The Other Hartford House

Digging out the British roots of a very American home

St Dunstan¹s Villa as it looked in the 1830¹s when visited by the young Wadsworths. The center part of the house on which the Geneseo home was based is surrounded by large wings on both sides, with the famous clock tower visible at the far left.

Upon his death in 1842, the diarist Charles Greville said that “no man ever lived more despised or died less regretted.” Despite that the third Marquis left a substantial legacy not just to his heirs but ultimately to the nation.

His son Richard Seymour-Conway inherited his prized art collection and added to it by spending a great part of his father's fortune investing in paintings by masters such as Rembrandt and Velazquez.

Although the 4th Marquis never married he did father a son, Richard. Never acknowledged during life, he adopted his mother's maiden name of Wallace, but eventually did inherit the art collection. He also acquired the lease of the English Hertford House (formerly Manchester House) and installed his collection there on Manchester Square.

The Wallace Collection at Hertford House was opened to the public in 1900 and continues to draw visitors from around the world, who marvel at the great works assembled by the 3rd and 4th Marquis as well as by Richard Wallace himself.

Lord Hertford's other house, St. Dunstan's Villa in Regent's Park, the model for our American Hartford House, did not fare so well. Upon his death, the 3rd Marquis left the villa to Charlotte Strachan, the Countess Zichy-Ferraris, who along with her two sisters had been the Marquis's wards since childhood. The countess at first rented out the rambling quarters and in 1855 decided to dispense with the property at public auction.

As befitted the 3rd Marquis's ego, his Villa was the largest of all those built in Regent's Park.

It was purchased by banker Henry Hucks Gibbs, later Lord Aldenham, who used it as his home for 40 years. After the death of Lord Aldenham it was bought by Lord Londesborough, who in turn sold it to Otto Kahn in 1913. Kahn a German emigre, had married the daughter of his partner in the Manhattan banking firm of Kuhn, Loeb. Kahn had been very successful in banking and went on to become famous in American society chiefly as a patron of the arts. In 1921 he built in Woodbury, N.Y. what is still the second largest house in the United States, a 126 room castle to rival that of William Randolph Hearst in California.

Understandably, since Kahn was so busy in America, St Dunstan's Villa was little used. During World War I, he gave it to be used as a training center for blind and disabled soldiers and sailors. The Institute later moved to England's south coast, but to this day retains the name of St. Dunstan's Institute for the Blind and its mission to aid disabled British veterans.

The villa stood unoccupied between 1922 and 1930 when it was sold to Lord Rothermere a successful British publisher. Despite his great wealth, however, Rothermere did little to restore the villa to its former glory. In 1936, the house was sold again to Countess Haugwitz-Reventlow. This 24 year old American beauty was better known as Barbara Hutton, heiress to the Woolworth fortune.

Miss Hutton had the old villa demolished and built a new elegant red brick Georgian style house which she named for her father Frank Winfield Woolworth. Miss Hutton returned to the states and, during the second World War, Winfield House was commandeered by the Royal Air Force to establish a barrage balloon unit there. At the end of the war, Hutton returned to find the house in great disrepair and immediately offered it to the US government for use as the official residence of the American Ambassador. The price paid was one dollar.