We were pleased to be able to host – with the Friends of the Belsize Community Library – an event in June, at which Fabian Watkinson spoke on “The house that no one wanted – Erno Goldfinger & 2 Willow Road”.
Fabian showed images of the building over the last decades, a gem that was the Goldfingers’ home until the National Trust bought it. Relatively unchanged since the 1940s, the modernist home was described highlighting the building’s interiors and furnishings, the Goldfingers’ own art collection, all in the context of the Goldfingers’ lives.
We heard about the way this building took a full circle in the eyes of heritage conservation. Highly controversial when first proposed with MP Henry Brooke a strong objector, the National Trust would take on the property under the then heritage minister Peter Brooke,Henry’s son.