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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,Hall, p. 16.Hall (Waddesdon Manor), p. 31, refers to them as the architectural team. designed the building in the 19th-century revival of late 16th and early 17th-century Elizabethan and Jacobean styles called Jacobethan.Henry Russell Hitchcock (1958) Architecture: Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (Pelican History of Art), London, Penguin Books, p. 73 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.Hall (Waddesdon Manor), p. 37, makes this assertionHall (The Victorian Country House), p. 153 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 Aylesbury Vale. 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 Manor and Halton House.
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.Sotheby's, Mentmore. Five volumes: 1) French and continental furniture, tapestries and clocks. 2) Works of art and silver. 3) Vincennes and Sèvres and other continental porcelain and Italian maiolica. 4) Paintings, prints and drawings. 5) General contents of the house. On the grounds of Mentmore, 18–27 May 1977. 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 Halabi, who planned to build additional hotel and conference facilities; the plan did not proceed and the property was allowed to deteriorate. In 1992 the Mentmore Golf and Country Club opened, on land previously owned by the estate; it closed in 2015. The house is currently abandoned.
Mentmore Towers is a Grade I listed building, with its park and gardens listed Grade II*.
In keeping with the contents intended to be displayed within, the interiors take their inspiration principally from the Italian Renaissance, although the house also contains drawing rooms and cabinets decorated in the gilded styles of late 18th-century France.Crewe, Vol, p. 116 The external design is closely based on that of Robert Smythson's Wollaton Hall.Mark Girouard, The Victorian Country House, Yale 1978
Both earls bred numerous winners of classic at the two stud farms on the estate, including five Epsom Derby winners. These were Ladas, Sir Visto, and Cicero from the Crafton Stud; plus Ocean Swell and Blue Peter from the Mentmore stud. Both stud farms were within a kilometre of the mansion and together with the stable yard were designed by the architect George Devey, who also designed many cottages in the estate's villages of Mentmore, Crafton and Ledburn.
The royal coach was stored in the "battery room" subsequently nicknamed the "refuge", part of the "gas house", a group of outbuildings where gas and electricity had once been produced for the estate. Four men guarded the refuge at night, and two during the day.
After three more years of fruitless discussion, the executors of the estate sold the contents by public auction, and the large collection was dispersed. The estate made over £6,000,000 (), but a tiny fraction of its estimated worth today. Among the paintings sold were works by Gainsborough, Joshua Reynolds, Boucher, Drouais, Moroni and other well known artists, and cabinet makers, including Jean Henri Riesener and Chippendale. Also represented were the finest German and Russian silver- and goldsmiths, and makers of Limoges enamel. This Rothschild/Mentmore collection is said to have been one of the finest ever to be assembled in private hands, other than the collections of the Russian and British royal families. The house itself was purchased by the Maharishi International College in December 1978 for £240,000. The sale of Mentmore has been described as a "turning point for the preservation movement".
Several family portraits, sculptures and furnishing were relocated from Mentmore prior to the sale by the Roseberys to their ancestral Scottish home, Dalmeny House, near Edinburgh.
Items from Mentmore at Dalmeny include tapestries, Sèvres porcelain, and an equestrian statue by Joseph Boehm of "King Tom", the foundation stallion for Baron Mayer de Rothschild's Mentmore and Crafton Studs.
Halabi's property company, Buckingham Securities Holdings, was also proposing to develop the In & Out Club at 79–81 Piccadilly, London, also known as Cambridge House and once occupied by Lord Palmerston before it became the Naval and Military Club. The intention was to turn both properties into Europe's first six-star hotels, one located in town and the other to be the sister Country Manor hotel with a 36-hole private golf club. The original architects, EPR, were replaced by AFR in 2005, but the development stalled in 2007. In 2004, Hotel Design Inc were retained as interior designers for both projects, leading to a 2005 launch event for the marketing of the properties as a private members' club with hotel facilities (the PM Club).
The last proposal, after the sister Piccadilly property was sold to the Rueben Brothers in 2009, was to renovate the original Mentmore Towers building and not construct the new extension containing guest-room suites, conference facilities and a large spa. However, with Halabi's property empire in serious trouble due to the housing market's collapse, the project stalled, and the property was in decline. By April 2022, a report described it as "abandoned" and "left to rot".
A video published at the end of 2021 confirmed the extent of the deterioration. @places_forgotten, TikTok. 24 December 2021.Video. Retrieved 24 November 2022.
On 3 May 2024 Thames Valley Police posted on their Facebook page, they had responded the previous night to report of 2 people breaking into Mentmore Towers, which is becoming a regular occurrence. Officers have been cracking down on this and responding swiftly to apprehend those involved.
In addition, it has been used as a location for music videos, including the Roxy Music video for "Avalon" (1982), "Magic Touch" by Mike Oldfield (1987), Enya's "Only If..." (1997), "Until the Time Is Through" by Five (1998), "What Is Love" by Haddaway (1993), and "Goodbye" by the Spice Girls (1998).
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