59-67, PORTLAND PLACE W1

Nos 59 to 67 Portland Place are large terraced townhouses built between 1776 and 1780 by James Adam, along with his brothers and John Elwes, as part of a speculative development on a Portland Estate lease. The buildings are constructed of stock brick with channelled stucco ground floors, while No 67 is fully stuccoed from the mid-19th century. They feature slate roofs and have been designed as part of a symmetrical block with Nos 49 and 51.

The façades are four storeys high, except for No 59, which has a mansard roof behind a pediment. Each house has a three-window wide front. The semicircular arched doorways are located to the left on Nos 59 and 61, with moulded surrounds, while the rest have doorways to the right with channelling struck to the arches. No 67 features added vermiculations. The doors are panelled with sidelights, and the windows on the upper floors are recessed sashes under flat gauged arches. Nos 65 and 67 have architraves, and No 67 has shallow ornamented pilasters and pediments above the first-floor windows.

Additional architectural details include a plat band over the ground floor stuccowork, a moulded stucco band over the first floor, and a main cornice over the second floor. The attic cornice has a blocking course. No 59 and the left-hand bay of No 61 are adorned with giant Ionic pilasters extending through the first and second floors, topped with a broad shallow pediment. The first floor features cast iron Grecian and scrolled balconies from the mid-19th century, and there are plumbed spike finialed area railings.

Inside, there are several original Adam features, including plasterwork, stone geometrical staircases with wrought iron balustrades, and statuary marble chimneypieces. No 61 has neo-Palladian decoration from around 1900 on the ground floor.