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79-655: The Central House Hotel is an Italianate hotel located in Boscobel, Wisconsin . It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1996. The hotel was built by Adam Bobel, a Prussian immigrant who had served with the 20th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry Regiment during the American Civil War . After a fire in 1881, the building was largely re-built. In 1898, the hotel was overly crowded due to

158-462: A balustraded parapet . The principal block is flanked by two lower asymmetrical secondary wings that contribute picturesque massing, best appreciated from an angled view. The larger of these is divided from the principal block by the belvedere tower. The smaller, the ballroom block, is entered through a columned porte-cochère designed as a single storey prostyle portico . Many examples of this style are evident around Sydney and Melbourne, notably

237-530: A 400-foot (120 m) long, 20-foot (6.1 m) high brick terrace or viewing platform (visible only from the south side) which dates from the mid-17th century. The exterior of the house is rendered in Roman cement , with terracotta additions such as balusters , capitals, keystones , and finials . The roof of the mansion is meant for walking on, and there is a circular view, above the tree-line, of parts of Buckinghamshire and Berkshire including Windsor Castle to

316-566: A dairy, and a boathouse. Also around this time another architect, George Devey , was commissioned to build half-timbered cottages on the estate along with a dairy and boathouse. After the duke's death in 1861 his widow Harriet continued to live at the house for part of the year until her death in 1868, after which it was sold to her son-in-law Hugh Lupus, Earl Grosvenor , later 1st Duke of Westminster. When one lives in Paradise, how hard it must be to ascend in heart and mind to Heaven. Westminster

395-461: A hunting lodge. The panelling was sold in 1897 by Jules Allard to the 1st Lord Astor, who had it installed at Cliveden. The gilded panelling on a turquoise ground contains carvings of hares , pheasants , hunting dogs and rifles. The console tables and buffet were made in 1900 to match the room. The second largest room on the ground floor, after the Great Hall, was the original drawing room, which

474-535: A loose style of an Italian village. It is now owned by a charitable trust. Williams-Ellis incorporated fragments of demolished buildings, including works by a number of other architects. Portmeirion's architectural bricolage and deliberately fanciful nostalgia have been noted as an influence on the development of postmodernism in architecture in the late 20th century. The Italianate revival was comparatively less prevalent in Scottish architecture , examples include some of

553-498: A lumberman's convention. Two salesmen, John H. Nicholson of Janesville, Wisconsin and Samuel E. Hill of Beloit, Wisconsin , were sharing a room since no single rooms were available. During their stay, the men began to talk about their Christian faith. They would discuss the need for an organization that would provide mutual help and recognition for Christian travelers. In 1899, the two men, along with William J. Knights of Janesville, met again and founded Gideons International . Though

632-474: A modest spate of Italianate villas, and French chateaux" by 1855 the most favoured style of an English country house was Gothic, Tudor, or Elizabethan. The Italianate style came to the small town of Newton Abbot and the village of Starcross in Devon, with Isambard Brunel's atmospheric railway pumping houses. The style was later used by Humphrey Abberley and Joseph Rowell, who designed a large number of houses, with

711-653: A new 100-year lease was granted to run from 1984. In 1994 the conversion of the West wing from domestic offices to provide more bedrooms and two boardrooms (Churchill and Macmillan) was completed. There are 48 bedrooms and suites, all of which are named after previous owners and guests (e.g. Buckingham, Westminster). In addition to the Terrace Dining room, there are a further four private dining rooms. Three rooms are licensed for civil ceremonies and each year many couples are married at Cliveden. The hotel also leases Spring Cottage by

790-698: A number of Italianate lighthouses and associated structures, chief among them being the Grosse Point Light in Evanston, Illinois . The Italianate style was immensely popular in Australia as a domestic style influencing the rapidly expanding suburbs of the 1870–1880s and providing rows of neat villas with low-pitched roofs, bay windows , tall windows and classical cornices. The architect William Wardell designed Government House in Melbourne —the official residence of

869-448: A romantic object, and the place altogether answers the most poetical description that can be made of solitude, precipice, prospect, or whatever can contribute to a thing so very like their imaginations. The stand, somewhat like Frascati as to its front, and on the platform is a circular view to the utmost verge of the horizon, which, with the serpenting of the Thames, is admirable. The staircase

