Two Temple Place - City of Westminster (London) - Wikipedia Entries on Waymarking.com

Two Temple Place (also Astor House), a building situated near Victoria Embankment in central London, is known for its architecture, and contains notable works by the likes of William Silver Frith, George Frampton, Nathaniel Hitch and Thomas Nichos. On 28 October 2011, Two Temple Place opened as a public gallery. It is a London venue specifically to showcase publicly owned art from regional collections in the United Kingdom, and is only open to the public during exhibitions.

The building was built by John Loughborough Pearson for William Waldorf Astor, in 1895. Originally known as the Astor Estate Office, it had a residential flat above the offices for Viscount Astor's use (Pevsner). It consists of two floors and a lower ground floor and is designed to be in the Early Elizabethan style and is built entirely of Portland stone. It has splendid carvings on the exterior stonework by Nathaniel Hitch. and above the machicolated parapets is a weather vane, representing the caravel Santa Maria in which Columbus discovered America. The intention was to symbolize the connection of the path of discovery of his ancestor John Jacob Astor and the linking of United States and Europe. It was executed by J. Starkie Gardner, the English metal worker, who was responsible for all metalwork inside and outside the building.

John Dibblee Crace, one of a family of interior decorators, decorated the interior of Two Temple Place for Astor in the style of French Renaissance from about 1892 to 1895. He also decorated Astor's home in Cliveden. In what had been a bedroom, Astor had the walls paneled with "precious woods" and the ceiling gilted in gold.

It is now managed and preserved by Bulldog Trust, a charitable organization, and is hired out for personal and functions. It opened to the public as a gallery in October 2011. [wiki]