ft, with one to four bedrooms. The unusual thing about them, however, is that they are not for sale. Knightsbridge Gardens is London’s first super-prime build-to-rent scheme. Prices start at £1,250 a week for a one-bedroom apartment and rise to over £9,000 for a four-bedroom apartment. More information is available on request.

“It’s a market that has been turbocharged since Covid,” comments Arya Salari, Head of Lettings in Knight Frank’s Knightsbridge office. “Renting gives people flexibility as well as freedom. They can relocate whenever suits them, a factor that has become incredibly important to globally mobile high-net-worth individuals. They don’t need to worry about assessing a volatile sales market or how their asset may have performed.”

High stamp duty rates paid by non-resident buyers also play into the hands of the rental market. “Renting is a more straightforward decision and much quicker,” Salari observes.

To form The Knightsbridge Estate, skirted by busy Brompton Road to the north, quiet (and soon to be pedestrianised) Basil Street to the south, Sloane Street to the west and Hans Crescent to the east, “a number of different buildings have been carefully assembled over the years,” explains Jonathan Shelton, Managing Director and Head of Real Estate for Europe at The Olayan Group, The Estate’s long-term owners, which acquired the freehold of the site in 2010. Behind the buildings’ original early 1900s facades, it’s all brand new, high-end 2023. 

The ambition, Shelton explains, is to make Knightsbridge known not just for luxury shopping, but also as a place to live, work and linger. “As long-term owners in the area, it was important to us that we made a positive contribution to the Knightsbridge resident community as well as its strong visitor numbers,” he explains.

To make life easy for residents, most of the apartments are being delivered as turnkey properties. This means that as well as being fully furnished, all the little luxury extras await your arrival, from the Byredo hand soap beside the sink to the books on your bedside table, as conceived by interior design practice Taylor Howes.

The theme of one coffee-table tome, A Cloud a Day: 365 Skies from the Cloud Appreciation Society, chimes neatly with the nature-themed motifs that Taylor Howes subtly peppers throughout the apartments.

It’s true plug-in-and-play luxury for the super-rich. Just bring your suitcases — and your golf clubs, should you wish. There are acres of storage space tucked away in every apartment as these are homes designed to be lived in, not left empty, says Shelton, pointing out a large cupboard that’s calling out for golfing accoutrements. Should you need to stock up, there’s a branch of Castore just downstairs.

The apartments will be rented on a minimum two-year lease, so that tenants will use them as homes rather than short-let serviced apartments. The aim, says Shelton, is to make this a “lights on” development, unlike many super-prime schemes that are shrouded in darkness at night due to high numbers of overseas owners who are rarely in residence.

Renting at this level is a “lifestyle choice”, comments Salari, and dressing  properties down to the towels and teaspoons isn’t unusual; it’s the icing on the cake, offering renters ultimate ease and convenience. This is popular with some local downsizers, says Shelton, and is also attractive to overseas individuals or families (many from the United States, currently) who lack the time or inclination to deal with furnishing a home.

Build to rent for multi-millionaires is a rare beast, however. While it’s a thriving concept in more mid-market, young professional hubs such as Canary Wharf, whose transient population has yet to get a foothold on the property ladder, this is Knightsbridge, an enclave synonymous with Ferraris and Aston Martins, luxury boutiques and HNW overseas families seeking proximity to a certain green corner shop or wanting to spend time near their children at UK boarding schools or universities.

“Schemes like Knightsbridge Gardens, with the architecture and turnkey presentation, just don’t exist in prime central London on a build-to-rent basis,” concurs Nina McDowall, Director at Strutt & Parker on Sloane Street, which is marketing the scheme along with Knight Frank.

Yet fully furnished turnkey properties, ready to move into, are what 85% of super-prime renters want, say Savills estate agents, and the demand/supply imbalance of good-quality rental properties in Knightsbridge means rents locally have increased by 25% in the past year, according to LonRes data.

So what do these super-prime properties offer? Well, from the moment you pitch up in your Porsche, a doorman will be there to take the keys and securely park it for you. When you don’t fancy tackling central London traffic, the new exit of Knightsbridge Tube station is seconds away.

In the main building, the upscale retail outlets occupy the basement, ground and first floors, and 29 residences sit above. There’s a reception desk and concierge team to take care of your needs. There’s an elegant club room too, “so you can meet guests here if you don’t want to take them to your apartment,” says Shelton, and an orangery — a very modern, fully glazed room replete with orange trees, perfect for a sunny morning coffee overlooking the courtyard garden.

The residences’ private terraces and ground-level courtyards all face the garden — and the feel, aided by the trickle of water features, is one of overwhelming tranquillity. Brompton Road’s churn of buses, taxis and tourists feels a million miles from here. Peace prevails in the apartments too, with the action on the street playing out like a silent movie below these well-insulated cocoons.

There are four apartment themes: The Eclectic (which accounts for nearly half of the total), The Tailored, The Crafted and The Modernist, “guided respectively by the Art Nouveau, Art Deco, Arts and Crafts and Modernist movements,” explains Karen Howes, Founder of Taylor Howes.

In a three-bed Modernist apartment, a throw — possibly a bespoke cashmere by Gillian Weir, or a Johnstons of Elgin — is tossed casually on a sofa, after, one imagines, a busy day in the boutiques. In a four-bed Tailored flat, which sits above Burberry, a well-stocked whisky bar invites you to linger in the beautiful double-aspect dining room that leads through to a large, enclosed kitchen, kitted out in Gaggenau and dominated by a large marble island. “There’s a separate entrance to the kitchen for staff,” Shelton points out, “so they needn’t disturb the main living space when they come and go.”

Every one of the apartments is different in shape and size. Some have a run of arched windows. Others have glazed Crittall-style walls that let the light shine through from hallway to living room. All have amazing, bespoke, super-sized headboards in the bedrooms. The four Crafted flats, which sit in a listed corning building that was once a butchery, are different again. Quirkier in shape, they have stairs rather than lifts and old-school light switches and radiators on the walls — ideal for students and young professionals, thinks Howes.

While Howes has had to design for an assorted range of HNWI tenants who, as yet, are unknown, the result is anything but generic. The apartments exude warmth, personality and playfulness.

And the best thing? If you want an apartment and you can afford it, you can move in instantly, fully furnished, and there’s nothing to do but enjoy all that surrounds you in Knightsbridge. And that’s a place that needs little introduction.  

KnightsbridgeGardens.com