Fife House, No 1, Lewes Crescent, is a Grade I listed building in Kemp Town,

Brighton Brighton () is a seaside resort and one of the two main areas of the City of Brighton and Hove in the county of East Sussex, England. It is located south of London. Archaeological evidence of settlement in the area dates back to the Bronze A ...

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

, which was previously owned by the

Duke of Devonshire Duke of Devonshire is a title in the Peerage of England held by members of the Cavendish family. This (now the senior) branch of the Cavendish family has been one of the wealthiest British aristocratic families since the 16th century and has be ...

and the

Duke of Fife Duke of Fife is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom that has been created twice, in both cases for Alexander Duff, 1st Duke of Fife and 6th Earl Fife, who in 1889 married Princess Louise, the eldest daughter of Albert Edward, Princ ...

History

Fife House was originally built in 1828 by Thomas Cubitt, as part of the Kemp Town estate planned by Thomas Read Kemp, and designed by Charles Busby and Amon Wilds. It was bought in 1829 by the

William Cavendish, 6th Duke of Devonshire William George Spencer Cavendish, 6th Duke of Devonshire, (21 May 1790 K. D. Reynolds, ‘Cavendish, William George Spencer, sixth duke of Devonshire (1790–1858)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, Sept 2004; ...

. He had the property, situated at 1, Lewes Crescent, joined internally by Thomas Cubitt, using workmen from Chatsworth, to an adjacent property he also owned at 14, Chichester Terrace.Daily Telegraph ''Oh my lord!'' 10 July 2006
/ref> The Duke had the property redecorated by John Gregory Crace in 1848, and lived there until his death in 1858. The

lived in the property from 1896,Kemp Town history
/ref> with his wife,

Princess Louise Princess Louise may refer to: ;People: * Princess Louise, Duchess of Argyll, 1848–1939, the sixth child and fourth daughter of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom * Princess Louise, Princess Royal and Duchess of Fife, 1867–1931, the ...

, the daughter of

King Edward VII Edward VII (Albert Edward; 9 November 1841 – 6 May 1910) was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and Emperor of India, from 22 January 1901 until his death in 1910. The second child and eldest son of Queen Victoria a ...

. The house was named ''Fife House'' at that time. King Edward visited the house on a number of occasions, most notably staying there during his convalescence in 1908. It was for this reason that the ''King's toilet'' was installed in the house. Princess Louise lived in the property until 1924. From 1947 and for most of the rest of the 20th century, Fife House was the home of the Weston family, who founded and ran the nearby Nevill House Hotel.

Recent history

During renovation work carried out under the supervision of new owners Todd Cooper and Giuseppe Sironi in 2001 the decoration by Crace was rediscovered under several layers of wallpaper. Telecommunications millionnaire Patrick Naughton bought the property in 2002 for £2.85 million. The bathrooms in Fife House were renovated in 2002 by Emily Swift-Jones and Joseph Atkinson of ''Aurum Design''. The property was featured in 2005 in ''House Detectives'', a BBC series which investigated the histories of domestic properties. It was revealed that Baker, the Bachelor Duke of Devonshire's butler, occupied a small house at the rear of the property for twenty five years. The property was sold in 2008, to an unknown buyer, for £1.75 million. It was reported that the property had been occupied by

squatters Squatting is the action of occupying an abandoned or unoccupied area of land or a building, usually residential, that the squatter does not own, rent or otherwise have lawful permission to use. The United Nations estimated in 2003 that there ...

during December 2008, but they had moved out by mid-January 2009.

References

{{B&H Buildings Grade I listed houses Grade I listed buildings in Brighton and Hove Houses in Brighton and Hove Houses completed in 1828 Squats in the United Kingdom Former squats