Sugar Magnate Henry Tate’s Personal Billiards Hall Lists as Family Home Outside London

A home once owned by sugar magnate and art patron Sir Henry Tate has come to market in London with a guiding price of just £1.5 million (US$2 million) to £2 million.

The 3,500-square-foot structure was once part of a much larger 1830s estate called Park Hill, which is now known as Henry Tate Mews in the London suburb of Streatham.

Mansion Global Boutique: Christmas Ornaments for an Elegant Tree

Tate, best known for the art museums that bear his name, purchased the estate in 1874 and lived there until his death in 1899.

Today, the larger compound has been redeveloped into a residential community that shares a 6-acre garden.

The home for sale is a white, three-story building that once served as Tate’s billiards hall, and it was also where the industrialist displayed the 19th-century art collection he would later bequeath to what became Tate Britain, according to brokerage Wilfords London, which is representing the seller.

“You are not just buying a house with an interesting backstory; you are buying the very room where the beginnings of Tate Britain were taking shape,” Geoff Wilford said in a prepared statement. “The double-height billiards room has an extraordinary sense of scale and light, and the way it has been adapted into a dramatic living space is exceptional.”

The reception hall remains the focal point of the home, with much of the period decor intact. There are skylights and a spiral staircase that leads to a mezzanine added during a redevelopment in 2000. The remaining parts of the home have been retrofitted into a modern set of bedrooms, a contemporary kitchen, two patios and a two-car garage.

The home was previously on the market in 2021 with a guiding price of £1.8 million. The sellers couldn’t immediately be identified.

MORE: CEO of Australian Menswear Brand Lowes Selling Clifftop Beach House With Its Own 18-Hole Golf Course

Tate was a Victorian industrialist who made his fortune in the sugar trade and later funded a variety of public projects, including libraries and hospitals. In 1889, Tate wanted to donate his pre-Raphaelite art collection to the British National Gallery, but they declined it for lack of space, according to the Tate website. Instead, he donated money to build a new gallery on the site of a former prison, which remains Tate Britain—one of four Tate galleries—until this day.