Client
The Artist Nathaniel Dance-Holland (1735-1811) was George Dance's older brother - they had studied in Rome together - and through his marriage to Mrs Harriet Dummer in 1783 had greatly prospered. His wife having inherited the fortune of Charlotte Holland, a spinster cousin of her first husband Thomas Dummer, Nathaniel added Holland to his own name in 1800, and was soon afterwards created a baronet. By then, with estates in Oxfordshire and Wiltshire, he painted only for his own pleasure and had become a Member of Parliament. The Dance-Hollands lived for many years at Mortimer Street in the house of Harriet's first husband but at the age of 72 Nathaniel decided to build a house in Piccadilly with as Farington wrote in his diary (6 June 1807), 'a view to make an agreeable residence for Lady Holland, who has great pleasure in associating with Her friends who are in high situations .... [Dance] supposes Sir Nathaniel expends £5,000 a year, and believes He has £30,000 a year, so that it wd. only be the expense of surplus income for one year'. Sir Nathaniel died in 1811 and Lady Holland remained at the house until her death in 1825.

Site
At this time the houses fronting Piccadilly and west of Hamilton Place included what is now Apsley House, built 1771-8, as well as some humbler and older dwellings. One of the large, recent houses (designed about 1795 by S. P. Cockerell) belonged to Sir Drummond Smith who shared in the development of the area by obtaining a ground lease from the Crown and selling building leases for new, substantial houses. Dance-Holland bought a plot between Sir Drummond Smith's own house and a plot marked for 'Henry Rowles' (shown on drawing [SM D4/10/3]).

Design
Dance's first elevation ([SM D4/10/10]) had a fluted Doric porch in the centre of three bays that became plain Doric in the next design ([SM D4/10/13]). The final elevation ([D4/10/15]) had the door to the right-hand bay and a giant Corinthian order corresponding to those of the two houses to the right. In planning the interior a frontage of 32 feet was a restriction, but within this Dance created a house well-suited for entertainment and the display of his brother's own landscape paintings. Characteristically, Dance gave priority to a good staircase - geometrical within a rectangular plan - with an ante-chamber next to it which, on the ground floor and first floors, allowed an 'enfilade' arrangement between the reception rooms at front and back.

Kalman considered that 'the plan works well, but lacks the imagination and intricacy of a tour-de-force such as Robert Adam's famous Derby House .... The exploitation of unusually shaped rooms for the sake of variety, evident in Derby House as well as in Dance's early projects, has yielded to the more utilitarian pragmatism of the Regency' (p.208). What is more, Dance was unlikely to be very adventurous when designing for an older brother who was aged 75 when he moved in. Since the two houses immediately east of his brother's property were so similar and balanced in their composition, it seems very likely that Dance was involved with the design of their elevations so as to make an ensemble of the three houses.

Later history
The house was re-clad in Portland stone around 1900, the stair lined with dark red marble and the principal rooms given fanciful panelling and rococo ceilings. It was demolished in the early 1970s for the completion of the Park Lane dual carriageway.

See also Samuel Pepys Cockerell's designs for 145 Piccadilly.

LITERATURE: Gentleman's Magazine, 11, 1825, p.641 (obituary Lady Holland); Stroud pp.208-11; Kalman pp.207-08.

Group

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