Apollo Billionaire Leon Black Snaps Up $28 Million London Flat

Leon Black, the New York billionaire who quit Apollo Global Management this year, is the purchaser of a notably lavish apartment in London’s Belgravia. Sold by the estate of Kathleen DuRoss Ford, the widow of Henry Ford II, the two-floor flat faces Eaton Square and was represented by Beauchamp Estates. Asking price had been about $30 million, but Black negotiated a $2 million discount. The Financial Times was the first to report the news.

Forced to step down from Apollo this year after his ties to the notorious sex offender Jeffrey Epstein were exposed, Black also resigned as board chair of the Museum of Modern Art soon afterwards. Two women are also accusing Black of sexual assault at Epstein’s homes in New York and Palm Beach.

Eaton Square is located in posh Belgravia, which sits between Chelsea, Knightsbridge and Buckingham Palace. Developed in the 1820s, much of the land that comprises Eaton Square is still owned by the Grosvenor family, formerly known as the richest family in England, and one of whose titles is Viscount of Belgrave. Belgravia was laid out by master builder Thomas Cubitt in the Regency era, the 1820s; the district is famous for its classical white stucco townhouses with elegant black wrought iron details.

A rare freehold property, Mrs. DuRoss Ford’s opulently appointed flat comprises the ground and lower ground floor unit of an elegant boutique building, plus a connecting mews house. Similar to a U.S. alley, a mews is a narrow street running behind grand mansions. Mews buildings originally stabled horses for the family, with rooms for servants above.) They’re analogous to a carriage or coach house and many London mews houses today are sought-after and expensive little cottages on their own. For Mrs. Ford’s flat to retain its mews house is a very prestigious bonus. The listing also notes that it might be possible to extend the mews’ wine cellar to create an underground passage between the two buildings.

The main residence and mews house together provide some 7,489 square feet of space. There’s an entrance hall, three “reception” rooms, along with a total of six to seven bedrooms and eight bathrooms. In addition to the large family kitchen, there’s a second kitchen in the mews house.

Among some of the many famous (or infamous) people who’ve lived in Eaton Square include: Sean Connery, Andrew Lloyd-Webber, William Gilbert — one half of Gilbert & Sullivan, Joan Collins, Lord Lucan, Roger Moore, Vivien Leigh and Laurence Olivier, and Barry Gibb of the Bee Gees. Former Prime Ministers Neville Chamberlain and Stanley Baldwin once called Eaton Square home, as did Nazi politician Joachim von Ribbentrop. Royal residents of Eaton Square have included the Aga Khan and Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands.

Add Leon Black to the list! Black’s other extravagant properties include an Upper East Side New York townhouse, a $38 million spread in Beverly Hills estate he bought from Tom Cruise, a house in Bedford, New York, and a house on Meadow Lane in the Hamptons.