Mayfair mansion in Upper Brook Street, formerly London home of the Auchincloss family of Jackie Kennedy, for sale
Thu 17 Sep 2026
One of Mayfair’s most illustrious residences at 26 Upper Brook Street, with views onto Hyde Park, formerly the London home of a branch of the American Auchincloss family of Jackie Kennedy fame, a Grade II Listed Edwardian mansion-townhouse with a central courtyard garden and a mews house to the rear at 6 Woods Mews providing almost 13,500 sq.ft. (1,255 sq.m.) of palatial accommodation has been listed for sale freehold by Grosvenor, via joint sole selling agents Wetherell and Knight Frank.
Most recently used as an office building, providing substantial accommodation over lower ground, ground and four upper floors, the mansion-townhouse, could subject to planning, be restored back into a single family house offering 10,926 sq.ft. (1,015 sq.m.) of living space. The courtyard garden has upper and lower garden terraces, connected by a grand outside stone staircase. The property on Woods Mews will remain commercial, providing 2,556 sq.ft. (237.4 sq.m.) of office space.
If converted back into a single family house with offices in the mews, the property could be worth up to £55 million upon completion. The seven bedroom house at 26 Upper Brook Street would provide a grand entrance hall with staircase, a passenger lift, ground floor family kitchen and breakfast room and six reception rooms, including a dining room and family room/library on the ground floor and two interconnecting reception rooms on the first floor.
The principal bedroom suite with bedroom, dressing area, bathroom and study/day room would occupy the second floor, with three bedrooms, each with its own bathroom on the third floor, and three further bedrooms and two bathrooms on the top floor. On the lower ground floor there would be either a staff bedroom/living room or a cinema/club room, catering kitchen, wine cellar and large gym with pilates/exercise floor. The mews house provides two floors of opulent office space with a staff flat above offering a living room, bedroom, bathroom and kitchen.
With its combination of main house and separate office in the mews the grand residence would be perfect as a private family home, allowing the head of the family to work from home when required, or it could serve as an Embassy/Ambassador’s residence, with the Ambassador’s mansion to the front and diplomatic offices to the rear. It would also be ideal for a single or multi private family office HQ.
The Edwardian mansion-townhouse at 26 Upper Brook Street has an illustrious history. It was originally built in 1908-9 for wealthy American James Monro Coats (1875-1946) by luxury building firm Holland & Hannen, designed by architect-to-the-rich Arnold Bidlake Mitchell, whose clients included financier Sir Ernest Cassel, King Leopold of Belgium and tycoon Alexander Siemens, of Siemens engineering.
James Monro Coats was the son of Anglo-American industrialist Sir James Coats and his American heiress wife Sarah Anne Auchincloss, the daughter of industrialist and banker John Auchincloss. James was born on 6th January 1875 at Hammersmith Farm in Newport, the Auchincloss estate on Rhode Island, which was the childhood holiday home of Jackie Kennedy whose stepfather was Hugh D. Auchincloss Jr, James Monro’s cousin.
The Coats and Auchincloss family had shared origins and history, further cemented by business partnerships and marriage. Both families originated from Paisley in Scotland, worked in the textiles industry and moved to America to make their fortunes.
Sir James Coats, James Monro’s father, was the third generation of his family to run J & P Coats, the Anglo-American textiles giant (later Coats Viyella) which by 1900 was listed on the London Stock Exchange with factories in Paisley in Scotland and Pawtucket on Rhode Island and over 50,000 employees worldwide.
Sir James’ business partner was John Auchincloss, who ran Auchincloss Brothers, which was the US-wide distributor and retailer for J & P Coats. Sir James married John’s daughter Sarah Anne Auchincloss, the children from the marriage using for family occasions the name Auchincloss-Coats. The dynasty expanded their investments into banking, heading Manhattan’s Merchant’s Bank, and petroleum, becoming shareholders in Standard Oil.
The wealth provided the Auchincloss-Coats dynasty with a portfolio of palatial residences including Hammersmith Farm in Newport, Merrywood in Virginia, where Jackie Kennedy and her sister Lee grew up, the London mansion at 26 Upper Brook Street, a New York mansion at 123 East 69th St on the Upper East Side and Skelmorlie Castle in Scotland.
In 1899 James Monro Coats married Rhode Island socialite Anne Caswell, another Auchincloss relative, and the couple moved from Rhode Island to London since he was appointed to oversee the family’s business interests in London and Scotland.
In 1908 James Monro and Anne acquired 26 Upper Brook Street on the doorstep of Park Lane, providing views onto Hyde Park and at the time neighbouring Brook House, the Park Lane mansion owned by Sir Ernest Cassel, banker to King Edward VII.
