Inside The Mayfair Mansion Where Jackie Kennedy Stayed During Her European Grand Tour

In the summer of 1951, a 22-year-old woman by the name of Jacqueline Lee Bouvier and her younger sister Caroline (better known as Lee) were shipped off to Mayfair to kick-start a three-month grand tour of Europe. With stops across Spain, Paris, Venice, Rome and Florence, it was an adventure packed full of visits to distant relatives, perusing museums and ticking off tourist attractions.

As the young sisters zipped around Europe’s most prestigious sites (in a car purchased especially for the trip), they recorded their travels in a journal they titled One Special Summer – with the illustrations and poems scribbled by Jacqueline and the narratives penned by Lee.

While most can’t even convince their nearest and dearest to sit through their post-holiday photos, when you’re a household name it seems that suddenly everybody wants to hear about your continental caper. And when you grow up to become the First Lady of the United States and a Polish princess, they tend to care an awful lot. With no Instagram available with which to reminisce about their youthful adventures, Jackie Kennedy and Princess Caroline Lee Radziwill (as the sisters came to be known) had their journal published by Rizzoli in 1974.

Discover 26 Upper Brook Street

The first stop on Jackie and Lee’s grand tour? The home of their step-father’s cousin at 26 Upper Brook Street, Mayfair. While this first stay sadly didn’t make it into the scrapbook, the girls do recall visiting the automobile showrooms at the nearby Albemarle Street, Berkeley Square and Piccadilly where they picked out their motor – a purchase kindly funded by their step-father.

Who Owned The Home?

As for the house itself, 26 Upper Brook Street originally belonged to wealthy American businessman James Monro Coats (who died in 1946, five years before the girls’ trip) and his wife Anne (who still lived there during the visit). James Monro’s cousin was Hugh D Auchincloss Jr – whom Jackie and Lee’s mother had married in 1942, just two years after the death of their father.

Both James and Hugh belonged to the wealthy Auchincloss-Coats family, their bank accounts heavily funded by the industrial success of their forefathers. Between them, the Auchincloss-Coats dynasty owned a vast portfolio of palatial residences, including Jackie Kennedy’s childhood home in Newport, Virginia.

Interior render of 26 Upper Brook Street

However, when James Monro was forced to move to London for business in 1907, a new postcode was added to the portfolio. Clearly unimpressed with the stuffy Georgian manor which once stood on the Mayfair site, James had the original structure of 26 Upper Brook Street demolished to make way for a brand-new mansion of his own. Built by luxury building firm Holland & Hannan, and designed by renowned architect Arnold Bidlake Mitchell (whose former clients include the likes of King Leopold of Belgium among other big business tycoons), the end-result was an American inspired Mayfair mansion, complete with Vanderbilt style gilded-age interiors.

Thanks to the couple’s hefty inheritance, James and his wife led an opulent lifestyle from their Mayfair home, sparkling with racehorses, motor yachts, Scottish estate shoots, Rhode Island holidays and French Riviera cruises. At 26 Upper Brook Street, their neighbours and guests included the likes of Sir Ernest Cassel (banker to King Edward VII), the soon-to-be Countess Mountbatten of Burma Edwina Ashley, and famed architect Sir Edwin Lutyens who designed the interiors of one of the family’s three yachts.

Step Inside

Sat on the doorstep of Park Lane, where the home enjoys views of Hyde Park, this Grade II listed Edwardian mansion-townhouse is located right in the heart of Mayfair. From the front, this five-storey, 11,494 sqft home offers up a Tudor-style Portland stone facade complete with bay windows and a gable bearing the Auchincloss-Coats family crest, while the heart of the home cradles a courtyard garden, accessed by upper and lower terraces which are connected via a stone staircase.

Interior render of 26 Upper Brook Street

With interiors that reflect both the Newport and Mayfair fashions of the Edwardian era, the stone floored entrance hall welcomes guests up a sweeping staircase. This hall is done up in the same neo-Georgian style of the dining room which both feature grand stone fireplaces, ceiling cornices and decorative moulding. Upstairs, the first-floor drawing rooms are French Neo-Rococo in character, offering up further marble fireplaces, Corinthian columns and neo-classical plasterwork across the walls and ceilings. In place of stables, James Monro had his architect install a series of Arts & Crafts style rooms to the rear of the property where James kept his office and cigar lounge.

Despite its opulent history, just two years after Jackie’s visit in 1951, 26 Upper Brook Street was converted into offices. Now on the market for the first time in 30 years, there is potential to transform it back into a mansion home. Whilst full planning permission has yet to be secured, Westminster City Council have given positive feedback in regards to its potential residential development.

Interior render of 26 Upper Brook Street

On the ground floor – alongside the grand entrance hall, staircase and lift – the property agents suggest there could be a kitchen and breakfast room, dining room, and a family room or library. On the two floors above, there is space for two interconnecting reception rooms plus a principal bedroom suite (including dressing area, bathroom and study/day room), while the third and fourth floors could hold two or three en-suite bedrooms each. Down below, the lower ground floor provides potential for a staff bedroom or living room, a cinema or club room, a catering kitchen, wine cellar, and a large gym with a pilates exercise floor.

As well as the central mansion, there is also an adjoining mews house at 4 Wood’s Mews. Though the mews house must remain a commercial  space, there is room for a staff flat complete with a living room, bedroom, bathroom and kitchen. 

Interiors images rendered by Casa E Progetti.

On the market for £25m. Find out more at knightfrank.co.uk and wetherell.co.uk