The Pheasantry

The Pheasantry, 152 King's Road, Chelsea, London, is a Grade II listed building that was home to a number of important figures in 1960s London and a small music venue in the 1970s where a number of bands were able to play their first gigs.

The original buildings, now largely demolished, may have been constructed in 1766 or 1769. The site gets its name from the business of Samuel Baker who developed new breeds of oriental pheasants as well as cattle and foxes. Advertising appeared in The Field in 1865 offering pairs of birds for 15 guineas.

The current building was constructed in the mid-nineteenth century. The Jouberts bought the building in 1880 and it seems that they added significant amounts of architectural decoration around that time. According to Nikolaus Pevsner and Bridget Cherry, the building includes a "flamboyant Louis XV façade and a triumphal entrance arch to its front courtyard with caryatids and quadringa ... the odd, extremely heavy display of Grecian enthusiasm were added to an earlier house in 1881 by the artist and interior decorator Amédée Joubert". The London Green Guide noted in 2012 that only the facade and portico survive.

The firm of Amédée Joubert & Son provided services of upholstery, gilding, the importation of Aubusson tapestry, Lyons silks and oriental carpets and the manufacture of French bedding, chairs etc. and continued until 1932, lastly under Felix Joubert who also made dolls' house furniture for Queen Mary. By 1914, however, the showroom was closed and the rest of the building rented out as studios with only the basement in use by the Jouberts as a workshop.

In the early 1900s, one occupant of the Pheasantry was Eleanor Thornton (drowned 1915), a favourite model of artist and sculptor Charles Sykes. Thornton may have been the model for Sykes' most famous work, his Rolls-Royce mascot the Spirit of Ecstasy.

From 1916, part of the building was a ballet academy run by the dance teacher Serafina Astafieva (1876–1934), great niece of Leo Tolstoy. Astafieva trained Alicia Markova who came to Diaghilev's attention when he visited the school in 1921 and went on to join his Ballets Russes. Anton Dolin and Margot Fonteyn also trained there.

From 1950, the Italian painter Pietro Annigoni spent six months a year in Britain using the Pheasantry as his British studio.

Following the retirement of Felix Joubert in 1932, the basement became a bohemian restaurant and drinking club patronised by actors and artists, including Augustus John, Dylan Thomas, Humphrey Bogart, and Francis Bacon. It was run by an Italian called Reny De Meo. Lynda Bellingham recalls that in the 1960s Anthony Hopkins would "hold court" there doing an impression of Richard Burton doing Dylan Thomas. The club closed in 1966 after the death of the owner Mario Cazzani, and the building was converted into apartments and the basement into a nightclub.