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Gargoyle Club
The Gargoyle Club was a private club on the upper floors of 69 Dean Street, Soho, London, at the corner with Meard Street. It was founded on 16 January 1925 by the aristocratic socialite David Tennant, son of the First Baron Glenconner. David was the brother of Stephen Tennant who was a prominent member of the social set called "Bright Young People" and of Edward Tennant, the poet who was killed in action in World War I.
This elegant house, 69 and 70 Dean Street, a pair of Georgian residences, was built on the Pitt estate in 1732–1735 by John Meard, the carpenter who helped standardise the Georgian town house.
"In 1834 No. 69 was taken by Vincent Novello, the composer and musical editor, and his son, Joseph Alfred, music seller and publisher, who were perhaps responsible for the erection of the back premises, with the wall still fronting Meard Street. Vincent's daughter, Clara, the singer, was also living here in 1840 and the painter, J. P. Davis, in 1842. In 1847 the firm of Novello became music printers also. It was probably in 1864–5 that the upper storeys were added to No. 69 to accommodate the printing works. In 1867 the firm removed to Berners Street but in 1871 the printing works returned to No. 69, and No. 70 was bought in 1875 for the storage of plates. Thenceforward the firm occupied both houses until 1898, when it moved to new printing works in Hollen Street."
Survey of London
David Tennant took a 50-year lease on the upper three floors, while an existing printing works established by the Novello music publishing family remained housed beneath. Here he created a private apartment, a very large ballroom, a Tudor Room, coffee room, drawing room and a 350-sq yds flat roof with a garden for dining and dancing, around which neighbouring chimneys were painted brilliant red. All who visited the club shared its intimately democratic and rickety external lift, four-person maximum, enclosed in shining metal like an art-nouveau cabin trunk, located round the corner in Meard Street.
The charismatic Tennant was the self-appointed ringmaster to an arena where Bohemians could mingle comfortably with the upper crust, according to writer and film producer Michael Luke.
Of the club's opening night The Daily Telegraph observed that its 300-strong list of members "probably contains more famous names in society and the arts than any other purely social club". Names on this list included Somerset Maugham, Noël Coward, Gladys Cooper, Leon Goossens, Gordon Craig, George Grossmith, Virginia Woolf, Duncan Grant, Nancy Cunard, Adèle Astaire, Edwina Mountbatten; an obligatory Guinness, Rothschild and Sitwell; MPs, and peers of the realm.
Designed by Henri Matisse, Edwin Lutyens, and Augustus John, the interior decor was theatrical – a fountain on the dance floor, log fires in the dining room, wooden gargoyles suspended as lanterns – with a strong Moorish flavour. Henri Matisse was made an honorary member after advising on decor. To complement the main club-room's elaborate coffered ceiling painted with gold leaf, like the Alhambra, he suggested covering the walls entirely with a mosaic of imperfectly cut glass tiles from an 18th-century chateau. Matisse himself designed a stunning entrance staircase to this room in glittering steel and brass, which remained in use until the club's conversion into a studio complex in the mid-1980s.
The young Tennant bought two of Matisse's paintings in Paris for £600 and in the opinion of Anthony Powell they "lent an air of go-ahead culture to the club". These were the painter's daring and inventive The Red Studio from 1911 which was displayed in the bar at the Gargoyle until 1941, offered to the Tate Gallery for £400 and declined, then in 1949 joined the MoMA permanent collection in New York where it still hangs. The other Matisse, The Studio, Quai St Michel (1916), features his favourite model the voluptuous Lorette, naked on a couch, on the club's stairs. Today she resides in Washington DC in The Phillips Collection, after Tennant, feeling himself to be on the verge of ruin, sold it for "a derisory sum" to Douglas Cooper, who in turn sold it on.
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Gargoyle Club
The Gargoyle Club was a private club on the upper floors of 69 Dean Street, Soho, London, at the corner with Meard Street. It was founded on 16 January 1925 by the aristocratic socialite David Tennant, son of the First Baron Glenconner. David was the brother of Stephen Tennant who was a prominent member of the social set called "Bright Young People" and of Edward Tennant, the poet who was killed in action in World War I.
This elegant house, 69 and 70 Dean Street, a pair of Georgian residences, was built on the Pitt estate in 1732–1735 by John Meard, the carpenter who helped standardise the Georgian town house.
"In 1834 No. 69 was taken by Vincent Novello, the composer and musical editor, and his son, Joseph Alfred, music seller and publisher, who were perhaps responsible for the erection of the back premises, with the wall still fronting Meard Street. Vincent's daughter, Clara, the singer, was also living here in 1840 and the painter, J. P. Davis, in 1842. In 1847 the firm of Novello became music printers also. It was probably in 1864–5 that the upper storeys were added to No. 69 to accommodate the printing works. In 1867 the firm removed to Berners Street but in 1871 the printing works returned to No. 69, and No. 70 was bought in 1875 for the storage of plates. Thenceforward the firm occupied both houses until 1898, when it moved to new printing works in Hollen Street."
Survey of London
David Tennant took a 50-year lease on the upper three floors, while an existing printing works established by the Novello music publishing family remained housed beneath. Here he created a private apartment, a very large ballroom, a Tudor Room, coffee room, drawing room and a 350-sq yds flat roof with a garden for dining and dancing, around which neighbouring chimneys were painted brilliant red. All who visited the club shared its intimately democratic and rickety external lift, four-person maximum, enclosed in shining metal like an art-nouveau cabin trunk, located round the corner in Meard Street.
The charismatic Tennant was the self-appointed ringmaster to an arena where Bohemians could mingle comfortably with the upper crust, according to writer and film producer Michael Luke.
Of the club's opening night The Daily Telegraph observed that its 300-strong list of members "probably contains more famous names in society and the arts than any other purely social club". Names on this list included Somerset Maugham, Noël Coward, Gladys Cooper, Leon Goossens, Gordon Craig, George Grossmith, Virginia Woolf, Duncan Grant, Nancy Cunard, Adèle Astaire, Edwina Mountbatten; an obligatory Guinness, Rothschild and Sitwell; MPs, and peers of the realm.
Designed by Henri Matisse, Edwin Lutyens, and Augustus John, the interior decor was theatrical – a fountain on the dance floor, log fires in the dining room, wooden gargoyles suspended as lanterns – with a strong Moorish flavour. Henri Matisse was made an honorary member after advising on decor. To complement the main club-room's elaborate coffered ceiling painted with gold leaf, like the Alhambra, he suggested covering the walls entirely with a mosaic of imperfectly cut glass tiles from an 18th-century chateau. Matisse himself designed a stunning entrance staircase to this room in glittering steel and brass, which remained in use until the club's conversion into a studio complex in the mid-1980s.
The young Tennant bought two of Matisse's paintings in Paris for £600 and in the opinion of Anthony Powell they "lent an air of go-ahead culture to the club". These were the painter's daring and inventive The Red Studio from 1911 which was displayed in the bar at the Gargoyle until 1941, offered to the Tate Gallery for £400 and declined, then in 1949 joined the MoMA permanent collection in New York where it still hangs. The other Matisse, The Studio, Quai St Michel (1916), features his favourite model the voluptuous Lorette, naked on a couch, on the club's stairs. Today she resides in Washington DC in The Phillips Collection, after Tennant, feeling himself to be on the verge of ruin, sold it for "a derisory sum" to Douglas Cooper, who in turn sold it on.
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