Changing Premises
Initially calling itself the New Club, it grew rapidly, outgrowing its first floor rooms overlooking Trafalgar Square at 9 Spring Gardens and moving to the second floor. It then moved to 12 Savile Row in 1871, where it changed its name to the Savile Club, before lack of space forced the club to move again in 1882, this time to 107 Piccadilly, a building owned by Lord Rosebery. With its views over Green Park it was described by the members as the 'ideal clubhouse'. However, after 50 years residence, demolition of the building next door to create the Park Lane Hotel caused the old clubhouse such structural problems that, in 1927, the club moved to its present home at 69 Brook Street, part of the Grosvenor Estate in Mayfair. This was the former home of “Loulou” Harcourt, 1st Viscount Harcourt, a Liberal cabinet minister who had taken his life on the premises to avert a scandal when his double life as a paedophile and sex offender was in danger of being uncovered. The building, a combination of Nos 69 and 71 Brook Street, owes its extravagant dix-huitième interior to Walter Burns, the brother-in-law of financier J.P. Morgan, who adapted it for his wife Fanny to entertain in suitable style. It thus includes an elegant hall, a grand staircase and a lavish ballroom.
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