Rows of corinthian columns, a magnificent frescoed ceiling and endless gilded cornicing — all just off the Hanger Lane gyratory.
John Zylinski’s neo-Palladian villa in Ealing has hit the market for £4.2 million, following the death of the eccentric Lewisham-born Polish prince and property developer in January.
The exuberant Zylinski, who claimed princehood from a noble line of Polish aristocrats, took up ballet in his fifties, ran for London Mayor in 2016 and once challenged Nigel Farage to an 18th-century style duel.
His remarkable former home, which is listed for sale with Savills, is a Versailles-tinged replica of the family palace that once stood in the Polish town of Gozdowo.
Its creation represents a promise fulfilled to his grandmother, who spent the Second World War in Ravensbrück concentration camp and later fled to an Earls Court bedsit with her daughter, Grazyna.
Her childhood home was requisitioned during the war and later razed to the ground by the communist government. Years later, a young John would vow to rebuild the original palace based on a series of salvaged drawings.
Completed in 2009 after eight years of construction work, the palatial home on Park View Road is a vaguely Francophile remodelling of a red-brick house that was perhaps more in keeping with Ealing’s suburban semis.
The three-storey main building, known as the White House, comprises a grand reception room, dining area and kitchen, with six bedrooms, a library and a lavish main suite on the floors above.
Behind the stucco-fronted façade — complete with colonnaded porch — is a riot of marble and gold, with metres of Parisian-style panelling, ornate parquetry and a solid marble staircase with gilded balustrades.
All that remains of the original house in Poland are two bricks, installed in the walls as a paean to the prototype.
A full-width terrace on the top floor overlooks a circular front lawn flanked by leylandii cypress trees that obscure the house from neighbouring properties and an adjacent playing field.
The set-up would offer total seclusion if not for the grand announcement of the arched entrance on Park View Road, crowned by classical statues and utterly conspicuous among conventional family homes.
A cobbled driveway leads between two self-contained ‘arches’, each well over 1,000 square foot, which could provide handsome digs for visitors.
The ground floor of the south arch is given over to a capacious ballroom, while the north arch features further reception spaces and a shower room.
Stuart Balfre, head of Ealing sales for Savills, says: “It’s not every day that properties of this grandeur, size and style come up for sale in West London — in fact I’ve never seen a home quite like this one.”
“With nearly 10,000 square foot of space, this home has proportions synonymous with those of a country house.
“One of its most notable features is the seamless transition from indoors to out — almost every room opens onto a terrace or balcony.
Balfre is anticipating widespread interest in the house, “whether from families seeking to upsize within the area or individuals looking to relocate from central London in pursuit of more space”.
In 2012 Zylinski was denied the right to hire out the house for weddings and events — which he called a breach of his human rights — but it soon became a popular fixture on the Open House weekend each year.
An Instagram page for the house announced Zylinski’s death “with profound sorrow” on January 3, calling him “a luminary in business, ballet, philanthropy and history, and the visionary creator of The White House in Ealing”.
Property prices in Ealing averaged £785,737 over the last year.