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948-526: Is a painted ceiling by French artist Auguste Hervieu which depicts the Sutherlands' children painted as the four seasons, and is the only surviving element of Barry's 1851–52 interior. The French Dining Room is so-called because the 18th-century Rococo panelling (or boiseries) came from the Château d'Asnières near Paris, a château which was leased to Louis XV and his mistress Madame de Pompadour as

1027-694: Is an example of this further evolution of the style. As in Australia, the use of Italianate for public service offices took hold but using local materials like timber to create the illusion of stone. At the time it was built in 1856, the official residence of the Colonial Governor in Auckland was criticized for the dishonesty of making wood look like stone. The 1875 Old Government Buildings, Wellington are entirely constructed with local kauri timber, which has excellent properties for construction. ( Auckland developed later and preferred Gothic detailing.) As in

1106-531: Is derived the Italianate architecture of the late Regency and early Victorian eras. The Italianate style was further developed and popularised by the architect Sir Charles Barry in the 1830s. Barry's Italianate style (occasionally termed "Barryesque") drew heavily for its motifs on the buildings of the Italian Renaissance , though sometimes at odds with Nash's semi-rustic Italianate villas. The style

1185-437: Is for its materials singular; the cloisters, descents, gardens, and avenue through the wood, august and stately; but the land all about wretchedly barren, and producing nothing but fern." After Buckingham died in 1687, the house remained empty until the estate was purchased in 1696 by George Hamilton, 1st Earl of Orkney , a soldier and colonial official. The Earl employed the architect Thomas Archer to add two new "wings" to

1264-451: Is mainly due to the 1st Lord Astor , who radically altered the interior layout and decoration c.1894–95. Whereas Barry's original interior for the Sutherlands had included a square entrance-hall, a morning room, and a separate stairwell, Lord Astor wanted a more impressive entrance to Cliveden so he had all three rooms amalgamated to create the Great Hall. Astor's aim was for the interior to resemble an Italian palazzo , thus complementing

1343-700: Is the birthplace of the writer Katherine Mansfield . Cliveden Cliveden (pronounced / ˈ k l ɪ v d ən / ) is an English country house and estate in the care of the National Trust in Buckinghamshire, on the border with Berkshire . The Italianate mansion, also known as Cliveden House, crowns an outlying ridge of the Chiltern Hills close to the South Bucks villages of Burnham and Taplow . The main house sits 40 metres (130 ft) above

1422-452: Is used as the hotel's main dining room. Also on the ground floor is the library, panelled in cedar wood, which the Astors used to call the "cigar box", and, next door, Nancy Astor's boudoir , which is used by the hotel as a meeting room. Upstairs there are a total of 10-bedroom suites divided equally over two floors. The East wing was and still is guest accommodation, whereas the West wing

1501-909: The Lazio and the Veneto or as he put it: "...the charming character of the irregular villas of Italy." His most defining work in this style was the large Neo-Renaissance mansion Cliveden , while the Reform Club 1837–41 in Pall Mall represents a convincingly authentic pastiche of the Palazzo Farnese in Rome, albeit in a 'Grecian' Ionic order in place of Michelangelo 's original Corinthian order . Although it has been claimed that one-third of early Victorian country houses in England used classical styles, mostly Italianate, by 1855

1580-624: The Medici . Upon his return to Lebanon in 1618, he began modernising Lebanon. He developed a silk industry, upgraded olive oil production, and brought with him numerous Italian engineers who began building mansions and civil buildings throughout the country. The cities of Beirut and Sidon were especially built in the Italianate style. The influence of these buildings, such as those in Deir el Qamar , influenced building in Lebanon for many centuries and continues to

1659-544: The Old Treasury Building (1858), Leichhardt Town Hall (1888), Glebe Town Hall (1879) and the fine range of state and federal government offices facing the gardens in Treasury Place. No.2 Treasury Gardens (1874). This dignified, but not overly exuberant style for civil service offices contrasted with the grand and more formal statements of the classical styles used for Parliament buildings . The acceptance of

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1738-558: The Viscounts Astor . As the home of Nancy Astor , wife of the 2nd Viscount Astor , Cliveden was the meeting place of the Cliveden Set of the 1920s and 1930s—a group of political intellectuals. Later, during the early 1960s, when it was the home of the 3rd Viscount Astor , it became the setting for key events of the notorious Profumo affair . After the Astor family stopped living there, by

