No. 2 Connaught Place was Jennie Churchill's home starting in 1883. It was one of a new-built row of houses erected near the old Tyburn Hanging Ground, and apparently human remains were discovered when the foundation was dug. Jennie's friends referred to the house--then on the edge of respectable Mayfair--as "Tyburnia," but they flocked to her dinner parties nonetheless.
Jennie, with her usual American emphasis on modernity, made sure the baths connected to the upper-storey bedrooms had the latest in modern conveniences, and she installed a generator in the cellar--making No. 2 the first private residence to be electrified in London. Her taste in interior design was regarded as singular; she abhorred Victorian clutter, filled her rooms with antiques she'd purchased at auction while the Churchills lived in Ireland, and emphasized light paint on her walls. She preferred the people who filled her rooms to provide the color.
Winston and Jack owned the nursery on the upper floor, where Winston kept his trestle table filled with fifteen hundred toy soldiers in constant battle.
No comments:
Post a Comment