Mansion Global

London Townhouse Where Mozart Composed First Symphony Listed for £7.5 Million

The five-bedroom home, built around 1730, is one of the oldest in Belgravia

Save

The red-brick London townhouse where Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart composed his first symphony at the age of 8 has been listed for £7.5 million (US$9.63 million).

The so-called Mozart Terrace house, which was built circa 1730, is one of the oldest in the city’s tony Belgravia neighborhood, according to Savills Belgravia, which put it on the market last week.

The house, which has a Grade I designation from Historic England because of its association with the composer, is one of a pair of attached townhouses.

It has one of the largest gardens in Belgravia, according to Tom Lamb, the Savills agent handling the sale.

He added that the garden, which runs 110 feet at the rear of the property, is shaded by plane trees and was designed by poet/novelist Vita Sackville-West, whose Sissinghurst Castle gardens are among England’s most famous.

“It’s a relatively private space for London,” Mr. Lamb said. “There’s an architect’s practice next door so the garden faces a blank, windowless wall. Nobody can look into it.”

More: Tommy Hilfiger Sells Plaza Hotel Penthouse to Auto Tycoon for $31.25 Million

In addition to the four-level, 3,871-square-foot house, which has five bedrooms, six bathrooms and four reception rooms, the property also includes an outside home-office building and a two-bedroom guest house.

“The previous owner, who lived in the house for 50 years, did all the renovations and added the two buildings,” Mr. Lamb said. “While the original building had a charm of its own, the renovations transformed the old-fashioned residence, adapting it for modern living by creating open-living spaces and adding a generous kitchen.”

The current owner bought the property on June 19 for £7.1 million, according to property records; she could not be reached for comment and Mr. Lamb would not disclose her reason for selling so soon after the purchase.

From Penta Good Company: Toad&Co’s Mission To Educate About Apparel Pollution

According to Mr. Lamb, the street was once known as Five Fields Row and was renamed Mozart Terrace after Mozart’s 1764 stay.

Mozart, along with his elder sister, Maria Anna, and their father, spent only a year in the capital city, where he wrote “Symphony No. 1 in E♭ major, K. 16.”

The wunderkind siblings performed in many of London’s theaters before moving in 1765 and touring throughout Europe. Mozart died at age 35 in 1791 in Vienna, some three months after the premiere of his final opera, “The Magic Flute.”

A plaque, installed 80 years ago, commemorates Mozart’s stay in the Belgravia townhouse, and close by there’s a bronze statue of the composer that was erected a quarter-century ago.

Belgravia, a quiet residential neighborhood, is less than a half mile from Sloane Square and Victoria train station. Through the centuries, it has been home to a number of well-known people, including Sackville-West, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, James Bond actors Roger Moore and Sean Connery, “Frankenstein” writer Mary Shelley, investor/philanthropist George Soros and composers Andrew Lloyd Webber and Frédéric Chopin.