14 Prince's Gate, London

14 Prince's Gate is the building at the east end of a terrace overlooking Hyde Park in Kensington Road, Westminster, London.

[2] Shortly after completion of the terrace, the Crystal Palace was built opposite in Hyde Park to house the Great Exhibition of 1851.

13 was rented by the American banker Junius Spencer Morgan, who bought the house at some time between 1857 and 1859.

[6] Pierpont Morgan spent up to three months every year in London, either in Prince's Gate or at Dover House, in Putney.

By 1900 the collection was too big to be contained in the house and part of it was loaned to the Victoria and Albert Museum.

His collection of paintings included works by Reynolds, Gainsborough, Romney, Constable, Van Dyke, Rembrandt, Frans Hals, Fragonard,[7] Velázquez and Holbein.

Its external appearance remained that of two separate houses, but internally structural alterations were made.

14's principal staircase by an octagonal hall, and the creation of a lobby with marble columns on the floor above.

[10] The American architect Thomas Hastings was employed to refurbish the building and remodel the façade.

As part of this he added images of the heads of Native Americans in the keystones of the arches over the ground floor windows.

Like John Pierpont Morgan, Mellon was a major art collector and for a time his collection was housed at Prince's Gate.

[14] Mellon was followed by Robert Worth Bingham who served until 1937; he was the ambassador who had the longest residence in the house.

By 1955 a large block of flats had been built next to the house that overlooked and dominated its terrace and the garden behind it.

[20] In July 1962 the Royal College of General Practitioners bought the freehold of the house for £175,000 (£4.72 million as of 2025)[21] to develop it into their headquarters.

Rooms in the college were used by the Special Air Service to plan its attack which ended the siege.

[27] In 2010 the College sold the building to a private overseas family fund "for an undisclosed fee".