Winfield House

Winfield House, located on the Outer Circle within Regent's Park, is a detached house built in 1936 by L. Rome Guthrie of Wimperis, Simpson and Guthrie for Barbara Hutton. It now serves as the United States Ambassador's residence, set within extensive grounds. The house is constructed of red brick with Portland stone dressings and a slate mansard roof.

The main entrance front has thirteen bays, with projecting three-bay wings on either side. A single-story entrance extension features a central door flanked by Doric columns supporting a segment-topped parapet, which incorporates a relief of the seal of the United States. A continuous heavy stone cornice runs around all sides, and the corners are marked by angle quoins. The ground floor has French windows with mullions and transoms, while the first-floor features six-over-nine pane sash windows. Dormer windows with six-over-six panes light the attic storey. The garden front is thirteen bays wide, dominated by a central, pedimented portico with four giant Corinthian pilasters, a stone-fronted centrepiece with an arcade on the ground floor, and a cartouche with festoons in the tympanum. The east elevation, of five bays, includes a single-story extension with attic space, trellis decoration on the garden side, a large brick chimney stack, and channelled angle quoins surmounted with urns on the parapet.

The interior layout includes reception rooms on the ground floor and living quarters above. A service range is located to the east. Notable interior features include a reception hall adorned with neo-Adam plasterwork and accessed via a screen of paired, fluted Doric columns; pilasters with Doric entablatures, and pedimented doorcases on the walls. The Green or Garden Room is decorated with Chinese wallpaper – originally from Townley Castle in County Louth – and has a Rococo carved chimney-piece. The Second Drawing Room contains 18th-century French boiseries (panelled walls) and a marble chimney-piece, while the Family Dining Room has English 18th-century-style panelling. The State Dining Room showcases fine 18th-century French Rococo overdoor reliefs alongside later plasterwork. A staircase, altered in 1969, has a wrought iron balustrade featuring lyre decoration, with a plaster ceiling above. The top landing is screened by columns. On the first floor, Barbara Hutton’s former bedroom, now known as the Hutton Room, has painted Etruscan decoration and a French marble chimney-piece with columns. Several panelled bedrooms and intact marble-lined bathrooms from Hutton’s time remain. A neo-Georgian wrought iron staircase with scrolled decoration and a brass handrail leads to the attic floor, where various 1930s features from the former nursery suite survive.

The house was originally built for Barbara Hutton, the Woolworth's heiress. After serving as an officers' club during World War II, it was sold for a dollar to the United States government for use as the ambassador's residence. Extensive alterations were undertaken, and it was first officially used by Winthrop Aldrich, the United States Ambassador to the Court of St James, in 1953-57. Further alterations occurred in 1969, carried out by the decorator William Haynes. The building is listed for its exceptional quality as an ambassador’s residence and for its significant Neo-Georgian architectural features and noteworthy interior details.