Halifax bomber tycoon's £18.75m flat for sale: Mayfair home of Sir Frederick Handley Page was visited by the Queen Mother and Bomber Harris

The former home of one of Britain’s greatest aviation tycoons has come up for sale with a £18.75 million price tag.

The Mayfair apartment was bought as a pied à terre in 1946 by Sir Frederick Handley Page, whose company made the Halifax bomber that played a key role in defeating Nazi Germany.

There he entertained figures such as The Queen Mother, Sir Arthur ‘Bomber’ Harris, head of RAF Bomber Command during the war, and the reclusive US magnate Howard Hughes.

Listed with Wetherell, the four bedroom apartment at 18 Grosvenor Square, where there is an English Heritage blue plaque marking Handley Page's residency, has been refurbished and put on the market at what is claimed to be a record price equivalent to £5,295 per sq ft.

The lavish makeover is the latest evidence of the revival of an address that was overshadowed for decades by the presence of the US embassy “fortress”.

Diplomats moved out last year to a new purpose-built embassy in Battersea.

Sir Frederic’s third floor apartment was built in 1938-39 in a neo-Georgian style to designs by Detmar Blow, estates manager to the Duke of Westminster, and Fernand Billerey.

It has a grand entrance hall with double doors leading into the 43ft-long reception room with five tall south facing windows overlooking the square.

Sir Frederick’s business was the first British public company to manufacture aircraft. During the First World War it made heavy bombers to attack the Zeppelin yards.

Later his airlines were used on the first intercontinental passenger routes from London to Africa, the Middle East and India.

But the company is best known for the Halifax bombers involved in raids on German cities and Nazi forces in Normandy after D-Day.