{"id":596468,"date":"2026-05-21T16:47:15","date_gmt":"2026-05-21T16:47:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/596468\/"},"modified":"2026-05-21T16:47:15","modified_gmt":"2026-05-21T16:47:15","slug":"inside-a-wealthy-tech-bros-bruce-wayne-style-30m-super-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/596468\/","title":{"rendered":"Inside a wealthy tech bro\u2019s Bruce Wayne-style \u00a330m super-home"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sergey Frolovichev, 46, is describing his \u201cbat cave\u201d. It is beneath the garden of his mansion in Hampstead, north London, which he has just spent \u00a315 million \u2014 and more than five years \u2014 dismantling and rebuilding.<\/p>\n

The room, the Anglo-Russian software supremo explains, can be accessed via a staircase from a corner of the living room, concealed by retracting floorboards \u2014 with the design inspired by his favourite film, The Dark Knight.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"CollageSergey Frolovichev, right, an Anglo-Russian software expert, is selling his north London mansion for \u00a329.95 million via Draper LondonVicki Couchman\/SERGEY FROLOVICHEV\/DRAPER LONDON<\/p>\n

\u201cIt [the 2008 Batman film] was amazing, amazing special effects, everything,\u201d says Frolovichev, who made a windfall by developing dating apps with his billionaire business associate, Andrey Andreev.<\/p>\n

\"MichaelMichael Caine and Christian Bale starred in Christopher Nolan\u2019s Dark Knight trilogy; Frolovichev, a fan of the films, partly based the design of the \u201cman cave\u201d beneath his garden on Bruce Wayne\u2019s bat caveAlamy<\/p>\n

\"IllustrationHow Frolovichev\u2019s high-tech subterranean room, which he carved under the garden, could look, including tools and 3D printersDRAPER LONDON<\/p>\n

\u201cThe man cave, I needed it because I wanted an escape. To do something with my hands rather than with my brain because I thought it would help a lot for my health. I have 3D printers. I like woodworking, just for fun as a hobby.\u201d <\/p>\n

Frolovichev doesn\u2019t do hobbies by halves. He designed the entrance to the bat cave specifically so it could fit a factory-style cutting machine through the door. \u201cAnd it does fit \u2014 sideways and then a little bit unscrewed \u2014 but it does fit,\u201d he says, speaking by video call from his retreat near Lake Como in Italy.<\/p>\n

He even explored Batman-style plans to install sensor-controlled overhead lights that would beam on and off automatically as you walked past \u2014 creating the kind of silhouetted effect seen in his beloved movie \u2014 but this was ultimately abandoned. (\u201cIt was value-engineered out,\u201d a representative of the contractors, who showed me around the house, explained soberly.)\u00a0<\/p>\n

Such are the design considerations for a wealthy gadget-obsessed guy \u2014 but Frolovichev is far from any old tech bro. He is the longstanding and famously reclusive IT brains working with Andreev, the Anglo-Russian cofounder of MagicLab, and was central to creating the Bumble and Badoo apps that were sold to Blackstone, the American asset manager, in 2019 for $3 billion. The pair have worked together on numerous ventures ever since moving to the UK at the same time, in 2005.<\/p>\n

During Covid, shortly after the MagicLab sale, Frolovichev (whose exact windfall from the sale has not been disclosed) spent \u00a313.35 million on this house on Greenaway Gardens, a five-minute walk from Hampstead Village, and embarked on his mega-rebuild. While construction was going on, he left Britain, ending a tenancy on a central London flat, and moved with his wife to Monaco and then Italy, where they had two children and bought homes in Milan and Como.<\/p>\n

\"IllustrationFrolovichev bought the Hampstead property during the Covid pandemicDRAPER LONDON (concept design)<\/p>\n

\"IllustrationThe rear of the property reveals the scale of the rebuildDRAPER LONDON (concept design)<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a rebuild so extensive, and done to such a high specification, that it cost more than the entire 14,500 sq ft house\u2019s original purchase price so far, and has more than doubled its value. For Frolovichev, along with many of the mega-rich owners in this exclusive leafy street of financiers, tech bros and celebrities, money was no object.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is supposed to be our beautiful dream house,\u201d he explains, giving what he says is his first interview. But Frolovichev then goes on to explain to me why \u2014 in that ultimate manoeuvre of the very rich \u2014 he has decided that, after all the effort and money spent, he won\u2019t move in after all.<\/p>\n

A house with its own well \u2014 and a retractable pool <\/p>\n

As I look around the house, which is \u201cshell and core\u201d \u2014 fully plumbed, wired, heated and ready for furnishings \u2014 it is mighty impressive in scale. However, it bears zero resemblance to the original suburban neo-Georgian home built in 1934 by the English architect Charles Henry Bourne Quennell. <\/p>\n

\u201cFrom a construction perspective, the house is fully operational. It really is \u2018plug-and-play\u2019 now. They\u2019ve spent a fortune to get to this stage,\u201d says Craig Draper, founder and managing director at Draper London. He sold Frolovichev the mansion in 2021 when he was a partner at Knight Frank.<\/p>\n