1817-560: The dene (valley) which cuts through part of the estate, east of the house. Cliveden has been spelled differently over the centuries, some of the variations being Cliffden , Clifden , Cliefden , and Clyveden . Designed by Charles Barry in 1851 to replace a house previously destroyed by fire, the present house is a blend of the English Palladian style and the Roman Cinquecento . The Victorian three-storey mansion sits on

1896-460: The governor of Victoria —as an example of his "newly discovered love for Italianate, Palladian and Venetian architecture ." Cream-colored, with many Palladian features, it would not be out of place among the unified streets and squares in Thomas Cubitt's Belgravia , London, except for its machicolated signorial tower that Wardell crowned with a belvedere . The hipped roof is concealed by

1975-524: The "world's most expensive sandwich" at £ 100. The von Essen Platinum Club Sandwich was confirmed by Guinness World Records in 2007 to be the most expensive sandwich commercially available. Cliveden House was the "jewel in the crown" of Von Essen Hotels when the company collapsed in 2011. The lease to Cliveden Hotel was then purchased in February 2012 by the property developers Richard and Ian Livingstone , owners of London & Regional Properties , (also

2054-522: The 1970s, it was leased to Stanford University , which used it as an overseas campus. Today the house is leased to a company that runs it as a five-star hotel . The 375-acre (152 ha) gardens and woodlands are open to the public, together with parts of the house on certain days. Cliveden was one of the National Trust's most popular pay-for-entry visitor attractions, hosting 524,807 visitors in 2019. Cliveden means "valley among cliffs" and refers to

2133-537: The Astor family one of their largest endowments: £250,000 in 1942, equivalent to £14,720,000 in 2023. After the death of the 2nd Viscount in 1952, his son William (Bill) Astor, the 3rd Viscount Astor took over the house until his death in 1966. Following the death of Bill Astor in 1966, the National Trust took over the management of the estate. Cliveden has become one of the National Trust's most popular pay-for-entry visitor attractions, hosting 524,807 visitors in 2019. National Trust visitors to Cliveden can visit

2212-462: The Astors gave Cliveden to the National Trust with the proviso that the family could continue to live in the house for as long as they wished. Should they cease to do so, they expressed the wish that the house be used "for promoting friendship and understanding between the peoples of the United States and Canada and the other dominions." With the gift of Cliveden, the National Trust also received from

2291-533: The Civil War. Its popularity was due to being suitable for many different building materials and budgets, as well as the development of cast-iron and press-metal technology making the production more efficient of decorative elements such as brackets and cornices. However, the style was superseded in popularity in the late 1870s by the Queen Anne and Colonial Revival styles. The popularity of Italianate architecture in

2370-540: The County of Buckingham, Lyson's Magna Britannia , and Sheahan's History of Buckinghamshire, it shows that in 1237 the land was owned by Geoffrey de Clyveden and by 1300 it had passed to his son, William, who owned fisheries and mills along the Cliveden Reach stretch of the Thames and at nearby Hedsor . In 1569 a lodge existed on the site along with 50 acres (20 ha) of land and was owned by Sir Henry Manfield; it

2449-495: The Italianate style as defined by Sir Charles Barry into many of his London terraces. Cubitt designed Osborne House under the direction of Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha , and it is Cubitt's reworking of his two-dimensional street architecture into this freestanding mansion which was to be the inspiration for countless Italianate villas throughout the British Empire. Following the completion of Osborne House in 1851,

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2528-629: The Italianate style for government offices was sustained well into the 20th century when, in 1912, John Smith Murdoch designed the Commonwealth Office Buildings as a sympathetic addition to this precinct to form a stylistically unified terrace overlooking the gardens. The Italianate style of architecture continued to be built in outposts of the British Empire long after it had ceased to be fashionable in Britain itself. The Albury railway station in regional New South Wales , completed in 1881,

2607-737: The Italianate style, such as the James Lick Mansion , John Muir Mansion , and Bidwell Mansion , before later Stick-Eastlake and Queen Anne styles superseded. Many, nicknamed Painted Ladies , remain and are celebrated in San Francisco . A late example in masonry is the First Church of Christ, Scientist in Los Angeles . Additionally, the United States Lighthouse Board , through the work of Colonel Orlando M. Poe , produced

