Home designed by founder of the Bauhaus, Professor Walter Gropius

My latest blog for Country Life – here – features a uniquely designed property along Old Church Street in Chelsea. It is the only residential home designed by Professor Walter Gropius, founder of the Bauhaus. It was commissioned as the new home of playwright and politician, Benn Levy and his wife, actress, Constance Cummings.

The house was designed using many specialist materials including a new form of rendering Gropius brought from Germany, known as Brizolite, as well as glass crete, reeded glass and Nori bricks, the same bricks exported to America and used in the construction of the Empire State Building.

The house was home to playwright and politician, Benn Levy and his wife, actress Constance Cummings.

Constance Cummings and Benn Levy at home

Constance Cummings and Benn Levy_ page two

Levy, worked on Alfred Hitchcock’s first ‘talkie’, Blackmail, in 1929 and wrote a number of plays staged in the West End. During the post-war period, Levy was also Labour MP for Eton and Slough.

Constance Cummings was a notable actress appearing in Noel Coward’s Blithe Spirit with Rex Harrison in 1945 and in The Battle of the Sexes with Peter Sellers in 1959. Constance Cummings achieved success on the stage on Broadway and in the West End as well as many films. She worked with notable names such as Sir Laurence Olivier and Sir Anthony Hopkins and has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

For the full house history – The History of No.68 Old Church Street