Inside the royal residences Andrew once called home

The downfall of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor

As of late October 2025, Andrew Mounbatten-Windsor has been formally stripped of his royal titles by King Charles III in light of further confirmation of his connection with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. In addition, a notice was served requiring him to surrender the lease on Royal Lodge, the 30-room mansion he’s occupied for over two decades.

The current plan is for the former prince to relocate to a private residence on Sandringham Estate in Norfolk – a property arrangement funded privately by the King. However, that move is expected to occur after the holiday season, so he may remain at Royal Lodge through Christmas.

What happens to Sarah Ferguson?

The former Duke of York's ex-wife, Sarah Ferguson, has until now lived with him at Royal Lodge, but the stripping of his titles and the order to surrender the lease mean she too must find new accommodation. According to recent reports, she is assessing “a number of options” for her future home.

Among the possibilities mentioned is a move outside of the UK; some sources say she is considering relocating to Portugal to be closer to her youngest daughter, Princess Eugenie. For now, the exact location remains unconfirmed, though she appears intent on establishing a more independent life following the upheaval surrounding Andrew.

A step back from public life

With his royal titles removed and his living situation in flux, Andrew appears to be stepping back fully from public royal life. That said, recent reports say he and Sarah Ferguson may make a rare public appearance together – their first since losing titles – at the christening of their granddaughter, Princess Beatrice’s daughter.

It suggests that, despite the upheaval, Andrew may continue to try maintaining some family connections, though under a much lower profile. But where has the former prince lived over the years before his fall from grace?

Click or scroll to discover the many homes of England’s ‘problem prince’…

READ MORE: Prince Andrew's life and homes

Born at Buckingham Palace on 19 February 1960, Andrew has a 10-year age gap with his eldest brother, King Charles. The young Prince is seen here in June 1961 with his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, on the balcony of the palace following the Trooping the Colour parade. Incredibly, he was the first child to be born to a reigning monarch for 103 years.

Prince Andrew's childhood home

The official home of the British monarch since 1837, Buckingham Palace was first and foremost a family home for Andrew. He was born in the Belgian Suite, named after King Leopold l of the Belgians, which was occupied by the late Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip in the early days of her reign. It is also where President Obama and the First Lady stayed during their visit in 2011.

Where was Prince Andrew baptised?

Andrew was christened in the palace Music Room on 8 April 1960. It’s a popular spot for royal christenings – King Charles and Prince William were both baptised here with water brought from the River Jordan.

Originally known as the Bow Drawing Room, the Music Room was completed in 1831 and has not been changed since. The room is also used as a space where guests can be presented to the monarch before dinner.

A palace playground

As Buckingham Palace only opened to the public in 1993, Andrew had free rein to explore its 775 rooms as a child, including 19 state rooms, 52 royal and guest bedrooms, 188 staff bedrooms, 92 offices, and 78 bathrooms, along with architect John Nash’s gilded Grand Staircase.

In total, the palace has an eye-watering 760 windows and 1,514 doors, as well as its own post office, cinema, and ATM installed by Coutts, the royals' bank of choice.

The White Drawing Room

Although Prince Andrew would not have used the state apartments every day, he would have undoubtedly enjoyed tearing through some of the grander rooms when visitors had gone home, not least the White Drawing Room, with its lavish gilded furniture that puts Trump Tower to shame.

The space has the added attraction of a secret door, disguised as a mirror cabinet, through which the late Queen used to enter from her private apartments.

The Throne Room

It is not hard to imagine the young Prince playing kings and queens with his friends in the Throne Room, seen here, which was also designed by John Nash.

The focal point of the room is a pair of throne chairs known as the Chairs of Estate, which were used for the Queen’s Coronation ceremony in 1953. The chairs were restored and used at various points during the King’s coronation on 6 May 2023.

The Duke's collection of 72 teddy bears

Although he left the palace behind when he attended boarding school as a teenager and later joined the Royal Navy, Andrew still maintained a suite of rooms at Buckingham Palace. He's said to have been especially meticulous about how the suite was arranged. 

For example, his extensive collection of 72 teddy bears reportedly had to be organised in a very particular way on his bed. According to Charlotte Briggs, a former staff member for the royal household in the 1990s, it was of the utmost importance: “As soon as I got the job, I was told about the teddies, and it was drilled into me how he wanted them... I even had a day’s training," she told the British newspaper The Sun.

Liking this? Click the Like button above. And click the Follow button above for more great stories from loveMONEY 

Banned from Buckingham Palace

However, Prince Andrew was purportedly banned from using his suite at the palace by the new King in January 2023, following the Jeffrey Epstein scandal.