2686-663: The Prince's daughter Augusta . Cliveden was also the location for the final illness of the Prince: it was believed that while playing cricket in the grounds at Cliveden in 1751 the Prince received a blow to the chest from a batted ball and that this had caused an infection which proved fatal; however, an alternative interpretation shows he died from a cold, followed by a pulmonary embolism. After his death, Frederick's family retained Kew and their townhouse, Leicester House , but gave up their lease on Cliveden. Anne and her family moved back into

2765-622: The Second World War, Grenfell ran two wards of the hospital and worked as an informal welfare officer. This work included completing errands for patients, writing letters, shopping, teaching needlework, and organising social events, and informal concerts. At the outbreak of World War I , Waldorf Astor offered the use of some of the grounds to the Canadian Red Cross for the building of a hospital—the HRH Duchess of Connaught Hospital—which

2844-566: The Thames, one of the key places in the Profumo affair , and offer it as self-contained accommodation. The hotel was listed on the London Stock Exchange for a period of time in the 1990s (as Cliveden Plc). This company was bought in 1998 by Destination Europe, a consortium including Microsoft CEO Bill Gates . In the early years of the 21st century the lease was acquired by von Essen Hotels . In 2007, Cliveden House Hotel claimed to offer

2923-711: The United States, the timber construction common in New Zealand allowed this popular style to be rendered in domestic buildings, such as Antrim House in Wellington, and Westoe Farm House in Rangitikei (1874), as well as rendered brick at "The Pah" in Auckland (1880). On a more domestic scale, the suburbs of cities like Dunedin and Wellington spread out with modest but handsome suburban villas with Italianate details, such as low-pitched roofs, tall windows, corner quoins , and stone detailing, all rendered in wood. A good example

3002-560: The Venetian architect Giacomo Leoni . The landscape designer Charles Bridgeman was also commissioned to devise woodland walks and carve a rustic turf amphitheatre out of the cliff-side. Orkney died in 1737, and Cliveden passed to his daughter Anne, 2nd Countess of Orkney in her own right. She immediately leased it to Frederick, Prince of Wales , eldest son of George II and father of George III . After Frederick fell out with his father, Kew and Cliveden became his refuge from life at

3081-484: The banks of the River Thames , and its grounds slope down to the river. There have been three houses on this site: the first, built in 1666, burned down in 1795 and the second house (1824) was also destroyed by fire, in 1849. The present Grade I listed house was built in 1851 by the architect Charles Barry for the 2nd Duke of Sutherland . Cliveden has been the home to a Prince of Wales , two dukes, an earl, and finally

3160-688: The case in Italy, and utilises more obviously the Italian Renaissance motifs than those earlier examples of the Italianate style by Nash. Sir Charles Barry , most notable for his works on the Tudor and Gothic styles at the Houses of Parliament in London, was a great promoter of the style. Unlike Nash, he found his inspiration in Italy itself. Barry drew heavily on the designs of the original Renaissance villas of Rome ,

3239-405: The dowager Lady Ashburton as a country retreat, this small country house clearly shows the transition between the picturesque of William Gilpin and Nash's yet to be fully evolved Italianism. While this house can still be described as Regency , its informal asymmetrical plan together with its loggias and balconies of both stone and wrought iron; tower and low pitched roof clearly are very similar to

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3318-567: The early work of Alexander Thomson ("Greek" Thomson) and buildings such as the west side of George Square . The Italian, specifically Tuscan, influence on architecture in Lebanon dates back to the Renaissance when Fakhreddine , the first Lebanese ruler who truly unified Mount Lebanon with its Mediterranean coast, executed an ambitious plan to develop his country. When the Ottomans exiled Fakhreddine to Tuscany in 1613, he entered an alliance with

3397-413: The estate for only a few months when the house burned down for the second time in its history. The cause this time appears to have been negligence on the part of the decorators. The Duke was prompt in commissioning the architect Charles Barry to rebuild Cliveden in the style of an Italianate villa. Barry, whose most famous project is arguably the Houses of Parliament , Westminster , was inspired by

3476-551: The estate – boating on the Thames, horse riding, tennis, swimming, croquet and fishing – made Cliveden a destination for film stars, politicians, world leaders, writers and artists. The heyday of entertaining at Cliveden was between the two World Wars when the Astors held regular weekend house parties. Guests at the time included: Charlie Chaplin , Winston Churchill , Joseph Kennedy , George Bernard Shaw , Mahatma Gandhi , Amy Johnson , Franklin D. Roosevelt , H. H. Asquith , T. E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia), Arthur Balfour and