In front of me, as I enter, is a triple-height galleried entrance hall with cantilevered staircase leading up to multiple floors, perfect for a grand stately home-style entrance. Upstairs are eight reception rooms and seven vast bedrooms.<\/p>\n

\"IllustrationFrolovichev spared no expense on the upgrade of the mansion, as these concept interior designs showDRAPER LONDON<\/p>\n

\"IllustrationOne of the seven bedroomsDRAPER LONDON<\/p>\n

There is a swimming pool that drains to become a dancefloor, beneath which is an intricate system of pipes and levers any tech geek would love; a hangout room with infrastructure for a cocktail bar, a cinema, a wine storage area and a multi-layered landscape garden designed by Kate Gould Gardens. There are huge triple-glazed sliding garden doors that can retract to merge the indoors and outdoors.<\/p>\n

\"IllustrationThe indoor swimming pool can be drained to become a dancefloorDRAPER LONDON<\/p>\n

Money was never a constraint, Frolovichev makes clear to me. \u201cSometimes they [the architects, SHH, and contractors] said to me, \u2018Why do you want this? It\u2019s too expensive. You can get a cheaper one.\u2019 But I said, no, it\u2019s for me, I want to have it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to have the pool which raises from the floor, because I will have the kids\u2019 parties there \u2014 sometimes with the pool, sometimes without.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I want a car stacker. Why? Because I want to have two cars. I will have two cars, at least, [which] means I have to store them somewhere. I don\u2019t want to put them outside because\u2026 it\u2019s outside.\u201d<\/p>\n

Throughout the build, Frolovichev has been obsessed with detail, epitomised by a vast underground plant room bigger than most medium-sized office blocks, with 47 control panels for the heating and hot water systems, including underfloor heating, an energy-efficient ground source heating system for self-sufficiency, and fresh air delivery to all rooms.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"CollageThe home\u2019s vast high-tech plant roomDRAPER LONDON<\/p>\n

There are plenty of eccentric touches too, including a well in the garden, so that the house has its own water supply. \u201cWe started doing the underground ground source heat pump. They bored the holes and while they were digging they said, \u2018Oh, there\u2019s water. We just hit water.\u2019 And I said, \u2018Can you dig another one? And we\u2019ll have a well for the water.\u2019 And they said, \u2018Sure.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

While Frolovichev emphasises that he is motivated by sustainability, I suggest there\u2019s rather an element of prepping about all this \u2014 the drinking water, the secret underground lair and so forth. After all, a host of tech gurus have made headlines for constructing their own sprawling homes designed to guarantee their own survival when the world comes to an end \u2014 including Mark Zuckerberg, the Meta chief executive, who has a $300 million ultra-private compound in Hawaii complete with a 5,000 sq ft underground shelter with his own food and energy supplies.<\/p>\n

Frolovichev admits that being self-sufficient has crossed his mind, and refers to a 12-hour blackout in Spain last spring caused by programming errors by Spain\u2019s national grid operator. \u201cNot much you can do without the electricity in your house, right? You have some diesel generators, which will help you out, but if you\u2019re working, if you\u2019re doing something, that\u2019s a disaster.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Why I\u2019m not moving in after all<\/p>\n

He, his wife and two children, aged four and two, will now stay put in Italy, where they had initially moved to wait out the exhaustive renovations.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a bigger house in Como and a smaller apartment in Milan. It\u2019s basically the dream set-up, like a flat in London and an estate in Surrey,\u201d he says.\u00a0\u201cSo now we sit down and we look at the beautiful views [of Italy] and we\u2019re thinking about how we\u2019ve already started things here, and we thought, \u2018Why are we going back again?\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019d need to set up everything, we\u2019d need to finish the house. We\u2019d need to find schools.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a result, the Greenaway Gardens mansion is on the market <\/a>with Draper London<\/a> for \u00a329.95 million.\u00a0Draper says the house is the perfect blank canvas for a billionaire. He stresses that a buyer will get to see Frolovichev\u2019s architectural plans and can choose SHH, the existing architectural firm, to complete his project. Or they could simply hire somebody else to finish it off and do things entirely differently. <\/p>\n

\"IllustrationThe sunken rear terraceDRAPER LONDON<\/p>\n

\"IllustrationThe kitchen with breakfast barDRAPER LONDON<\/p>\n

The home could be worth \u00a340 million once completed and dressed, suggests Draper, who adds it could appeal to buyers from here or abroad. However, filling it with stuff and furnishings, he adds, will cost up to \u00a37 million more and take 12 to 18 months (at this point, the numbers being bandied about just seem like the stuff of fantasy).<\/p>\n

\u201cThe road has always been significantly high value. But in more recent years, we\u2019ve had some major hitters who have moved in,\u201d Draper says, standing on Greenaway Gardens. \u201cThese are owner-occupier fund managers. They spend astronomical sums on the properties\u2026 I can\u2019t even get into it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Plus, Frolovichev says it\u2019s way better for any buyer that they purchase the house without any decor in it \u2014 after all, if they\u2019re anything like him, they would rip it out anyway. \u201cBuying a white box, it\u2019s the best-case scenario,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n