Mentmore Towers

Mentmore Towers, historically known simply as "Mentmore", is a 19th-century English country house built between 1852 and 1854 for the Rothschild family in the village of Mentmore in Buckinghamshire. Sir Joseph Paxton and his son-in-law, George Henry Stokes, designed the building in the 19th-century revival of late 16th and early 17th-century Elizabethan and Jacobean styles called Jacobethan. The house was designed for the banker and collector of fine art Baron Mayer de Rothschild as a country home, and as a display case for his collection of fine art. The mansion has been described as one of the greatest houses of the Victorian era. Mentmore was inherited by Hannah Primrose, Countess of Rosebery, née Rothschild, and owned by her descendants, the Earls of Rosebery. Mentmore was the first of what were to become virtual Rothschild estates in the Vale of Aylesbury. Baron Mayer de Rothschild began purchasing land in the area in 1846. Later, other members of the family built houses at Tring in Hertfordshire, Ascott, Aston Clinton, Waddesdon and Halton. Much of the estate was sold in 1944, but the mansion, its grounds, formal gardens, several farms and the majority of the village of Mentmore remained in the ownership of Harry Primrose, 6th Earl of Rosebery, until his death in 1974. The Earl's executors explored the possibility of Mentmore Towers along with its contents being preserved intact as a heritage property and opened to the public, as has been the case with some other National Trust properties (including Waddesdon). Despite prolonged discussions between the Executors and Government representatives over the following three years, no agreement to save the house for the nation was reached. Thus, in 1977, the contents of the house were sold at public auction by Sotheby's. The following year the empty mansion with its formal gardens and 80 acres were sold to the Maharishi Foundation who occupied it for the next two decades. In 1999, it was again sold, to investor Simon…