3555-598: The exterior. The ceiling and walls were panelled in English oak , with Corinthian columns and swags of carved flowers for decoration, all by architect Frank Pearson. The staircase newel posts are ornamented with carved figures representing previous owners (e.g. Buckingham and Orkney) by W.S. Frith . Astor installed a large 16th-century fireplace that was purchased from the Frederick Spitzer Sale (lot 1273) in June 1893. To

3634-650: The first official meeting took place in Janesville, the organization has always identified the Central House Hotel in Boscobel as the place of its founding. Italianate architecture The Italianate style was first developed in Britain in about 1802 by John Nash , with the construction of Cronkhill in Shropshire . This small country house is generally accepted to be the first Italianate villa in England, from which

3713-478: The first quarter of the 19th century. In 1824, the estate was purchased by Sir George Warrender, 4th Baronet . To rebuild Cliveden, Warrender selected William Burn , a Scottish architect, and decided on a design for a two-storey mansion with entertaining on a grand scale in mind. Warrender died in 1849 and the house was sold to the Sutherland family, headed by the second Duke . Sutherland had been in possession of

3792-438: The fully Italianate design of Cronkhill , the house generally considered to be the first example of the Italianate style in Britain. Later examples of the Italianate style in England tend to take the form of Palladian -style building often enhanced by a belvedere tower complete with Renaissance -type balustrading at the roof level. This is generally a more stylistic interpretation of what architects and patrons imagined to be

3871-432: The gardens and the interior of the house. However, after the early death of his wife, he lived a reclusive life at Cliveden. He gave the house to his son Waldorf (later 2nd Viscount Astor) on the occasion of his marriage to Nancy Langhorne in 1906 and moved to Hever Castle . The young Astors used Cliveden for entertaining on a lavish scale. The combination of the house, its setting, and leisure facilities offered on

3950-514: The ground, or even flat roofs with a wide projection. A tower is often incorporated hinting at the Italian belvedere or even campanile tower. Motifs drawn from the Italianate style were incorporated into the commercial builders' repertoire and appear in Victorian architecture dating from the mid-to-late 19th century. This architectural style became more popular than Greek Revival by the beginning of

4029-537: The house, connected by curved corridors. Although an almost identical arrangement exists today, these are later reconstructions, the originals having been destroyed in the fire of 1795. All that remains of Archer's work inside the house today is a staircase in the West wing. Orkney's contributions to the gardens can still be seen today, most notably the Octagon Temple and the Blenheim Pavilion, both designed by

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4108-402: The house, passing it to her daughter and granddaughter, the 3rd and 4th Countesses, who also lived there. On the night of 20 May 1795, the house caught fire and burned down. The cause of the fire was thought to have been a servant knocking over a candle. The 4th Countess moved out after the fire but retained the site, only selling it in 1824. After the fire of 1795 the house remained a ruin for

4187-453: The left of the fireplace is a portrait of Nancy, Lady Astor by the American portraitist John Singer Sargent . The room was and still is furnished with 18th-century tapestries and suits of armour. Originally the floor was covered with Minton encaustic tiles (given to the Sutherlands by the factory) but Nancy Astor had them removed in 1906 and the present flagstones laid. Above the staircase

4266-404: The new owners of the next-door 220-acre estate called Dropmore Park ) who placed it under the management of Andrew Stembridge from Chewton Glen . In 2015 Natalie Livingstone, the wife of Ian Livingstone, published The Mistresses of Cliveden , a history of some of the female occupants of the house. In January 2015 the hotel closed for one month to carry out a refurbishment of the interior and for

4345-598: The new railway station as the focal point, for Lord Courtenay, who saw the potential of the railway age. An example that is not very well known, but a clear example of Italianate architecture, is St. Christopher's Anglican church in Hinchley Wood , Surrey, particularly given the design of its bell tower . Portmeirion in Gwynedd , North Wales, is an architectural fantasy designed in a southern Italian Baroque style and built by Sir Clough Williams-Ellis between 1925 and 1975 in

4424-439: The outline of the two earlier houses for his design. The third (and present) house on the site was completed in 1851–52, and its exterior appearance has little changed since then. The 100-foot (30 m)-tall clock tower, which is actually a water tower (still working to this day) was added in 1861 by the architect Henry Clutton . During this period other additions were made to the estate, which included half-timbered cottages,

