White House

Details

TQ 29 SW DOWNAGE

31/5/10326 No.72 (White House)

II

House. 1934-5 by Charles Evelyn Simmons (1879-1952) of Simmons and Grellier; for M Preston, Haymills Ltd builders and developers. Rendered brick, flat asphalt roof; tall rendered stacks. Moderne style. PLAN / EXTERIOR: 2 storeys, roof-top sunroom and basement. Square plan, with rounded corners to the principal rooms on southern elevation. Curved corners with continuous windows on ground and first floors. The third floor with sunroom glazed on three sides behind deep timber eaves. Casement opening windows of steel in timber soffits, with strong vertical mullions and delicate horizontal glazing bars. The same proportions used for steel balcony to rooftop terrace and first floor balcony over porch. Entrance double doors set back behind fluted mouldings to either side, incorporating opaque glass panels, with similar glazing and central circular double door handle framing letterbox and lock. Long narrow top light over with horizontal banded glazing and central oval. 'V'-shaped mouldings over tall projecting staircase window to left of entrance. Smaller windows to north elevation. INTERIOR: 4 basement rooms reached through trap and stairs in kitchen floor, and sunken entrance at rear. The main rooms reached from entrance hall, with opaque secondary doors inside, and dogleg stair to left with solid central panel, small timber balustrade to solid balustrade at left of first flight. All rooms retain original stepped moulded cornices. The drawing room and dining room, their uses reversed from those shown on original plans, have lost their fireplaces but are otherwise unaltered, linked by double doors. The principal bedrooms are over these rooms and have similar cornices. Balcony is reached through dressing room. Principal bathroom is little-altered with original bath and tiles. Taps to the bath are in the side of the wall, with a green inset soap holder. Glazed door to shower. Next to it a mirror hides a cupboard set behind the bath. Sun room with plain ceiling. Outside it is a curved 'sun roof' bounded by low walls. To one side of the house is a garage, to the other a utility room, added later in a matching style but not in themselves of special interest. HISTORY: No.72 Downage, known as the White House, is an unusually large, early and imaginative example of a traditionally-planned house from the 1930s given moderne features. It stands out from other speculative houses erected by Haymills in the area for its distinguished and unaltered facade, in which the proportions of the horizontal glazing and balconies contrast with the square staircase tower and curved sun-catching fronts to the principal rooms. Its detailing is far more inventive than on most houses of this type. Haymills were a leading building firm erecting fine quality houses in North London during the 1930s, with a tradition of employing interesting architects; other houses do not survive so well nor had the grandeur of the White House.

(Sources: Building Control Application: Hen 3753: September 1934 ; Powers A: A Chic Little Number: Perspectives on Architecture: London: June/July 1996: 23: 56-59 ; Brady D: Homing in on Hendon: Unpublished Twentieth Century Society notes: 1993)

Listing NGR: TQ2330090156

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

469187

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Powers, A, Perspectives on Architecture in A Chic Little Number, (1996), 56-59

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