One of London's most expensive rentals: Hollywood star's legendary Mayfair party flat available to rent for £500k a year

The Mayfair apartment where one of the leading stars of Hollywood’s “Golden Age” threw wild parties attended by the likes of Laurence Olivier and Noel Coward is being offered for rent in one of the most expensive lettings in London this year.

The huge four bedroom maisonette at 99 Park Lane occupied by Douglas Fairbanks Jr and his second wife Mary from 1934 to 1941 has been put on the market by agents for £11,500 a week — or more than £500,000 a year.

The Georgian property which overlooks Hyde Park, became one of London’s most fashionable addresses during the Thirties when the star of swashbucklers such as the Prisoner of Zenda and Gunga Din hosted gatherings for the elites of high society and showbiz.

Famous guests of Fairbanks, who was first married to Whatever Happened To Baby Jane? star Joan Crawford, included actors Rex Harrison, David Niven and Cary Grant and the last Viceroy of India Lord Louis Mountbatten.

Douglas Fairbanks Jr, a lifelong Anglophile and son of the “King of Hollywood” silent movie actor and director Douglas Fairbanks, moved to London when studios were trying to slash the salaries of their stars during the Depression.

He was fired by Warner Brothers when he refused the demanded 50 per cent cut.

The couple had a Los Angelese-style 14 ft long plunge pool and health spa installed on the lower ground floor, one of the first to be built in a private home in London.

Other surviving features from Fairbanks’ time include a cocktail bar finished in backlit Onyx where he served drinks.

After the Second World War the couple gave up the lease on 99 Park Lane and moved to another London home at No.8 The Boltons in Kensington.

The Grade II-listed corner house was originally constructed between 1823 and 1825 by Thomas Martin, the builder of Portman Square to a design by designed by architect John Goldicutt and is one of the few Georgian buildings surviving on Park Lane.

The first resident was stockbroker Sir Moses Montefiore who lived there between 1826 and 1885 and whose six decades at the property is marked by a blue plaque.

The second resident was Countess Grosvenor, widow of Victor, Earl Grosvenor, and her second husband, the statesman George Wyndham. It also served as the childhood home of the second Duke of Westminster.

The 5,921 sq ft stucco fronted house also has three reception rooms with marble floors, six bathrooms, a passenger lift, two outside terraces and its own private driveway with off-street parking with enough space for two limousines.

Peter Wetherell, chief executive of agents Wetherell said: “With its iconic Park Lane address and Hyde Park views this expansive Mayfair residence has been home to banking tycoon Sir Moses Montefiore, the Grosvenor family, and Hollywood legend Douglas Fairbanks Jr.

“Guests have included Rothschilds, Churchills and movie A-listers including Noel Coward, Rex Harrison, David Niven. This is Park Lane’s only maisonette with the benefit of a private swimming pool and spa, its own carriage driveway and private off-street parking. It is one of the most interesting and special lettings opportunities in Mayfair at present.”