North House And Gayfere House Including 22 And 23 Gayfere Street

North House and Gayfere House (including 22 and 23 Gayfere Street) form an L-shaped group of four terraced town houses built between 1929 and 1932 by Oliver Hill. They are constructed of red brick with Portland stone detailing, with tiled roofs, and were designed in a simplified and rather austere Queen Anne style that deliberately blends with the surrounding Georgian and Edwardian buildings of Westminster. North House and Gayfere House were converted to office use in 1949-50, with further works in the 1970s and 1980s. Numbers 22 and 23 Gayfere Street were refurbished as interlinked offices in 1999.

The group comprises North House on the corner of Great Peter Street and Lord North Street, with the adjoining Gayfere House on the corner of Great Peter Street and Gayfere Street. Despite some detailing differences, the front of the building is largely symmetrical, though Gayfere House occupies only the western bay while the central bay is fully occupied by North House. Numbers 22 and 23 Gayfere Street run south from Gayfere House.

All four houses are three storeys over an ashlar-clad basement, with dormer windows in the mansard roof lighting attic accommodation. North and Gayfere Houses have one attic floor, while 22 and 23 Gayfere Street have two. Coherence across the group comes from the use of matching materials and a broad, moulded stone string course between ground and first floors, together with a unified window arrangement. The principal first-floor rooms have tall four-over-nine small-paned sashes, with identical but shorter four-over-six sashes to the ground floor and four-over-five sashes to the second floor. The superior status of North and Gayfere Houses is marked by each having three slightly projecting bays to their centres with modest pediments above.

North and Gayfere Houses have adjoining central entrances on Great Peter Street, framed by tall semi-circular arches. The left arch frames the doorway to North House, while the right arch originally opened (now enclosed) to a passage that gave access to a common rear space with a contemporary car garage (now divided into office space) with pedimented facade. This garage was originally shared by the two houses and had a turntable to the front, no longer present. The entrance to Gayfere House, which opened off this passage, is now blocked. A four-storey brick extension of 1984 to the rear of North and Gayfere Houses housing a lift shaft and lift lobby is not of special interest.

Numbers 22 (to the right) and 23 Gayfere Street were built as two near-identical houses. The only slight differences are to their entrances—that to 23 is set back in a tall recess while that to 22 is flush to the facade with a stone surround—and to their basement and ground-floor layouts.

While North House has seen considerable alteration in 1949-50 and later, with changes to internal spaces and the loss of much opulent finishing and materials within individual rooms, it retains a number of spaces and features from the early 1930s. An arch-headed double door gives into a split-level entrance hall with a short flight of broad steps rising to the main level, with an alcove in the facing wall. From here rises the main broad staircase of honey-coloured marble with green marble insets to the risers and decorative wrought metal (verdigris bronze, now painted black) balustrade panels. Two large engaged columns in a derivative Ionic style in Bianco del Mare marble stand alongside as a screen. A short hallway, with a study to the left containing white-painted panelling and a bolection-moulded fireplace in early 18th-century style, leads to the former dining room occupying the east end of the ground floor (facing Lord North Street), which retains the almost flush fire surround. The staircase with balustrade panels continues to the first floor, wholly occupied by the former drawing room with a bolection-moulded stone fire surround in the long side wall.

Gayfere House saw similar changes to North House in 1949-50 and later, but similarly retains a number of spaces and features from the early 1930s. Much of the main staircase survives, although the original entry flight is missing, as is that between the second and third floors. The staircase has wrought iron panels and rails which have been painted, heightened and otherwise altered. On the ground floor, sections of the floor of the former dining room survive, of travertine with a stainless steel inset around the edge. On the first floor, elements of the decorative treatment of the drawing room remain in place, notably fluted wooden pilasters (not all original; some altered at high level) around the walls and the greater part of the main doorway into the room. The most striking feature of the original room, its glass over painted silk wall coverings, does not survive.

When built, 22 and 23 Gayfere Street both had a basement with kitchen and services; ground floor with dining room and study (23) or maid's sitting room (22); first floor with drawing room and library; second floor with two bedrooms and a bathroom; third floor with another bedroom and bathroom; and a further bedroom floor above. The basic plan form survives little altered, although in 1999 the two houses were knocked through and converted to provide high-quality office accommodation with a staff kitchen in the basement. The first- and second-floor rooms each have a rear wall forming a large bay window lit from the inner courtyard. Of any original fixtures, only the staircases remain. These are typical of Hill's work elsewhere, with stubby, widely-spaced balusters in 17th-century style, although the staircases have seen some alteration.

Construction of the houses, planned in 1929-30, was completed in 1932 with Oliver Hill supplying both the overall plan and detailed interior design. Of the two main houses fronting Great Peter Street, North House was built for Mr and Mrs Robert Hudson MP, and Gayfere House for Mr and Mrs Wilfrid Ashley (later Lord and Lady Mount Temple).

The interiors of North and Gayfere Houses were individually designed for the two sets of clients by Hill, although with a common feel and materials which looked forward to his later work on Modernist buildings and which reflected contemporary Art Deco fashions. "Vogue Regency" accurately characterises Hill's use of surface treatments to create illusion, luxury and glamour. Of the two, Gayfere House was the more glamorous, as the client, Mrs Wilfrid Ashley, a renowned socialite, wished to pursue her ambitions as an interior decorator using modern materials to express her ideas of "a house of today—and perhaps tomorrow." Here marble, mirrors, stainless steel and unusual woods were employed to create a "decorative tour de force." North House was more conservative (albeit with a spectacular grand staircase to greet the visitor), but again Hill was in charge of every detail, including the furniture. Both interiors were covered in some detail by the contemporary architectural press.

Numbers 22 and 23 Gayfere Street, which are smaller than North and Gayfere Houses, were built as a speculative development to be sold at auction. These never had opulent decoration, and their interiors escaped notice in the articles on the grander neighbouring properties.

Oliver Hill (1887-1968) came to prominence as a fashionable architect in the 1920s, working in neo-vernacular and neo-Georgian styles on country houses. His work on North and Gayfere Houses marked the start of a move to more modern styles, one more clearly articulated in Joldwynds, Holmbury St Mary, Surrey (1930-2; listed Grade II), one of the country's first Modernist houses. Other commissions followed in the 1930s, but very few after World War II.

North and Gayfere Houses were converted to office use by the Crown Agents in 1949-50, and further works were carried out in the 1970s. The houses were vacated by the Crown Agents in 1981, and in 1983 the freehold was sold to a private owner. Further major alterations followed in the mid 1980s. In the first years of the 21st century the office interiors were stripped out.

Numbers 22 and 23 Gayfere Street were occupied by the Crown Agents from 1950 to 1981; their freehold was also sold in 1983. They were altered and refurbished in 1999 when they were laterally linked at each floor.