Home House (Courtauld Institute)

TQ 2781 SE and 2881 SW CITY OF WESTMINSTER PORTMAN SQUARE, Wl 54/37 ; 55/36 (north side) 10.9.54 No. 20 (courtauld Institute) Home House G.V. I Terraced town mansion. 1773-76, by Robert Adam for Elizabeth, Countess of Home; retaining exceptional Adam interior. Brown brick; concealed slate roof. Elevation designed to form one composition with No. 21 q.v. 4 storeys (attic storey an addition) and basement. 5 windows wide. Semicircular arched doorway in 2nd bay from right, under projecting painted stone porch with slender fluted Doric columns, dentil cornice and shallow pediment with die-acroterion. Ground floor recessed sashes with flat gauged arches set in blind arcade with stuccoed roundels in spandrels. 1st floor has recessed French casements, and upper floors recessed sashes, all under flat gauged arches. Painted stone guilloche bands above 1st floor and as sill band to 2nd floor with, in between, painted stone panels framing garlands and paterae. Cornice over 3rd floor and stucco balustrade to later attic. Continuous, cast iron, simple geometric patterned balcony across 1st floor. Wrought iron area railings with urn finials. Rear garden elevation has bowed, stucco, Ionic columned portico-porch; recessed sashes and a Venetian window composition to ground and 1st floors; 4 Coade stone circular relief medallions below 2nd floor windows and cornice below 4th attic floor crowned by balustraded parapet. Very fine Adam interior with plasterwork by Joseph Rose and inset painted panels and roundels by Zucchi and Angelica Kaufmann, the room shapes modelled in depth with a typically inventive Adam use of varied apsidal and screened volumes and outstanding quality of original finishes and furnishings. Spectacular circular tower-stairwell, set behind entrance hall, and top lit by dome, the stairs rising in one arm to niched landing and returning in 2 curved arms, with moulded soffits, to 1st floor; gallery at 3rd floor; refined wrought iron and gilded balustrade of open work pilaster pattern with anthemion and bucrania enrichment. The principal decorated rooms are the front and back drawing rooms, music room and back parlour with delicate colour schemes, stuccowork, attenuated architectural detailing and small-scale ornament; statuary marble and scagliola chimneypieces; etc. Home House; Margaret Whinney.

Listing NGR: TQ2799881305