Harriman House
Lutyens’s unbuilt 1903 scheme for a vast house for American magnate E. H. Harriman envisaged a terraced courtyard palace on a sloping site, with a stepped sequence of great room, stair and salon along a south terrace, blending Spanish–Italian palazzo influences and Jones/Chambers classicism with spatial overlaps recalling Tigbourne, Homewood and anticipating Nashdom.
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Description
‘This morning called on Mr Harriman the multi-millionaire. I am to make sketches for a house – money no object! Whether I get the job or no is another matter – all America is after the job.’ Letter to Lady Emily Lutyens, August 10, 1903.
A scheme for a courtyard house approached from the east exploiting a sloping site. Flights of steps within the court lead up to the entrance and double-height great room at the level of the west terrace. Across this room full-width steps rise to the grand staircase at the north end and descend to the salon in the centre of a linear progression of reception rooms along the south terrace. The reorientation and general arrangement recalls both Tigbourne and Homewood, while the tall, urban, Palazzo-like elevation concealing the terracing of the site anticipates Nashdom.
Given that the drawings represent only preliminary proposals, Spanish and Italian influences can be clearly discerned as well as the influence of Jones and Chambers. However, the overlapping of elements on the south elevation is completely typical of Lutyens’s work. (Inskip, 1986, p.60)
Bibliography
Inskip, P. (1986) Edwin Lutyens: Architectural Monographs 6. 2nd edn. London: Academy Editions., Richardson, M. (1994) Sketches by Edwin Lutyens: Drawings from the Collection of Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA Drawings Monographs No. 1). London: Wiley.
