|
No. 9 Eastern
Terrace, Brighton
A house built for the wealthy
and powerful at play.
Arguably the grandest Regency house in Brighton, No.
9 Eastern Terrace was built for lavish entertaining.
Nearly 10,000 sq ft and completed around 1830, it was
often let to members of London society for the season.
Early residents included the Duchess of Somerset, Sir
Robert Peel, Baron Sudeley, Henri, comte de Chambord
(grandson of Charles X of France and a leading claimant
to the French throne) and, perhaps especially significantly,
the 1st Marquess of Normanby and Home Secretary in Lord
Melbourne’s last government, Constantine Phipps.
Son of the 1st Earl of Musgrave, Phipps was fantastically
influential. A successful academic and politician, Phipps
was also well known as a writer of romantic novels,
a catholic sympathiser who lived in Italy for two years,
and a former Governor of Jamaica. After his season at
Brighton, he went on to serve as ambassador at Paris
and, in the 1850s, minister at Florence. It seems likely,
therefore, that his influence would have contributed
to Brighton’s revival, during the second half of
the 19th century, as a favourite with foreign diplomats,
politicians and aristocrats. During that time the Regency
houses along the front became great status symbols,
each owner trying to surpass his neighbour with the
most lavish and up to the minute interiors.
|
|
The grand living at No.9 continued into the 20th
century but, perhaps hinting at the troubled decades ahead,
a new owner in 1910, King Manoel II of Portugal, came
not for leisure, but having been driven out of Portugal
by revolution. The Great War followed, during which he
had the house turned into a convalescent home for wounded
officers. The inter-war years saw the house flourish again,
this time as the marine residence of the Vanderbilt family,
but only briefly: it was then converted into the Royal
Sussex Hotel and ultimately used as part of a training
college. Such use hardly reflected the grandeur of the
property but did bring one great blessing: it was not,
like so many of Brighton’s other Regency houses,
converted into flats. This left the way open for new owners,
at the end of the 20th century, to embark upon a painstaking
restoration programme which saw not just the renovation
of the architectural detail but also the creation of a
stylish, modern residence that, once again, lends itself
to entertaining on a grand scale.
No.9 Eastern Terrace is currently being offered by
the London Country Houses & Estates office and the
Chichester office, at a guide price of £3 million. |