The original Georgian house at 26 Upper Brook Street was demolished to make way for a new mansion that James Monro commissioned architect Arnold Bidlake Mitchell to design. The result was an American inspired Mayfair mansion, a Vanderbilt style gilded-age Edwardian trophy house with lavish interiors.
The five storey mansion has a Tudor-style Portland stone façade with bay windows and a gable bearing the Auchincloss-Coats family crest. Inside, the interiors combine Newport and Mayfair fashions of the Edwardian era. The stone floored entrance hall and sweeping staircase and ground floor front dining room, are neo-Georgian in style with grand stone fireplaces and elegant ceiling cornice and decorative moulding.
The first floor drawing rooms are French Neo-Rococo in character with grand marble fireplaces, ornate columns with Corinthian capitals and elegant neo-classical plasterwork to the walls and ceilings.
To the rear of the property in place of stables James Monro had architect Arnold Bidlake Mitchell install a series of grand rooms in the Arts & Crafts style of Ernest Gimson with Baronial fireplaces, Oak panelling, plasterwork friezes and ornate ceilings, probably designed by George Bankart and executed by craftsmen of the Bromsgrove Guild. In these opulent Arts & Crafts rooms James had his office and cigar lounge where he entertained business associates.
In 1913, Sir James Coats died, that year J & P Coats had a market capitalisation of $300.8 million (£230 million) and was the world’s third largest company after US Steel and Standard Oil. In his will Sir James left James Monro and his five siblings £3.9 million (equivalent to over £1.6 billion today).
Business interests and the inheritance from his father enabled James Monro and Anne to live an opulent lifestyle that included racehorses and three motor yachts. Their lives included shoots in the family’s Scottish estates, holidays on Rhode Island, sailing on the French Riviera and entertaining in Mayfair, with guests at 26 Upper Brook Street including Auchincloss-Coats relatives, neighbour Sir Ernest Cassel, Edwina Ashley, later Countess Mountbatten of Burma, and Sir Edwin Lutyens, who designed the interiors of one of the family’s motor yachts.
James Monro Coats died in London in 1946 and Anne in 1953. In the summer of 1951 James’ cousin Hugh D. Auchincloss Jr sent his two young stepdaughters Jackie (22) – later US First Lady Jackie Kennedy - and Lee (18) – later Princess Lee Radziwill – to Mayfair on the start of a three-month grand tour of Europe to visit relatives, museums and tourist attractions including stops in Spain, Paris, Venice, Rome and Florence.
What the young ladies thought of the Auchincloss-Coats mansion at 26 Upper Brook Street was never recorded, presumably they were far more excited by their visits to the Mayfair automobile showrooms on Albermarle Street, Berkeley Square and Piccadilly, where Hugh D. Auchincloss Jr funded the purchase of a motorcar solely for their trip around Europe.
After 1953 the property at 26 Upper Brook Street was converted into offices and for many years served as the London offices of the Bank of Africa, founded in 1959, the international financial services group headquartered in Casablanca, Morocco.
Now the mansion at 26 Upper Brook Street is being listed for sale for the first time in over 30 years. In order to create stunning marketing visuals for the mansion Wetherell liaised with Grosvenor and Knight Frank and commissioned multi-award-winning design house Casa E Progetti to dress and style the landmark building.
For the 26 Upper Brook Street interiors Casa E Progetti have given the principal rooms a sense of style, elegance and grandeur through a fusion of English and French aristocratic styles inspired by the illustrious Auchincloss-Coats heritage of the house.
Peter Wetherell, Founder & Chairman of Wetherell says: “The provenance of this Mayfair mansion building offering views onto Hyde Park is outstanding. It was originally the London home of a branch of the American Auchincloss family of Jackie Kennedy fame. When the Auchincloss-Coats family had the house at 26 Upper Brook Street constructed in 1908-9 they were at the height of their wealth and were the principal shareholders in both J & P Coats and Standard Oil, then two of the world’s three biggest companies. The beautiful and ornate interiors of the house reflect that vast wealth and now a discerning buyer has the unique and exciting opportunity to bring this landmark building back to life.”
The property is currently in commercial use but with a Pre-Application to Westminster City Council for reversion back to residential use. The mansion-townhouse at 26 Upper Brook Street is being sold subject to present planning at a guide price of £25,000,000 (Freehold). For further information contact sole selling agents Wetherell (Peter Wetherell) on Tel: +44 (0)20 7529 5566 / visit www.wetherell.co.uk