page_title: Woodland House
section_title: Design
hierarchical_section_title: Woodland House / Design
caption_attribution_description: English: Woodland House Wikidata has entry Q17552440 with data related to this building.This is a photo of listed building number 1225541.
context_page_description: Woodland House is a large detached house at 31 Melbury Road, in the Holland Park district of Kensington and Chelsea, W14. Built from 1875-7 in the Queen Anne style by the architect Richard Norman Shaw, it is a Grade II* listed building. Commissioned by the painter Luke Fildes, Woodland House is situated next to William Burges's Grade I listed Tower House.
  Originally 11 Melbury Road, the house was renumbered as 31 Melbury Road in 1967. It was the second of two houses in Melbury Road designed by Shaw, the first, 8 Melbury Road, was designed for another painter Marcus Stone. Fildes and Stone were artistic rivals and each naturally regarded their own Shaw-designed house as superior. Of the construction of Woodland House Fildes wrote in November 1876 that "The house is getting on famously and looks stunning ... It is a long way the most superior house of the whole lot; I consider it knocks Stone's to fits, though of course he wouldn't have that by what I hear he says of his, but my opinion is the universal one." Fildes moved into the house in October 1877 and it remained his home until his death there in February 1927.
context_section_description: Woodland House was designed by architect Richard Norman Shaw. Shaw was well acquainted with members of the art establishment, being friends with Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Morris and Philip Webb. The choice by Fildes and Stone of Richard Norman Shaw as the architect of their houses was an important symbol of their ambition to become academicians, members of the Royal Academy of Arts, and of the art establishment themselves. The imposing houses and studios that Shaw designed would impress potential patrons. All of the "studio-houses" of the Holland Park Circle were built with red bricks, a colour that stood in contrast to the white stucco that had been traditionally used in the surrounding area.
  Shaw had prepared preliminary designs of Woodland House by August 1875, and building began early in 1876, with construction being undertaken by W. H. Lascelles. The initial cost of building the house was £4,500. Fildes and his family moved into the house in the Autumn of 1877. Fildes house was larger than Marcus Stone's, and costlier to build. Shortly after Fildes had commissioned Shaw to design his house, Fildes' grandmother, Mary, had died, leaving him her property.
  Facing south, Fildes large artists studio was at the rear of the house and was lit by a skylight and six tall windows grouped in pairs of two. This arrangement was found not to provide the necessary light and the middle pair of windows was redesigned as a single, large, four-light, window. The studio was initially 43 feet (13 m) and 24 feet (7.3 m). A winter studio was added in 1880, followed by a glass studio in 1885, situated above a nursery. When King Edward VII came to sit for a state portrait he described the studio as "one of the finest rooms in London".
  In 1893 The Strand Magazine described Fildes' house as "that of the artist – everything has its own artistic place and corner; nothing fails to harmonise, nothing comes short of gaining the effect wanted". The interior was noted by the Strand Magazine to contain predominantly Sheraton style furniture with "Venetian and Flemish black-framed mirrors, Hispano-Moresque pottery, Venetian brass and copper-ware ... blue-and-white Nankin and Delft (porcelain)".
  Fildes' children's bedrooms were hung with wallpapers designed by Morris & Co. and Walter Crane. Under Fildes' the hallway was encrusted with crimson and gold, and after passing through crimson curtains a visitor ascended stairs lined with brass plates, paintings from the Italian Renaissance and tapestries.
  Michael Winner's father bought the house on a long lease after the Second World War.  He divided the property into three flats, erecting walls and installing false ceilings in the process. Winner restored the original layout of the house even sourcing contemporary bricks from demolished buildings. A folly was also reinstated on the roof as well as the original wrought iron gates.
  Under Winner the house had 47 rooms and some 2,000 lightbulbs. Amenities included a jacuzzi, swimming pool, steam room, and cinema. Winner hired the services of interior designer Tessa Kennedy to help him renovate the house, originally wishing Woodland House to look like the "home of a country vicar", but by the finish of the work Winner described it as "completely over the top" and said it resembled the "house of a lottery winner".
caption: Woodland House blue plaque commemorating Luke Fildes at the site
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