Haughty & chummy

This post by An Aesthete's Lament coincided with my reading of June's House & Garden with this article by Roger White on the magnificent home built by Sir Robert Walpole in the C18th, Houghton Hall, in Norfolk.

Palladio makes an exhibition of himself

Well, not strictly speaking, but the Royal Academy of Arts is running an exhibition "Andrea Palladio: His Life & His Legacy", which I recently posted about.

House & Garden has written this excellent piece, with the above pictures accompanying it, providing a lesson in architectural design, which probably hasn't differed greatly to this day.

Stokin'

It is perhaps slightly premature to be splurging on a Palladian mansion, but if you had a cool GBP2.75m to spare, you could pick up this glorious house in Derbyshire, not far away from the seat of the dukes of Devonshire.

It does need a lot of work, but significantly the roof has been releaded by the former comptroller at Chatsworth, so you could take your time about getting on with other essentials.

There are splendid wall carvings by the master woodcarver Grinling Gibbons, and the land is a perfectly manageable 22 1/2 acres. Further details of the property offered through Knight Frank are here.

But in these times of uncertainty I suspect most of us would rather be cool, and pass up on this opportunity to acquire Stoke Hall. Marcus Binney of The Times writes about the house here.

Palladian splendour

The staircase.

The library.

The dining room.

The billiards room.

A bathroom.

A treehouse.

This jewel of Palladian architecture, Melville House in Fife, Scotland is for sale at the knockdown price of GBP2.5m. It is suggested that an offer of GBP2m might secure it. This represents a hefty discount from the original GBP4.5m price tag, (and even more so in US Dollar terms, with the current weakness of Sterling). You can read the story here.

The decision to build the present house was made in 1697, just after the Earl of Melville was appointed to the lucrative position of President of the Privy Council, from which he earned the princely sum of GBP1,000 per annum. In 1689 King William (of Orange) had made him Secretary of State for Scotland.

It is believed that the original architect was Sir William Bruce, but the subsequent design by James Smith, who pioneered the style of Palladio in Scotland, seems to have prevailed, and I believe we are the more fortunate for it.

The sale is as a result of a repossession by a bank. The refurbishment has been completed, and as a Grade A Listed building this is a tremendous bonus to any buyer; working through planning laws for listed buildings is challenging to say the least.

The original land size has been reduced, and is now only about 16 1/2 acres, and excludes the magnificent tree-lined grand avenue that lead to the south front, (top picture). But the entrance to the north, (lowest picture), is by no means too modest. Obviously good landscaping will be required to create more interest, as the substantial lawns are fine on a sunny day, but of less joy during the majority of Scotland's weather.

Palladio addendum

This news just in today's Telegraph. Oh to be in London, now that Palladio's there!