4503-425: The parkland, and there is occasional limited access to a select area of the house. In 1984 Blakeney Hotels (later Cliveden Hotel Ltd) acquired the lease to the house. Led by chairman John Lewis and managing director John Tham they restored and refurbished the interior. In 1990 they added the indoor swimming pool and spa treatment rooms in the walled garden, complementing the existing outdoor pool. Also in 1990,

4582-423: The present time. For example, streets like Rue Gouraud continue to have numerous, historic houses with Italianate influence. The Italianate style was popularized in the United States by Alexander Jackson Davis in the 1840s as an alternative to Gothic or Greek Revival styles. Davis' design for Blandwood is the oldest surviving example of Italianate architecture in the United States, constructed in 1844 as

4661-428: The preservation of this impressive collection, with large-scale renovation efforts beginning to repair urban blight. Cincinnati's neighbouring cities of Newport and Covington, Kentucky also contain an impressive collection of Italianate architecture. The Garden District of New Orleans features examples of the Italianate style, including: In California, the earliest Victorian residences were wooden versions of

4740-462: The residence of North Carolina Governor John Motley Morehead . It is an early example of Italianate architecture, closer in ethos to the Italianate works of Nash than the more Renaissance-inspired designs of Barry. Davis' 1854 Litchfield Villa in Prospect Park, Brooklyn is an example of the style. It was initially referred to as the "Italian Villa" or "Tuscan Villa" style. Richard Upjohn used

4819-411: The royal court, becoming family homes for his wife Augusta and their children. During the Prince's tenure of the house, on 1 August 1740, Rule, Britannia! (an aria by the English composer Thomas Arne with lyrics by Scottish poet James Thomson ) was first performed in public in the cliff-side amphitheatre at Cliveden. It was played as part of the masque Alfred to celebrate the third birthday of

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4898-439: The south. Below the balustraded roofline is a Latin inscription which continues around the four sides of the house and recalls its history; it was composed by the then prime minister William Ewart Gladstone . On the west front, it reads: POSITA INGENIO OPERA CONSILIO CAROLI BARRY ARCHIT A MDCCCLI , which translated reads: "The work accomplished by the brilliant plan of architect Charles Barry in 1851." The main contractor for

4977-419: The style became a popular choice of design for the small mansions built by the new and wealthy industrialists of the era. These were mostly built in cities surrounded by large but not extensive gardens, often laid out in a terrace Tuscan style as well. On occasions very similar, if not identical, designs to these Italianate villas would be topped by mansard roofs , and then termed chateauesque . However, "after

5056-621: The style extensively, beginning in 1845 with the Edward King House . Other leading practitioners of the style were John Notman and Henry Austin . Notman designed "Riverside" in 1837, the first "Italian Villa" style house in Burlington, New Jersey (now destroyed). Italianate was reinterpreted to become an indigenous style. It is distinctive by its pronounced exaggeration of many Italian Renaissance characteristics: emphatic eaves supported by corbels , low-pitched roofs barely discernible from

5135-472: The style was falling from favour and Cliveden came to be regarded as "a declining essay in a declining fashion." Anthony Salvin occasionally designed in the Italianate style, especially in Wales, at Hafod House, Carmarthenshire, and Penoyre House , Powys, described by Mark Girouard as "Salvin's most ambitious classical house." Thomas Cubitt , a London building contractor, incorporated simple classical lines of

5214-518: The terrace is the only feature of Buckingham's house to survive the 1795 fire. Although the Duke's intention was to use Cliveden as a "hunting box", it later housed Anna, Countess of Shrewsbury . In 1668 a duel between the Duke and his mistress's husband Lord Shrewsbury took place at Barn Elms near London and resulted in Shrewsbury dying of his wounds. A contemporary account of Buckingham's affair with Anna

5293-481: The time period following 1845 can be seen in Cincinnati, Ohio , the United States' first boomtown west of the Appalachian Mountains . This city, which grew along with the traffic on the Ohio River , features arguably the largest single collection of Italianate buildings in the United States in its Over-the-Rhine neighbourhood, built primarily by German-American immigrants that lived in the densely populated area. In recent years, increased attention has been called to

