The former residence of Moby Dick author Herman Melville could be yours for £9 million.
Melville, who was born in New York, spent much of his life at sea and came to London in the autumn of 1849 to secure a publisher for his novel White-Jacket, or, the World in a Man-of-War and to conduct research for his fictionalised account of the American revolutionary Israel Potter.
He moved into one of the cheap top floor rooms at the townhouse on Craven Street, between Strand and Embankment, on 6th November 1849, staying until the 27th. After a trip to the continent, Melville returned, stopping there for 12 days in December.
During his short time in London, Melville was busy: he attended concerts, theatre shows and dinner parties at night; art galleries and historical points of interest by day. In his diaries, he wrote about attending the “most bloated pomp” of the Lord Mayor’s Show and witnessing a public hanging, which he called a “most wonderful, horrible, and unspeakable scene”.
Although Melville wrote Moby Dick once he had left London and returned home to Pittsfield, Massachusetts, it is thought that his time at 25 Craven Street may have provided inspiration for his most famous novel.
At the time, London was an important maritime hub, with the house’s bow-shaped drawing room overlooking the Thames. This, a website for 25 Craven Street asserts, may have inspired Captain Ahab’s cabin in the novel.
In any case, Melville’s time in London did bring him into contact with the south sea whaling company Enderby & Sons, which is referenced in Moby Dick. Melville describes the company’s influence as “not far behind the united royal houses of the Tudors and Bourbons, in point of real historical interest”.
Melville’s brief but important stay at the house is commemorated with a blue plaque outside, which was installed in 2005.
Designed by Palladian architect Henry Flitcroft and built in 1791-2, the property’s first owner was John Lucie Blackman, a wealthy merchant and slave trader who owned a sugar plantation and cargo ships in Barbados. The family turned the property into a lodging house, renting rooms to sailors, travellers and people working in local theatres and restaurants.
Today, the Grade II-listed townhouse, which is being sold by Wetherell, still retains grand original features like its full-height bay windows, decorative cornicing and 3.45-metre-high ceilings.
Covering 4,371 square feet of space over six storeys, there are four bedrooms, fine reception rooms and two kitchens, with a large 227 square foot roof terrace boasting views of the London skyline.
25 Craven Street is being marketed as a refurbishment opportunity and is being sold with planning permission to expand the property’s footprint to 5,500 square feet with a rear extension. There is also scope to install a lift, turn the house’s vast basement into a wine cellar and add a private cinema.
According to the Land Registry, the property was last sold for £4.05 million in 2018.
“This blue plaque townhouse at 25 Craven Street was once the London base of American author Herman Melville and inspired his acclaimed novel Moby Dick,” says Peter Wetherell, the agency’s founder. “Once remodelled and refurbished this will be one of the most spectacular townhouses on the Embankment, located between the river Thames and the Strand.”
