Lady Islington Suite
Every Home has a story – and if the walls of our rooms could talk, they’d have a lot to say.
The Lady Islington Suite, for instance, would speak with a sensitive but powerful whisper. Lord and Lady Islington lived in the House between 1919 and 1926. Lady Islington was one of a handful of pioneering female interior decorators in the inter-war years, and she redecorated much of Home House, removing the heavy accretions of the 19th Century with great flair. Her namesake bedroom is a beautiful pale green and white colour palette, but the bathroom is the pièce de résistance and shows that this Lady was not to be messed with. Fitted in 1922, its floor-to-ceiling red marble comes from the same source as St. Paul’s Cathedral. When light floods through the canopy above and hits the marble, you can almost imagine Lady Islington herself walking through draped in a delicate gown and dripping with diamonds.
Lord and Lady Islington left the House in 1926, and over the next 70 years it was inhabited by various other residents. But in World War II, there was one particularly unwelcome guest: a bomb which fell through the ceiling of the Lady Islington Suite bathroom but, thankfully, didn’t explode. Home House is one of the very few buildings on Portman Square which survived the Blitz – and the large crack in the marble floor of Lady Islington’s bathroom is a poignant reminder of this terrible period.