The Prince is reported to have reached an out-of-court settlement with Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre, who accused him of sexual assault. The settlement stopped the case from going to trial in February 2023. Virginia tragically took her own life in April 2025.

The disastrous interview at Buckingham Palace

Buckingham Palace was also the scene of the former prince's infamous interview when he invited Newsnight inside the palace gates in November 2019.

The royal faced a backlash from his appearance on the TV show, where some viewers said he showed no concern for Epstein’s victims. In response to accusations of sexual abuse, he said that Virginia Giuffre’s claim that he was sweaty in a nightclub was untrue because an “overdose of adrenaline in the Falklands War” had left him unable to sweat.

Days later, his greatest champion, his mother the Queen, was forced to insist that he step back from public life "for the foreseeable future".

Gordonstoun

Nobody would have ever expected such a fall from grace for the popular young Prince, who had been sent to the notoriously strict Scottish boarding school Gordonstoun aged 13.

He proved himself quite the action man on the sports field during his time there, as well as obtaining three A-levels before graduating in 1979. His experience at the Spartan school was in sharp contrast to that of his elder brother, King Charles, who famously described Gordonstoun as “Colditz in kilts”.

Balmoral Castle

Andrew will recall many happy summers spent at Balmoral with his family when he was growing up. The Scottish Baronial-style castle, which sits in 50,000 acres (20,234ha) of wild Highlands countryside, has been a royal residence since 1852. Over the centuries, it's been a playground for generations of royal children, where they can run free and indulge in outdoor pursuits.

Balmoral Castle

Visiting the late Queen at Balmoral was a tradition that continued right up until the monarch’s death, with Andrew spending significant time at the estate during the summer of 2022, before the late monarch passed away there on 8 September of the same year.

According to reports, in 2023, the former Duke of York offered to manage the royal estates, including Balmoral, as part of a move to become more relevant, but had been told that “there is no chance of that happening”.

Sandringham House

Christmas for Andrew has traditionally been celebrated at Sandringham House in Norfolk, which, like Balmoral, is privately owned by the royal family.

The late Queen would typically stay until 6 February, the date of her father King George VI’s death and her ascension to the throne. The house dates to Elizabethan times and was snapped up by Queen Victoria in 1862 as a gift for her son, the future King Edward VII.

Sandringham House

A nine-year-old Prince Andrew seems to be trying out one of his Christmas presents in the drawing room at Sandringham House while his brother Charles examines the box. Although Andrew has always stayed at the main house in the past, in the wake of the Jeffrey Epstein scandal, he reportedly resided at Wood Farm Cottage in 2022, a property on the estate used by Prince Philip during his retirement.

Joining the Royal Navy

Following in his father’s footsteps, Andrew joined the Navy in 1979 and is seen in the background here, aged 19, at the Britannia Royal Naval College in the charming Devon town of Dartmouth.

He completed a two-year training course and became a helicopter pilot before graduating in 1980 in the presence of his mother, the Queen, who inspected the passing out parade (which included her son).

Falklands hero

Dubbed "Randy Andy" due to his fondness for the ladies, Andrew returned to a hero’s welcome in 1982 after a stint serving as a decoy helicopter pilot during the Falklands War. As a "spare" heir, he could afford to be more adventurous.

He was a popular royal figure and became romantically involved with American actress Koo Stark when he was 21. The pair went their separate ways in 1982, after Stark appeared in a controversial 'art-house film' that was deemed 'racy' at the time.

Prince Andrew gets married

A few years later, Andrew married the relatively down-to-earth Sarah Ferguson at Westminster Abbey in July 1986, whom the palace reportedly deemed a breath of fresh air after Andrew’s long list of unsuitable girlfriends.

They are seen here on the balcony at Buckingham Palace. They received the title of Duke and Duchess of York and had two daughters, Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie. The couple divorced 10 years later in May 1996, yet they remain friends.

Sunninghill Park

Upon their marriage, the couple was gifted a 665-acre (269ha) parcel of land on the Sunninghill Park Estate in Berkshire by the late Queen, which they set about developing into a swish 12-bedroom mansion, featuring grand reception rooms, stables, and a swimming pool. Construction work on the property began in 1987, and the couple took up residence in the new build in 1990.

The Dallas Palace

The property was dubbed "Southyork" and the "Dallas Palace", due to its uncanny resemblance to the ranch house in the 1980s US soap opera of the same name. Other commentators likened it to an out-of-town Tesco supermarket, while the ever-diplomatic late Duke of Edinburgh reportedly described Sunninghill Park as looking like “a tart’s bedroom”.

