Winfield House

1900/0/10285 OUTER CIRCLE 03-SEP-01 Winfield House

II

Winfield House, Outer Circle, Regent's Park.

Detached house, now Ambassador's residence, in extensive grounds. 1936 by L. Rome Guthrie of Wimperis, Simpson and Guthrie for Barbara Hutton. Red brick, Portland stone dressings, slate mansard roof. EXTERIOR: Thirteen bay entrance front with projecting three-bay ends flanking additional single storey entrance extension with central door flanked by Doric columns carrying a segment-topped parapet, containing a relief of the seal of the USA. Continuous heavy stone cornice on all sides, angle quoins to all corners. French windows with mullions and transoms to ground floor of each front; 6/9 pane sash windows to first floor elevations, 6/6 pane dormer windows to attic storey. Thirteen bay garden front with central pedimented portico of four giant Corinthian pilasters, stone-fronted centrepiece with arcade to ground floor, relief of cartouche with festoons in tympanum. East elevation of five bays with single storey extension with attic, trellis decoration to garden side, large brick chimneystack, channelled angle quoins surmounted with urns to parapet. INTERIOR: reception rooms to ground floor, living quarters above. Service range to east. Features include: entrance hall with neo-Adam plasterwork. Reception hall entered via screen of paired fluted Doric columns; pilasters with Doric entablatures, pedimented doorcases to walls. Green or Garden Room hung with Chinese wallpaper (originally from Townley Castle, Co. Louth, with Rococo carved chimneypiece. Second Drawing Room with 18th century French boiseries and marble chimneypiece; Family Dining Room with English 18th Century-style panelling. State Dining Room with fine 18th century French Rococo overdoor reliefs alongside later plasterwork. Staircase (altered 1969) with balustrade of wrought iron with lyre decoration and plaster ceiling, top landing with screen of columns. First floor rooms include bedroom (originally Barbara Hutton's own, now called the Hutton Room) with painted Etruscan decoration and a French marble chimney-piece with columns; several panelled bedrooms; intact marble-lined bathrooms from Barbara Hutton's day. Neo-georgian wrought iron stairs with scrolled decoration and brass hand-rail to attic floor, on which numerous 1930s features (but not a mural) survive from the former nursery suite. HISTORY: this house was built for the Woolworth's heiress Barbara Hutton. After war service as an officers' club it was sold for a dollar to the United States government for use as the ambassador's residence. After extensive alterations the house was first officially used by Winthrop Aldrich, Ambassador to the Court of St James in 1953-57. The interiors have undergone extensive alterations at several points, including 1969 (William Haynes, decorator). Listed as an exceptional ambassador's residence and as a notable Neo-georgian town house containing numerous features of note.