Lansdowne House

Coordinates: 51°30′30″N 0°8′44″W / 51.50833°N 0.14556°W / 51.50833; -0.14556

Lansdowne House before demolition of the front rooms, 1920s
Lansdowne House, Berkeley Square and Devonshire House on a map of 1895
A plan of the main floor of the house published in 1765.

Lansdowne House is a building to the southwest of Berkeley Square in the City of Westminster, England, much of which is now demolished. It has been owned by three British Prime Ministers, and some of its 18th-century interiors, among the best in London, were removed and re-installed elsewhere. The surviving part of the house was granted Grade II* Listed Building status in 1970.[1]

The surviving part of the historic house is now the home of the Lansdowne Club.

History

It was designed by Robert Adam as a private house for John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute but in 1763 he sold it unfinished to William Petty, 2nd Earl of Shelburne (both men became Prime Minister). Shelburne retained Adam until 1771, when his wife died, with parts of the decoration still incomplete. George Dance the Younger and Robert Smirke later worked on the house.

From 1763 to 1929 it belonged to the Petty-FitzMaurice family, Marquesses of Lansdowne. In 1931 part of the original house was demolished to allow a new road to be built. Since 1935, part of it has been the home of the Lansdowne Club. The positioning of the property was rather unusual. It had a large front garden occupying the whole of the southern side of the square, which it faced side on. This arrangement gave Devonshire House on Piccadilly an open aspect behind as far as the square.

Famous former owners or residents of Lansdowne House include:

Partial demolition and dispersal

Interior of a drawing room, now installed in the Philadelphia Museum of Art

In the 1930s, the Metropolitan Borough of Westminster Council decided to construct a road link from Berkeley Square to Curzon Street, which required the demolition of all the front rooms of Lansdowne House. One of Adam's three drawing rooms was removed and installed at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, while the Dining Room went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.[2] The facade was rebuilt in a modified form at the front of the reduced house.

Much of the house's collections, such as the Lansdowne Amazon and the Lansdowne Hercules, were also bought by American and British museums. Other objects were transferred to Bowood House, the Lansdowne country house, where Adam also worked. This remains in the family, though large parts of it were also demolished, in 1956.

A large office block was built on the front garden on the southern edge of the square at what is now Nos. 55–59 Berkeley Square. This new building inherited the name of the old house, while the address No. 9 Fitzmaurice Place still points to the original location, where the Lansdowne Club is now undergoing extensive renovations begun in 2000. On 1 May 1935, the Lansdowne Club opened as a 'social, residential and athletic Club for members of social standing…'. This includes some of the 18th-century rooms, with others added in the 1930s in Art Deco style.[3]

References

  1. ↑ National Heritage List for England
  2. ↑ Drawing Room from Lansdowne House with elements by Robert Adam, Antonio Zucchi, Giovanni Battista Cipriani, and Joseph Perfetti on the website of the Philadelphia Museum of Art
  3. ↑ "About the Club", Lansdowne Club (with old photos)
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