★★★★☆
“Open sesame” are the words to whisper as you enter Lord Leighton’s Arabian fantasia off Kensington High Street. Before it closed for renovation, Leighton House had become dusty and drab. Now, after an £8 million spruce-up, the house is back to its old self, blue and glittering, emerging like a genie from a lamp. The architects BDP have called the project “Hidden Gem to National Treasure”. Leighton House deserved the lift.
“I wish I had a house,” the painter Frederic Leighton wrote to his mother in 1862. He had been living in rented rooms in Bayswater and was bothered by bailiffs dunning for his landlord’s unpaid taxes. What a house he made. His architect was George Aitchison, but Leighton was the driving force. He
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/leighton-house-review-8-million-makeover-for-west-londons-loveliest-room-bhxr0jnl8