5372-435: The tower during a storm in the 1950s. The new statue is made of bronze and was created using Dumont's original mould from the 1860s found in a museum in Semur-en-Auxois , France. It measures 2.2 m in height, is covered in two layers of 23.5 carat gold leaf and cost a total of £68,000. It is an allegorical sculpture which holds the torch of civilization in its right hand and the broken chain of slavery in its left. It

5451-413: The work was Lucas Brothers . In 1984–86 the exterior of the mansion was overhauled and a new lead roof installed by the National Trust, while interior repairs were carried out by Cliveden Hotel. In 2013, further exterior work was carried out including the restoration of 300 sash windows and 20 timber doors. The interior of the house today is very different from its original appearance in 1851–52. This

5530-430: The writers Henry James , Rudyard Kipling , and Edith Wharton . There is a ghastly unreality about it all ... I enjoy seeing it. But to own it, to live here, would be like living on the stage of the Scala theatre in Milan. During the inter-war period the entertainer Joyce Grenfell , who was Nancy Astor's niece, lived in a cottage on the estate. In the preface to her memoir, James Roose Evans stated that during

5609-424: Was abandoned in 1985. It lay derelict for two decades and was demolished in 2006 to make way for a housing development for people aged 55 and over. Attached to the military hospital and within the grounds was established Cliveden War Cemetery . There are 42 Commonwealth war graves, 40 from World War I (mostly Canadians) and two from World War II, besides two American service war graves from the first war. In 1942

5688-576: Was affixed to the tower in the spring of 2012. Cliveden stands on the site of a house built in 1666 designed by architect William Winde as the home of George Villiers, 2nd Duke of Buckingham . But before Buckingham's purchase the land was owned by the Mansfield family and before that to the de Clyveden family. The details are recorded in a document compiled by William Waldorf Astor in 1894 called The Historical Descent of Cliveden . Derived from several historical sources including Lipscombe's History of

5767-618: Was described by the architectural critic Nikolaus Pevsner as "the epitome of Victorian flamboyance and assertiveness." The tower is topped with a modern reproduction of Augustin Dumont 's 19th-century winged male figure Le Génie de la Liberté (the Spirit of Liberty). The original is atop the July Column in the Place de la Bastille , Paris. This replaces two earlier versions, the first having fallen from

5846-577: Was dismantled at the end of the hostilities. In September 1939 with the outbreak of World War II Waldorf Astor again offered the use of the land at a rent of one shilling per year to the Canadian Red Cross and the Canadian Red Cross Memorial Hospital was built to the designs of Robert Atkinson . After the war the hospital's main focus was as a nursing school, a maternity unit and a rheumatology unit. The hospital closed and

5925-465: Was domestic offices that were converted into more bedrooms in 1994. The nearby 100-foot (30 m) clock tower was added in 1861 and is the work of the architect Henry Clutton . As a functioning water tower it still provides water for the house today. It is rendered in Roman cement like the rest of the house and features four clock faces framed by gilded surrounds and a half-open staircase on its north side. It

6004-556: Was employed in varying forms abroad long after its decline in popularity in Britain. For example, from the late 1840s to 1890, it achieved huge popularity in the United States , where it was promoted by the architect Alexander Jackson Davis . Key visual components of this style include: A late intimation of John Nash 's development of the Italianate style was his 1805 design of Sandridge Park at Stoke Gabriel in Devon . Commissioned by

6083-413: Was later owned by his son, Sir Edward. In 1573, there were two lodges on 160 acres (65 ha) of treeless chalk escarpment above the Thames. It was on this impressively high but exposed site that Buckingham chose to build the first Cliveden house. Buckingham pulled down the earlier buildings and chose William Winde as his architect. Winde designed a four-storey house above an arcaded terrace. Today

6162-449: Was one of the wealthiest Englishmen of the period. During his ownership of the estate (1868–93), he contributed significant additions to the house and gardens, including the porte cochère on the north front of the mansion, a new stable block and the dovecote , all designed by Henry Clutton . In 1893 the estate was purchased by an American millionaire, William Waldorf Astor (later 1st Viscount Astor), who made sweeping alterations to

6241-400: Was written about by Samuel Pepys , in his diary of the period. John Evelyn , another contemporary diarist, visited the Duke at Cliveden on 22 July 1679 and recorded the following impression in his Diary : "I went to Clifden, that stupendous natural rock, wood, and prospect, of the Duke of Buckingham's, and buildings of extraordinary expense. The grots in the chalky rocks are pretty: it is

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