Spencer House (London)

The Spencer House is a palatial mansion in London's St. James's. It is located, overlooking Green Park, located on the between the Little Street and St James 's Place, land adjacent to the St. James 's Palace. The area once belonged even to the palace complex.

1756 required the social life of John Spencer, 1st Earl Spencer, to build a large town house in London, to support its position and status. The house was therefore given of him in John Vardy, a pupil of the architect William Kent, in order. This was responsible for the facades of the house in the Palladian style.

Already in 1758 replacing James Stuart Vardy as the architect of the project and changed, as a result of his studies of Greek architecture and particularly the acanthus ornament in the Corinthian order, the interior decoration that effect. This was a first examples of the emerging neo-classical style in London, which was to dominate from then on the architecture for several decades. Some rooms have been remodeled in 1783 by Henry Holland. In the 1840s more rooms by Philip Hardwick were redecorated in the new Victorian style.

As the home of the Spencer family, the state rooms of the house were a favorite haunt of London's aristocracy and high society. The Spencer family lived continuously until 1895 and in the first decades of the 20th century only a short time in this house. In between, and later the house was used as the London representative office of several companies and 1926-1943 as Ladies' Army and Navy Club. During the Battle of Britain in the Second World War, many prepared for the house furniture and decorative objects were placed in the ancestral home of Althorp House family to safety as security.

In 1948 the house was leased to the auction house Christie's, 1956 to the British Oxygen Company, and in 1963 the Economist Intelligence Unit. In 1985 the house from the family of Jacob Rothschild, 4th Baron Rothschild, or of RIT Capital Partners as " leasehold " rented for 96 years who underwent this a major renovation, which produced the staterooms and gardens restored to their original appearance. Spencer House is next to the Lancaster House and the adjacent Bridgewater House one of the last of the many private palaces that once stood in the center of London.

The house is not generally available as the headquarters of the Rothschild Investment Trust Capital Partners, its eight state rooms but can be visited on Sundays.