A billionaire's housing boom is here — and Lord Lebedev's £25 million home at Hampton Court is on the market just at the right time
Stud House, Lord Lebedev's home in Hampton Court Park, is on the open market. Toby Keel takes a look.
You wait all year for a billionaire's palatial £25 million home in a leafy enclave of London to come up for sale, and then two come along at once.
Last week we looked at the Goldsmith family's magical home in Richmond Park, Ormeley Lodge, which was home to the late Lady Annabel Goldsmith for many decades — and the place where she and her husband, Sir James Goldsmith, hosted everyone from pop stars to royalty.
Today, we look at a different house cut from the same cloth, and located just three miles away: Stud House, the Lebedev family home in the grounds of Hampton Court, for sale with Knight Frank and Savills.
It has a huge amount in common with Ormeley Lodge: both are located in the grounds of a Royal Park (in this case, Hampton Court Park); both are Georgian buildings full of character, flair and beauty; both are on the market for £25 million; and both have been in the family of high-profile billionaires for many decades, with a guest list that reads like Who's Who. Stud Park was bought by Alexander Lebedev in 2007, and it has long been the home of his son Lord Lebedev — best known as Evgeny Lebedev, owner of The Independent and The Evening Standard newspapers — who is now selling the place.
The timing of the sale seems to be good for the vendor. Research from Knight Frank suggests that there are around 3,000-4,000 billionaires in the world at the moment (neither the Lebedevs nor the Goldsmiths are among them these days, according to reports), and many of them are flocking back to buy property in London.
New research by Beauchamp Estates suggests that the market for homes in the £15-million-plus bracket has been soaring in the first half of 2026, with £1.24 billion of ultra-prime property sold — that's up 79% on the same period last year.
The reason for all this? A combination of soaring stocks in tech companies, and the political instability in the Middle East making London once again an enormously popular spot for the well-heeled to buy a home. 'London has bounced back,' says Rosy Khalastchy of Beauchamp Estates, 'the luxury homes market spluttering back to life with American and Middle Eastern buyers currently dominating ultra-prime sales in the capital’s best addresses.'
We'd say that 'Stud House, Hampton Court' definitely counts as one of those 'best addresses', and whoever ends up taking on this 18th century home will have a place that really is quite something, inside and out. It's hard to know where to look in a home full of fascinating art and glorious furnishings, which Lord Lebedev brought together with the artist and designer Patrick Kinmonth and the antique dealer and interiors consultant Edward Hurst.
Stud House is a fascinating home, arranged on an unusual inverted-L floorpan: entering the house via an enormous grand reception hall, there is a reading room and conservatory immediately ahead of you, and to access the rest of the rooms you move around to the right through a second hallway, past the morning room and drawing room with its semi-circular bay window, and then on to the larger part of the house.
There's a library, study, dining room, TV room, kitchen, pantry and laundry arranged around the stairs in the centre of the house.
Head down and you'll find a huge wine cellar, but head up and you'll get to the first floor, where you'll find six of the eight bedrooms — including a magnificent master suite with dressing room and a huge bathroom attached.
Two of the bedrooms have access to a balcony looking over the grounds, and Hampton Court beyond, while there are also a couple of treatment rooms and a security room on the floorpan.
The second floor has the remaining two bedrooms, plus a sitting room and storage — it's a space that is seemingly ideal for staff accommodation.
It's a lot to get your head around, but thankfully the agents have kindly shared a video walkthrough which will let you see the house, the art, the grand pianos, the four-poster beds, the exotic wallpapers, the spectacular gardens (laid out by Mollie Sainsbury) and more.
Lord Lebedev — or Baron Lebedev, of Hampton in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames and of Siberia in the Russian Federation, to give him his full title — has spoken with great warmth of this beautiful home, though it wasn't necessarily the sort of home he'd have chosen himself. He explained to the FT a few years ago that it was really his father who fell for Stud House first: 'I think he was probably more in love with it than I was but I can see now, having grown older, that it’s a special house.'
There is one more curiosity of Stud House that's worth mentioning: it's a leasehold property, with the freehold part of Hampton Court; the lease has 128 years left to run. And the service charge? £300 a year. Not bad for a place that literally has Hampton Court on the doorstep.
Stud House is for sale through Knight Frank and Savills at £25 million.
