Ladew, Part II

The building of Pleasant Valley Farm, the manor house at Ladew Gardens spans the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. It started out as a small four room house, circa 1747. The center and main section was added in the mid-1800s.
Harvey Ladew added the south and east wings in the 1930’s, mainly to accommodate an oval partners desk he’d purchased in London. The library, where the desk is located, is listed in books of that period as one of the 100 most beautiful rooms in America. Although the room (the 20th C. section at the top of the illustration and the image directly below) appears square on the outside, it’s oval inside. Hidden doors reveal small closets and a passageway.

The front of the house is rather plain, but the three windows on the top floor are unusual in that their panes form a brick-work pattern.

This is the view from another angle. The tent where the antiques dealers were located was on the circular forecourt of the house.

I took some pictures inside the house, because no one had said we couldn’t. Of course, some tacky woman spoiled that by hauling out her camera with all sorts of noises and taking flash photographs. This was right after someone else answered her mobile phone and had a conversation. The guide was very irritated, thinking that people should know a little better.

The main sitting room with a beautiful arrangement of white and purple lilacs from the property. You can see that there are some small bronzes of horses just behind the camelback sofa. What I should have taken a picture of was the broken pediments with urns above all of the doors. It was classic!

The dining room, part of the original 18th century section of the house, features a painted mural which was once a room screen.

Detail of the wall mural.

The table is set with Coalport china, which is also in the lit cabinet in the background. The china is painted with hunt scenes.

Harvey Ladew’s office is set between the main hall and the dining room. It has the original unpainted woodwork from the 18th century.

Some of Ladew’s collection of horse- and hunt-themed china.

This is when my pictures stop…

However, there’s one more room to show you. Apparently, Billy Baldwin, who was good friends with Harvey Ladew, helped decorate a room at Pleasant Valley. The second floor sitting room is painted a dark aubergine and has some chairs that are covered with a fabric that looks very much like something BB would have used. All through this room, and the rest of there house, there are paintings, drawings and sculptures of horses, foxes and hunt scenes.

The library in the house is designed around an oval partners desk which Ladew bought in London. The library itself is oval, with floor to ceiling bookshelves lining the room. The ceiling is coffered with lighting above the bookshelves flooding it. From the outside, the wing which houses the library is square, and there are hidden rooms and closets filling in the gaps. It is listed in the 1968 book, “The 100 Most Beautiful Rooms in America” by Helen Comstock.

It’s most unfortunate that there’s not more published information about the rooms in this house, as their style is very particular to Harvey Ladew, a man who devoted his life to fox hunting, riding and entertaining.