For sale: The first flat they got with a little help from their friend

The only home where the Beatles lived together is for sale.

In the autumn of 1963 Beatlemania was sweeping the country. The band had just enjoyed a No 1 hit with She Loves You and were about to conquer America.

John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr were already far too famous to stay in hotels as hundreds of screaming fans would gather outside, desperate for a glimpse of the Fab Four.

There was only one thing for it: they were going to have to rent a flat so they could have a bit of privacy between recording sessions and TV appearances. Their manager Brian Epstein found one on the fourth floor of a building in Green Street, Mayfair - now on the market for £1.75 million.

It was the setting for one of the band's early publicity photographs - a shot of them peering over a bannister which was used as the cover for the December 1963 edition of The Beatles Book. The bannister is still at the top of the building's stairwell.

Sir Paul recalled recently how the group would travel back and forth between London and their home city of Liverpool but then work made it too much to keep going back, so they stayed at the Hotel President in Bloomsbury before renting the flat.

Although they stayed only a relatively short time - Lennon and McCartney were the first to move out - it is still referred to by enthusiasts as "The Beatles flat".

McCartney moved in with his then girlfriend Jane Asher's family in Wimpole Street and Lennon rented a flat in Emperor's Gate, Kensington, with his first wife Cynthia. A few months later, Harrison and Starr moved into a flat in Whaddon Mews, Knightsbridge, where Epstein also had one.

The Green Street flat was reconfigured after 1963 and now has a reception/dining room, master bedroom with en suite bathroom, guest bedroom, shower room, kitchen and laundry room. It has recently been refurbished and still has 90 years left on the lease.

Peter Bevan of estate agent Sotheby's said: "The current owner is an American financier who lives in California and inherited the flat from a relative.

"When the Beatles were there there were three smallish bedrooms and one bathroom. He had it remodelled into a more contemporary layout but doesn't need it any more.

"He is certainly aware of the Beatles connection and supplied us with the 1963 Beatles Book. I wouldn't say he was an enthusiast."