Jimmy’s London home. The Tower House, 29 Melbury Road, is a late-Victorian townhouse in the Holland Park district of Kensington and Chelsea, London, built by the architect and designer William Burges as his home. Designed between 1875 and 1881, in the French Gothic Revival style, it was described by the architectural historian J. Mordaunt Crook as “the most complete example of a medieval secular interior produced by the Gothic Revival, and the last”. The house is built of red brick, with Bath stone dressings and green roof slates from Cumbria, and has a distinctive cylindrical tower and conical roof. The ground floor contains a drawing room, a dining room and a library, while the first floor has two bedrooms and an armoury. Its exterior and the interior echo elements of Burges’s earlier work, particularly Park House in Cardiff and Castell Coch. It was designated a Grade I listed building in 1949. American entertainer Liberace had made an offer but had not put down a deposit. Reading of the intended sale in the Evening Standard, actor Richard Harris bought it the following day, describing his purchase as the biggest gift he had ever given himself. Harris employed the original decorators, Campbell Smith & Company Ltd., to carry out restoration, using Burges’s drawings from the Victoria and Albert Museum
Tucked away in the historic district of Holland Park, London, The Tower House at 29 Melbury Road stands as one of the most unique and striking examples of Victorian Gothic Revival architecture. Designed and built between 1875 and 1881 by the visionary architect and designer William Burges, the house was conceived as his personal residence…
