The Mayfair mansion that was once the home of Gucci

Minimalists, look away now. With its magnificent 20ft-high ornately plastered ceilings, lashings of gold leaf, bookcases topped by busts of Alexander the Great, Caesar Augustus and Marcus Aurelius – and its role as the global HQ of one of the world’s most glamorous fashion empires – this 14,000 sq ft Mayfair mansion is in need of an owner with a budget as big as their lust for luxe.

For sale with a price tag of £55 million, through beauchampestates.com, the palatial Grade I listed Neoclassical Grafton Street house was built over seven storeys between 1769 and 1772 to a design by architect Sir Robert Taylor, whose pupils included John Nash. While it has more recently served as the main base of Italian fashion house Gucci, close to its flagship Bond Street store, it started out as the London home of a banker or two, before passing into the ownership of British statesman Henry Peter Brougham, the Lord High Chancellor who played a key role in passing the 1832 Reform Act and the Slavery Abolition Act a year later.