41-42 and 43 Hay's Mews

This substantial property comprises two interconnected mews houses of different dates: Number 43 dates from the mid-19th century, while Numbers 41-42 were built in 1900 to designs by T H Smith. Number 43 underwent remodelling in 1937 by Oliver Hill and again around 1954 by the renowned interior decorator John Fowler. In 1986, Numbers 41-42 were amalgamated with Number 43 and remodelled, with a large reception room created by the celebrated Italian decorator Renzo Mongiardino.

43 Hay's Mews

The building is of brick construction, rendered to the front elevation, with slate roofs. Windows to the front are timber double-hung sliding sashes, while side-hung casements face the internal courtyard.

The house has a C-shaped plan arranged around a central courtyard adjoining 41-42 Hay's Mews. It rises two storeys with pitched roofs and a mansard with attic to the south-west. The front range faces north-east onto Hay's Mews and contains an entrance hall, stair, service rooms and a dining room. The north-west range is principally occupied by Fowler's large, partially double-height drawing room which has an apsidal end to the south, behind which is an elliptical stair in an enclosed, top-lit well. The south-west range contains the stair hall and a small reception room with a third, back stair. On the first floor are bedrooms to the north-east and south-west, separated by the courtyard and double-height drawing room, and accessed from separate stairs. The north-east range gives access to a terrace overlooking the courtyard. One of the bedrooms here was originally decorated by Fowler as a dining room.

Exterior

The front elevation is white-painted render. The first floor has five eight-over-eight sash windows and the ground floor has two pairs of half-glazed carriage doors to the left and a single pair to the right. Between these are two doorways: one round-headed with a six-panel door, the other square-headed and half-glazed, set within a stepped stucco architrave. A small high-level window sits between them. The render is a later addition and the stepped architrave suggests a date in the 1930s; the door itself is possibly contemporary. The garage doors to the left date from the mid-1980s, their detailing based on the earlier door to the right.

The interior of the courtyard is painted pale pink with flat, white-painted stucco dressings. The south-west elevation has a pedimented parapet with a mansard roof behind, clad in black glazed pantiles. Ground floor openings are round-headed French windows with glazing bars and first-floor windows are paired casements with glazing bars. The north-west and south-west elevations are the work of Oliver Hill, with the north-east and south-east elevations continued in the same style in subsequent phases (around 1954 and 1986 respectively).

Interior

The following description focuses on the areas of greatest interest: the interiors created by John Fowler for Joan Dennis in the mid-1950s, noting later alterations where known. Most of these rooms are based on an underlying plan laid out in 1937 by Oliver Hill.

The centrepiece of the interior is the drawing room. Approximately a double square in plan, the half to the north is double-height, lit along the east side by high windows and pairs of French windows opening onto the courtyard. The north end wall has a classical chimneypiece of grey and white marble flanked by false bookcases with architraves and pedimented heads; that to the left has a radiator set at the base with a trellis-work screen, and that to the right is a pair of doors leading to a vestibule with a built-in kitchenette behind panelled doors. A modillion cornice runs around the ceiling of the double-height space and a frieze runs at first floor height. Above the frieze are plaster swags and corbel brackets. The space is lit from above by a gilt chandelier. The southern half of the room is more intimate, with a conventional ceiling height and an apsidal end lined with recessed display shelves and bookcases divided by pairs of pilasters. The skirting board is painted with a marble effect. Opposing pairs of panelled double doors have painted timber swags above. The walls are painted in a light blue-grey, not the original Fowler shade.

The drawing room leads to the principal stair hall with a black marble floor laid with narrow steel strips and a marble effect skirting board. The stair sweeps up to the right, around the rear of the drawing room. The walls are covered in block-printed paper. The stair is lit from above by an 18th-century style glazed cupola and leads to an elliptical landing on the first floor. The landing has a simple black metal balustrade with slender stick balusters and shaped newel with brass acorn finial. The balustrade follows the curve of the stair and is reflected in a full-height fixed mirror at the head of the stair.

