The Stage

Coward’s £4m Belgravia home on the market

Published Friday 16 February 2007 at 13:00 by Alistair Smith

Legendary playwright Noel Coward’s London home, where he wrote classics such as Design for Living and Mad Dogs and Englishman, is up for sale.

The house, which is considered the most significant of Coward’s London properties, is located on Gerald Road in Belgravia and is on the market at £4 million, listed by RE/MAX estate agency. It is combined with another property on Burton Mews, which was used as an office by his secretary Lorn Lorraine.

Coward purchased the house in 1930 and lived there until 1956. Prior to that, it was owned by the dancer Frankie Leverson.

John Knowles, secretary of the Noel Coward Society, said: “The Gerald Road property marks an important point in Coward’s career when his plays, revues and music began to dominate the West End and Broadway. Coward used the grand reception room to plan his theatrical productions and celebrate his successes with the theatrical glitterati of the day.

“John Gielgud recalled that at one cocktail party there were 50 people up on the balcony. The seclusion and quiet that the property offered enabled Coward to pen the musical Bitter Sweet and finalise his oriental lament Mad Dogs and Englishmen in the heart of the metropolis.”