Pause for a moment across the street from the London Centre and savour the architectural delight that greets the eye. What you see is unique in the history of London domestic architecture, a non-symmetrical row of six late Victorian family dwellings, numbers 35-45 Harrington Gardens, individually designed by the firm of Ernest George and Peto and modelled on the substantial seventeenth century mercantile mansions of Flanders [especially Bruges and Ghent], Holland [Haarlem] and north Germany [Lubeck]. Ithaca's London Centre is the easternmost of the six buildings, number 35. The buildings are characterised by wide and variegated fronts with gables, inclined tiled roofs, leaded casement windows, red bricks and terracotta panels. The backs of the houses, viewed from Wetherby Gardens to the rear, are much simpler in design.

When the houses were built in the early 1880s [at a purchase cost of £10,000 - £12,000], it was already a risky speculation to presume that a Victorian man of business, junior member of the aristocracy, officer or servant of the Queen's far-flung empire could afford the luxury of a large townhouse with rooms above and below stairs for the broad range of servants [cooks, maids, butlers, footmen, governesses, nursery maids, etc.] indispensable for the social standing and efficient running of the household of a Victorian "man of property". As the forecourt [where our students congregate to have lunch and read] and iron railings [no Group photo at Ithaca London is complete without students hanging upside down off the railings] of numbers 35 and 37 reveal, each house would have been serviced by horse and carriage, thereby necessitating a nearby mews property - located in Colbeck Mews on the north side of Harrington Gardens - to accommodate the horses, carriages, coachmen and grooms of the pre-motor car age. Because another builder had the rights to construct houses to the south of Harrington Gardens, the communal gardens for numbers 35-45 were initially on the north side of the street, as were the mews properties.

The "jewel in the crown" of the Peto Brothers development is undoubtedly number 39, built for the Victorian dramatist, W S Gilbert, with its 19-step gable surmounted by a ship. Gilbert chose the ship for the top of the gable in honour of his seafaring ancestor, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, and not, as many like to believe, as a tribute to the success of his own "Pirates of Penzance". Number 41, which was built for Henry Coke, the son of the Earl of Leicester] is the second favourite of the dwellings. Number 35, the home of Ithaca College in London since 1972, was built as a speculation by Walter R Cassells who built the larger number 37 for himself. Cassells was a poet and a theologian who had spent much of the mid-Victorian period in India as a businessman and, for a brief period, working for the Bombay government. In 1874 he published anonymously a rationalist work of theology entitled Supernatural Religion, a book that provoked heated debate and condemnation by the guardians of Christian orthodoxy. Cassels rented the smaller number 35 to his good friend from Bombay civil service days, Archibald David Robertson. Numbers 35 and 37, the latter the home of the Society of Genealogists when Ithaca arrived at number 35, is now the home of the Permanent Mission of the Russian Federation to the International Maritime Commission. Numbers 35 and 37 are unique in that they share a forecourt and iron railings and have projecting wings. Number 37 has a billiard room in its wing, number 35 has a drawing room which is today the London Centre's "Common Room".

In number 35, the basement held the kitchen, scullery, butler's room and maids' rooms, and the coal storage. The ground floor had the smoking room [now the front office], the library [now the Operation Manager's Office, and the dining room [now the Director's office]. The first floor had a bedroom and its attached dressing room, plus the large drawing room. The second floor had more bedrooms, dressing rooms and sitting rooms for members of the family, while the nursery and more servant quarters were located on the 3rd and 4th floors. Notice also the two staircases, one for family members, the other for servants who would go quietly and unobtrusively about their business from the top to the bottom of the house unobserved by Robertson, his family and their guests.

Why aren't descendants of Cassells and Robertson in the houses today? In some respects, the houses were built in the last great British age. The flat or urban apartment was just beginning to replace the large townhouse as the preferred residence of Victorian gentlefolk. Numbers 35-45 Harrington Gardens, although beautiful and unique, were therefore somewhat anachronistic: not only were the designs based on seventeenth century Flemish and Hanseatic models, but the social and economic conditions of the "great Victorian boom" 1850-1870 were never to be repeated as the Germans and the Americans began to challenge the hitherto effortless economic superiority of the British. How fitting that an American college should now be the proud owners of this delightful late Victorian building.