On the other side of the stair hall from the drawing room is a small sitting room, painted in pink, with marbled skirting boards and coved cornice. Above a slim plaster dado frieze the walls have a dark paper border. A painted wooden chimneypiece with fixed mirror above is set within a recess; this does not serve an actual chimney but originally held an electric heater in the shape of a coal grate. A hidden door leads to a small back stair to the dressing room above. The three-panel doors and chimneypiece are painted in shades of white and grey with a dark paper border within the panels.

On the first floor is the bedroom Fowler decorated for Dennis. This has another simple wooden chimneypiece and block printed paper in the same pattern but different shade to the one chosen by Fowler. A paper border runs around the room and continues in the wooden box pelmets over the windows. Off the bedroom to one side is a dressing room and to the other an ensuite bathroom with an oculus overlooking the upper part of the drawing room.

The two attic rooms are reached from a secondary stair behind the elliptical landing; these are decoratively very simple, with plain built-in cupboards and one with a later bathroom suite added.

The north-west range, to the front of the building, contains a lobby off the main entrance hall. This has a stair to the first floor with a balustrade and newel matching that on the south-west stair. The room Fowler decorated as a dining room for Dennis is at the end of the first-floor landing, entered through double doors with curvilinear panelling. Surviving from Fowler's scheme is the stone chimneypiece with cast iron fire-back, and the marbled skirting boards. Built-in cupboards, one later knocked through to create an entrance to 41-42 Hay's Mews, are later additions, presumed to be by Colefax and Fowler. All have marbled architraves and double doors with curvilinear panels.

Internal doors are generally in a consistent style, with two or three panels and small brass handles, and radiators are generally either boxed in beneath windows or have bespoke wooden radiator covers.

41-42 Hay's Mews

The building is of red brick construction with white-painted dressings. The roofs are of slate, and doors and windows are timber.

The building is of two storeys over a lit basement. Situated on the corner of Hay's Mews, it has a deep rectangular footprint with a C-shaped configuration of pitched roofs and flat roofs to the centre. The east range is mainly occupied by garaging, service rooms and two stairs, whereas to the west the plan is almost fully occupied by the large, tripartite reception room created by Mongiardino. On the first floor there are bedrooms and a self-contained flat.

Exterior

The exterior has an eclectic late Victorian style: red brick, banded and dressed with painted stone, with mullion-and-transomed casement windows with multi-paned transom lights and deep window sills. First-floor windows are dormers with pediments.

The south-east elevation has two pairs of carriage doors with square-paned fanlights; these are separated by a full-height bay with shaped gable-end with pinnacles and bearing a datestone of 1900. There is also a doorway with fanlight over and several banks of grouped ground-floor/basement windows. The north elevation has a pinnacled gable-end parapet with central chimney stack, two panelled doors with rectangular fanlights and a run of windows at ground and first floors. The ground floor windows were inserted in about 1986, replacing an earlier carriage entrance.

Interior

The principal interior space of interest is the large reception room to the west of the plan, created in about 1986 by Renzo Mongiardino. It is divided into three areas by pairs of opposing Corinthian columns and a dentilated cornice. The ceilings are painted with trompe-l'oeil coffering and the floor laid in a polished chequerboard of red and buff tiles. The walls are painted with trompe-l'oeil scenes of an abandoned Classical garden with statuary of mythological figures, and Classical doorcases grown-over with vegetation are painted around doors leading to other parts of the house.

At the south end is a fireplace, with stone Doric chimneypiece, and the north end wall is gently curved. Over the centre of the room is a large glazed cupola with a triglyph frieze; hung from the centre is an ovoid pendant lantern. On the east side is a wide alcove flanked by columns. The back wall of the alcove is painted with a perspective view of an allée with columns, cypress trees and statuary. Opposite the alcove are French windows opening out into the courtyard of 43 Hay's Mews.

The interior of 41-42 Hay's Mews beyond the Mongiardino room is varied in character and of lesser interest. More notable features include some which appear to originate with the 1900 building, such as the two stairs with turned balusters, some panelled doors, exposed roof trusses and the glazed bricks in the basement rooms.