Prince William and Kate Middleton can’t live full-time in new home

Prince William and Kate Middleton won’t be able to live full-time in their lavish new Windsor home when they become king and queen, Page Six is told.

Aides last week briefed that Forest Lodge, valued at $21 million, will be the couple’s “forever home” — however, that’s not quite the case.

Although the sprawling property, which lies within the secure grounds of Windsor Castle, will give the Prince and Princess of Wales much more space — eight bedrooms compared to their current home’s four — they will still have to spend plenty of time at Buckingham Palace once William ascends the throne.

“They will have to have a London base,” Hugo Vickers, writer and friend of the royal family, told Page Six.

“Remember, when [Queen Elizabeth] was at Windsor when [then Prime Minister] Theresa May was stepping down in July 2019, she had to go back and forth to accept May’s resignation and then greet the new PM, Boris Johnson,” Vickers said.

“The king has to be somewhere convenient to the center of government. They can’t expect ministers to come to Windsor. I am sure William and Catherine will have to use Buckingham Palace as their London base and also for ceremonial duties.”

The Waleses also still have access to their former full-time home, Apartment 1A inside Kensington Palace, which they spent $6.5 million in British taxpayer funds renovating, and their Norfolk estate, Anmer Hall.

The family — including Prince George, 12, Princess Charlotte, 10, and Prince Louis, 7, who all attend nearby Lambrook School — moved to their current home, Adelaide Cottage in Windsor, to be closer to Queen Elizabeth, who largely left Buckingham Palace for Windsor Castle during the pandemic. She passed away only a month after the young family arrived.

They’re now expected to move into Forest Lodge later this year. The property is currently undergoing renovations — with the couple are paying for both the construction work and the market-rate rent themselves, rather than having the taxpayers foot the bill.

Sources told The Sun that the move will mark a fresh start for the family after what William, 43, has called the “hardest” year of his life: Both Kate, also 43, and King Charles revealed their cancer diagnoses in 2024.

Royal Lodge has quite a torrid history, Page Six is told.

Sir John Aird, a former equerry to King Edward VIII (aka the Duke of Windsor), was a tenant from 1937 until his death in 1973 — when he shot himself in bed at the nearby King Edward VII hospital after receiving a cancer diagnosis.

Reports at the time said he had asked his wife, Lady Priscilla, to bring his briefcase containing his gun to the hospital.

The Daily Mail revealed on Sunday that the most recent tenants of Forest Lodge were society party fixer Alex Fitzgibbons and his glamorous Swedish-American wife Cristina Stenbeck.

Fitzgibbons reportedly decided to move out after hearing rumors that his home might be taken back by his landlords.

After news broke of the Waleses’ move, it was reported that at least two households were asked to vacate their homes earlier this summer to make way for the royal family.