Description

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

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Home House at Wikipedia
• Wikidata Q5888425

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Old House Handbook: A Practical Guide to Care and Repair
• 
  Bedfordshire, Huntingdonshire, and Peterborough (Pevsner Architectural Guides): Written by Charles O'Brien, 2014 Edition, Publisher: Yale University Press [Hardcover]
• 
  London 6: Westminster (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England): Westminster v. 6
• 
  Kent: North East and East (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Setting up a Listed Building Heritage Partnership Agreement: Historic England Advice Note 5
• 
  Pevsner's Architectural Glossary (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Introductions)