A home for the young royal family

Designed by Sir James Dunbar-Nasmith, who also created a development on the late Queen’s Balmoral estate, Sunninghill was built to accommodate the couple’s growing family in style.

Princess Beatrice, who was born in August 1988, was just two when the family moved in, while for her sister Eugenie, it was the only home she knew until she was 16 years old.

Unconventional living

Although Andrew and Fergie divorced in 1996, the couple continued to live under the same roof with their two daughters. Following the Queen Mother's death in 2002, the Duke decamped to the Royal Lodge in Windsor, her former residence, and Sunninghill Park was put on the market. The Duchess and their daughters followed in 2006, leaving the property vacant.

Fallen into disrepair

The property fell into disrepair after Sarah and the two princesses moved out, but some photographs taken in the mansion in 2008 give us an idea of how the home once looked.

The pair might be pleased they moved on, however, as the plot where the house stood is now under the Heathrow Airport flight path, with aeroplanes passing over every few minutes.

Let’s take a closer look at what the home looked like…

Grand reception rooms

In this formal drawing room, which has featured as a backdrop in several magazine interview spreads over the years, an elegant carved marble fireplace is flanked by two enormous floor-to-ceiling windows, swathed in reams of gold-tasselled brocade.

It was once furnished with gilded furniture and overstuffed sofas, with paintings from The Royal Collection adorning its walls. Pictured here, after the home was abandoned by the family, it looks like a shell of its former heyday glory.

Sold for £15 million

By contrast, this room has a much cosier feel, with its deep blue walls and bold floral motif on the carpet. It came as a surprise when the property sold in 2007 for £15 million ($20m), £3 million ($4m) over the asking price and the equivalent of £23.6 million ($31.5m) today, in a deal viewed by some as suspect.

It was later reported that the former Duke had been allegedly acting as a fixer for the buyer, Mr Kulibayev, in his business deals. According to Tatler, Andrew had enjoyed goose-hunting trips with his father-in-law, former president of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazabayev. The Duke denied any impropriety.

The Royal Lodge

For the past 21 years, Andrew has called the Royal Lodge home. The 30-room Windsor manse, located just a few miles from Windsor Castle, was formerly the residence of the Queen Mother and where the late Queen Elizabeth II spent many weekends growing up.

Andrew reportedly signed a 75-year lease for the Georgian property in 2003 and is said to have spent £7.5 million ($10m) in refurbishments, as well as putting down an initial £1 million ($1.3m) payment to secure the lease and paying a weekly rent of £250 ($333).

Pressure to move out

New additions to the property included an indoor swimming pool, and it also boasts a private chapel and eight additional properties for staff and guests.

However, in the wake of the King's coronation in 2023, Andrew began to face enormous pressure to vacate the property, including a significant slash to the annual £249,000 ($332k) grant he used to receive from the late Queen, which meant he would struggle to keep the lights on.

Frogmore Cottage

In a further twist, it was revealed in March 2023 that the King had asked Prince Harry and Meghan Markle to leave Frogmore Cottage, the Windsor home the couple leased following their wedding in 2018. 

Following the couple's departure, the cottage was reportedly offered to Andrew instead, though he was said to be reluctant to downsize to the five-bedroom home.

Ski chalet in Verbier

Back in 2014, Prince Andrew and his ex-wife, Sarah Ferguson, snapped up a holiday home near the slopes of Verbier in Switzerland. The seven-bedroom Chalet Helora is a luxury escape with breathtaking views of the Swiss Alps.

However, facing large legal bills over the sexual assault lawsuit brought by Virginia Guiffre in 2021, the Prince decided to part with the chalet in 2022 for a reported £19 million ($25.3m). It's believed to have been sold to a British financier, but the transaction did not leave the former prince flush with funds. 

Debt settled

According to British newspaper The Mirror,  Andrew still owed millions to the previous owner, Isabelle de Rouvre, who took legal action to try and recoup her money from the sale. According to de Rouvre, she is still owed £6.8 million ($9.1m) but agreed to a payment of £3.4 million ($4.5m) to settle the dispute. So there’ll be no sloping off for fun in the snow for Andrew for the time being. 

What does the future hold for the beleaguered Prince?

With looming financial uncertainty, eviction from his home, and even mounting pressure to leave the country, the future remains uncertain for the former prince, now known simply as Andrew Mountabatten-Windsor. We’ll have to wait and see what the new year brings for the former royal, and what life might look like without the privilege of a title and family estate to fall back on.

Liked this? Click the Like button above. And click the Follow button above for more great stories from loveMONEY