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The future appears uncertain for Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie amidst their parents' public disgrace due to connections with convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein. Beatrice was recently seen visiting Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson at the Royal Lodge after Andrew relinquished his Duke of York title, but Eugenie has remained out of sight. Both princesses seem to be distancing themselves from their parents as the scandal continues. In recent times, the sisters have become infrequent visitors to the Royal Lodge - the 30-room residence they once called home. Andrew is under immense pressure to surrender the property; it's been suggested that he had intended to keep the Lodge within the family, planning to leave it to his daughters. This wouldn't be the first time the Princesses have missed out on a significant inheritance. In 1997, they were gifted a £1.5million seven-bedroom Georgian mansion in Surrey by their late grandmother, the Queen . The Grade II-listed Birch Hall was bought by trustees acting on behalf of the Queen following Sarah and Andrew's divorce in 1996, reports the Mirror . However, the princesses never actually moved in because their mother was reportedly concerned she wouldn't be able to afford the maintenance and running costs. Instead, the family continued to reside together at Sarah and Prince Andrew's former marital home, Sunninghill Park. The Surrey estate, nestled in the picturesque village of Windlesham, remained vacant for two years before being purchased in 1999 for £1.5million. It was subsequently listed for sale again in 2016 for £4.2million by the private buyers who had acquired it from the royals. Birch Hall features seven bedrooms, four bathrooms and five reception rooms, and sits on five acres of grounds with expansive lawns, a tennis court, its own outdoor heated swimming pool, and a separate two-bedroom staff cottage. The subsequent owners enhanced the property with a media and games room, an orangery and a home gymnasium. When the property was marketed in 2016, Andrew Russell from estate agents Strutt and Parker told the Daily Mail: "It's probably one of the very best of north Surrey's village houses, there's not that many that come on the market. It's a proper country house with five acres of grounds. "The house itself is a very attractive and imposing-looking property. Some of the rooms are really quite dramatic, with high ceilings and full floor to ceiling sash windows. It's got a swimming pool, tennis court and beautiful specimen trees dating from Victorian times in the garden." Discussing its Royal connections, Andrew added, "The owners bought it from the trustees acting for the Queen in 1999. The trustees bought it in 1997 for the princesses and I imagine it was chosen because it's a pretty house in a popular village and the gardens are a real draw, it's more like parkland. But they never moved in." The owners have revamped the house, as he explained: "They reconfigured the staircase and updated the house throughout, moving the kitchen so it overlooks the garden and swimming pool." Princess Beatrice resides in a £3.5million farmhouse in the Cotswolds with her husband Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi and their children. On the other hand, Eugenie and her family divide their time between Ivy Cottage at Kensington Palace and their main residence in Portugal.
