An emerging art district, stellar shops and widened pavements are the backdrop for a glamorous residential renaissance in Mayfair.

Much of the recent residential building activity has been made possible by alterations to the planning regulations, which in the postwar period insisted that Mayfair’s traditionally domestic space be used as a refuge for bombed-out City firms. Over the next five years, a realignment of office to home will add an extra 110,000sq m of living room to the current meagre supply.

Fortunately, these changes have come at a moment when the world’s wealthiest have also altered their perspective on what is required to make a bigger splash. “It used to be that you either ‘got’ Mayfair or you didn’t,” says property consultant Simon Barnes, “but international buyers now want big houses, and Mayfair has some of the largest in London – at up to nearly 20,000sq m, they’re often double the size of those in Belgravia.”

FT/HTSI: SEPTEMBER 28 2015 by LISA FREEDMAN