Growing up in London, there was a house I was fascinated by. It looked like a mini castle with a tower; red-bricked and handsome, a portal to another time with its stained-glass windows. Back then, I had no idea who lived there. Later, I discovered it belonged to the guitarist and music producer Jimmy Page, erstwhile of Led Zeppelin. I knew I had no hope of ever stepping inside. But life can throw some crazy stuff at you and three decades later, I am invited to visit. I tell Page all of this before he has even fully flexed the door on its hinges, “Well I’m so glad you came then,” he smiles, giving me a hearty handshake.
The Tower House actually has two front doors: the half bevelled-glass street door which leads into a mosaic lobby and the actual house door, adorned with brass sculptures showing the Ages of Man. Then, the only way I can describe what happens next is: imagine going to a party and all your best friends are there wearing the most opulent clothes of their lives, and they come and say hello all at once, and for a moment, you are so giddy you can’t compute. This is what entering the Tower House is like.
It was designed by the self-styled “art architect” William Burges between 1875 and 1881, in the 13th-century French Gothic style. Burges was well travelled, meticulous about research and detail, uncompromising in his use of materials, obsessed with the Middle Ages and was a skilled metalworker, jeweller and designer before he became an architect. He ran with an arty set: Leighton, Rossetti, Burne-Jones et al; was sociable, chronically myopic and even his best friends described him as ugly. He had quite a sense of humour and was absolutely not a cheap architect. Everything he’d ever learned and loved went into Tower House because it was to be his home.
Sadly, he was only to live at the house for three years. He died aged 53 in his red bed in the Mermaid Room on the first floor, under painted friezes of waves and swimming fish, and a ceiling of gilt stars studded with convex mirrors. He was next to his painted wardrobe which Page managed to buy back and return to the spot Burges intended it for. (Much of the house’s contents were sold off in 1933.)
For more read the full of article at The Guardian
