Embassy Court is an 11-storey block of flats on the seafront in Brighton, part of the English city of Brighton and Hove. It has been listed at Grade II* by English Heritage. Wells Coates' "extremely controversial" piece of Modernist architecture has "divided opinion across the city" since its completion in 1935, and continues to generate strong feelings among residents, architectural historians and conservationists.

The flats were originally let at high rents to wealthy residents, including Max Miller, Rex Harrison and Terence Rattigan, and features such as enclosed balconies and England's first penthouse suites made the 72-apartment, 11-storey building "one of the most desirable and sought-after addresses in Brighton and Hove". Its fortunes changed dramatically from the 1970s, though, as a succession of complex court cases set leaseholders, freeholders and landlords against each other while the building rotted. By the start of the 21st century it was an "embarrassing eyesore" which was close to being demolished, despite its listed status. Proposals to refurbish the block came to nothing until the court cases concluded in 2004 and Sir Terence Conran's architectural practice was brought in. With an investment of £5 million, raised entirely by the residents, Embassy Court was overhauled: by 2006 it had been restored to its original status as a high-class residence, in contrast to its poor late-20th-century reputation.

At the junction of Western Street and Kings Road on Brighton seafront, just on the Brighton side of the ancient parish boundary between Brighton and Hove, stood a 19th-century villa called Western House. Owners included Waldorf Astor, 2nd Viscount Astor and the drag king Vesta Tilley. In 1930 the site was chosen for redevelopment and the building and its grounds were demolished. Nothing took its place immediately, though, except for a temporary racetrack and miniature golf course. Developers Maddox Properties acquired the site and in 1934 enlisted Wells Coates, a Modernist architect responsible for the striking Isokon building in London earlier that year, to design a block of luxury flats as a speculative development.

Embassy Court was completed in 1935. Its reinforced concrete structure and steel-framed doors and windows were distinctive features, and other facilities included a ground-floor bank, partly enclosed balconies to every one of the 72 flats, and England's first penthouse suites. These occupied the top (11th) floor; the other ten storeys had seven flats each. Each flat was "all-electric", including the space heating in the form of ceiling panels. A constant hot water supply was achieved by generating and storing it in a thermal energy storage system in the basement. Coates commented: "Old ideas have been discarded and a new building has arisen to greet a new age that thinks of happiness in terms of health".

The building's height and bold appearance, "something like a great ocean liner", contrasted with the Regency-style terraces to the east, west and north—in particular the 110-year-old "palace-fronted terraces" of Brunswick Terrace, "as grand as anything in St Petersburg", and the monumental Brunswick Square behind it. It received much praise at first: a 1936 edition of the Architects' Journal claimed that the building "thrill[ed] one to the marrow", and Alderman Sir Herbert Carden, "the maker of modern Brighton" who was responsible for many interwar improvements in the Borough of Brighton, was so taken with its Modernist style that he campaigned for every other building along the seafront to be demolished and replaced with Embassy Court-style housing, all the way from Hove to Kemp Town. Writing in 1935, in a piece accompanied by a large illustration of Embassy Court-style buildings along Kings Road, he wrote "Embassy Court ... has shown us the way to build for the new age. Along our waterfront new buildings such as this must come". This "pre-war indifference to the historic fabric of the town" resulted in the first of many local conservation societies, the Regency Society, being formed, and prompted a greater appreciation of Brighton's 19th-century architectural heritage.

All 72 flats were initially rented out rather than sold to owner-occupiers. Rents varied between £150 and £500 per year—expensive for that time, and similar to the cost of a house in Brighton. The ground-floor bank branch lasted until February 1948, when it was converted into a restaurant; this was only in use for five years. Major renovations were then carried out in the 1960s: new doors, windows and lifts were installed.

The building's high-class status declined from the 1970s when the freehold changed hands frequently and many flats were acquired by absentee landlords. Many leaseholders built up long-term rent arrears, and lack of clarity over ownership made raising money for refurbishment difficult. Embassy Court gradually fell into disrepair. The freeholder until 1997 was a company called Portvale Ltd (a subsidiary company of Portvale Holdings Ltd) that was put into liquidation when a court case resulted in a demand to spend £1.5 million on maintenance. The Crown Estate Commissioners then took possession of the freehold, but Embassy Court's leaseholders established a company, Bluestorm Ltd, to buy it; this was achieved after another court case.

The first plans for refurbishing the building were announced in April 1998. The leaseholders' association commissioned local architects Alan Phillips and Matthew Lloyd to undertake design work and Ove Arup and Partners for their structural engineering expertise. Work was expected to cost £3 million to £4 million, of which a grant from the Government's Single Regeneration Budget would have covered £1.4 million. The project depended on the Sanctuary Housing Association acquiring the leases to 26 flats and the Crown Estate Commissioners transferring ownership of the freehold to the leaseholders' association. The proposed work was described as a "complete refurbishment" and would have lasted until 2000.