Property Of The Week: Oscar Wilde’s Legendary Mayfair Home For Sale

The former Mayfair bachelor lodgings frequented by playwright Oscar Wilde at 14 Half Moon Street which helped inspire Wilde’s iconic play ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’, is for sale.

The famous property, now a Grade II Listed grand townhouse, provides 5,019 sq.ft. (466.27 sq.m.) of turn-key accommodation. It features include an entrance hall, four reception rooms, four/five bedrooms, cinema room, steam room and two private terraces.

Listed for sale for the first time in 10 years, the six storey white-stucco fronted townhouse was originally built in the c1730s and now provides beautifully interior designed, dressed and immaculately presented luxury living space over lower ground, ground and five upper floors, with a large oriel bay window at first and second floor and spacious outside terraces on the first and fourth floors.

The townhouse was originally built as a single family home but in the early 1880s the then owners, the Gannon family, subdivided the property into apartments. The Gannon Apartments at 14 Half Moon Street provided ‘bachelor’s chambers’ – accommodation for single male tenants living in London seeking to advance their careers and fortunes.

These bachelor chambers were popular with young men-about-town since they were directly adjacent to Flemings at 10 Half Moon Street, at the time Flemings was a racy tavern with lodgings above run by Robert Fleming (now the plush and highly respectable Flemings Hotel which has an Oscar Wilde inspired VIP suite).

Although now one of the most prestigious streets in Mayfair, during the 1880’s Victorian era Half Moon Street was a much more colourful and bohemian place where London’s ‘confirmed bachelors’, artistic types and theatre people lived and socialised.

During the Victorian era Half Moon Street, named after the raucous “Half Moon” public house which stood on the corner of Piccadilly, was home to half a dozen buildings providing bachelor’s chambers and these and 14 Half Moon Street were where Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) and his bohemian friends lived and socialised.

The bachelor’s chambers at 14 Half Moon Street were home to the actor and costumier Raoul ‘Reggie’ de Veulle, novelist Hugh Walpole, poet Siegfried Sasson and literary icon and journalist Robbie Ross, a close friend of Oscar Wilde.

Wilde was a frequent visitor to the bachelor’s chambers and he was also a regular fixture at the adjacent Flemings Tavern and Café Royal on Regent’s Street. Wilde also had membership of the smart Mayfair gentleman’s club, the Albemarle Club (1874-1941), then at 13 Albemarle Street, and nearby Burlington Arcade was another favourite haunt, where Wilde would buy carnations for his buttonhole and spend time peoplewatching.

It is therefore perhaps not surprising, that the townhouse at 14 Half Moon Street provided the inspiration and setting for Algernon Moncrieff’s bachelor pad in Oscar Wilde’s famous play ‘The Importance’ of being Earnest’, with the first Act of Wilde’s play centred on Half Moon Street and Algernon Moncrieff’s ‘luxuriously furnished‘ chambers.

In the play fictional visitors to the Half Moon Steet townhouse include Algernon Moncrieff’s friend Ernest Worthing, Algernon’s cousin Gwendolen Fairfax and Gwendolen’s formidable mother and Algernon’s Aunt, Lady Bracknell.

After the Second War 14 Half Moon Street was converted into offices and then converted back into a single home in 2008. Fully refurbished and modernised the townhouse now offers luxurious living space over seven floors, linked by a passenger lift (to all floors) and a staircase that rises through the house.

The townhouse lives up to the ‘luxurious furnishings’ of Algernon Moncrieff’s Half Moon Street home as described in Wilde’s famous play. On the ground floor the entrance hall has geometric patterned marble flooring, a Carrara Biano marble fireplace and elegant ceiling coving. Beyond the entrance hall is the family kitchen with central island and adjoining breakfast/informal dining room.

On the first floor, overlooking Half Moon Street, is a spacious reception room with large bay window, smoked European oak parquet flooring, a period marble fireplace and wet/cocktail bar with fridge. In this elegant living room Oscar Wilde’s play comes alive and you can imagine Algernon entertaining his friend Ernest Worthing and hosting his formidable Aunt Lady Bracknell.

Also on the first floor is a spacious interconnecting double reception room providing drawing room and a 10-seater dining room with double doors from the dining area opening onto an outside terrace. In the drawing room Oscar Wilde’s play has Ernest/Jack Worthing proposing to Gwendolen Fairfax and poor Ernest/Jack interrogated by her formidable mother Lady Bracknell.

On the lower ground floor there is a cinema room with built in bar, steam room, utility room and extensive vault storage. The principal bedroom suite occupies the entire second floor and has a spacious bedroom with parquet flooring and deep bay window, walk in dressing room with fully fitted bespoke wardrobes crafted in American walnut wood and a main bathroom with freestanding sculptural bathtub, twin basin and double walk-in shower with Armani marble.

The principal guest suite is set over the entire third floor and is similar in size and features to the principal suite. On the uppermost floors are two guest bedroom suites (both ensuite) and a family room/fourth reception room (which could double as a fifth bedroom) opening onto a large roof terrace.

The property is listed with Beauchamp Estates.
Price: £14,000,000
Photo credit: Beauchamp Estates / Alex Winship

Feature your property by contacting Alan Cox, Abode2, at alan@abode2.com today.