An Inside View of London’s Elite

“A comfortable house is a great source of happiness,” Sydney Smith, a British writer and clergyman, wrote in 1843. “It ranks immediately after health and a good conscience.”

But on a list of things to do here, the house--at least, the house of the famous--would rank first. Fascinating stories emerge on visits to these inner sanctums: the father who initiated an act of Parliament to ensure his son couldn’t claim his property; the Frenchwoman who left Britain its largest bequest.

There are the museum-like residences of the Wallace family, Sir John Soane and the duke of Wellington, which were already museum-like in their day; the familial and literary abodes of Charles Dickens and Dr. Samuel Johnson; and the fake home of a fictitious person at a fraudulent address.

I saw these homes with my wife, Katherine, and our sons, Henry, 16, and Alex, 12, during a stay here last summer. But such visits also are suited to a fall or winter visit because they keep you out of the elements while helping you learn about the fascinating cast of characters who have populated this city.

The newest addition to the list is the newly opened home of George Frideric Handel, the German-born English composer. In 1723 he moved to the developing Mayfair district, into the house where he spent the last 36 years of his life. It was here that he composed operas, concertos, the coronation anthems and his most famous work, “Messiah,” which he completed in 1741 in just 23 days.

We got an advance look at the Georgian townhouse, which opened to the public last month and will appear as it did the day the composer moved in. The four main rooms will contain themed paintings on London in Handel’s time; Handel, the man; performance; and composition.

Displays include a letter from Handel about “Messiah,” written to librettist Charles Jennens, and Mozart’s handwritten arrangement of a Handel piece.

It struck me as an ordinary dwelling that housed an extraordinary talent, which made it all the more inspiring.

The Mayfair district is also home to Hertford House, which houses the Wallace Collection, one of the greatest assemblages of art amassed by one family: the marquesses of Hertford and the illegitimate son of the fourth.

Two floors of this late 18th century mansion house a collection of furniture, china, statues, glassware, armor and, most especially and everywhere in the house, paintings. Of the more than two dozen rooms displaying art, the largest, the Great Gallery, includes paintings by Diego Velazquez, Rembrandt and Thomas Gainsborough.

Part of the fun of the Wallace home is its background. The second marquess bought the house in 1797. London society flocked to parties here; the revelry included a 12-year affair between the marquess’ wife and the prince of Wales, who became George IV. The third marquess became the family’s first serious collector and is said to have inherited his parents’ love for excess. Hertford House was leased to the French embassy after the 1834 death of the third marquess. For two decades beginning in 1850, this was the vacant repository of the family’s growing collection while the fourth marquess and his illegitimate son, Richard Wallace, both great collectors, lived in France. The fourth marquess died in 1870. Richard Wallace brought his French wife, Amelie-Julie-Charlotte, Lady Wallace, to London in 1871, and they moved into a renovated Hertford House in 1875.

Wallace left his wife in the home when he returned to France in 1887. He died there in 1890, and she lived a reclusive life for the next seven years until her death, but she left this remarkable collection to the nation. It was opened June 22, 1900, and reopened 100 years later after the addition of below-ground gallery spaces.

I had told my sons that the Wallace Collection included armor, something they enjoy. I didn’t know we would find three large rooms of European armor, followed by a room of Asian armor, including 30 helmets and shields lined up in a row along one wall just below the 18-foot ceiling. The boys were thrilled.

I was fascinated by numerous ground-floor display cases with hundreds of wax miniatures, delightful and delicate carvings of remarkably lifelike scenes and people, sometimes enhanced with real hair, fabric and faux jewels. We spent almost two hours here and could easily have stayed longer.

A few blocks away is Baker Street, home to one of London’s best-known addresses, 221b, the Sherlock Holmes Museum. (It actually is out of numeric sequence.) This is the only home on the block of the right vintage (1815) that could have served as the Victorian abode of Holmes and Watson, the famous pair who sprang from the imagination of Arthur Conan Doyle and are said to have lived here from 1881 to 1904.

I found it a bit touristy, and although you don’t have to have read all the stories, it helps to have at least a nodding acquaintance with the detective. Above the ground-floor gift shop are the sitting room and the detective’s bedroom, replete with Holmes’ accouterments--pipe, books, scientific equipment. It’s delightfully atmospheric and suitably cramped. Many among the international cast of visitors paused in the sitting room to sit on the chairs, don an appropriate hat and have their photos taken, my sons among them.

Had Holmes existed, his wide-ranging interests would have led him to Sir John Soane’s Museum, three houses at Lincoln’s Inn Fields that are joined together and filled with an eclectic collection. Soane was a leading Georgian architect (the Bank of England is among his works) and also inherited money from the family of his wife, Elizabeth Smith, so they set about collecting. They moved into the first home in 1810.

His neoclassical architectural style is on display here. The stables out back were altered and joined to the dwellings to provide additional space. Visitors today can wander through two of the houses and all of the connected back buildings.

Nearly every inch is filled with Soane’s collection: the 1300 BC sarcophagus of Egyptian Pharaoh Seti I, antique fragments, vases, books, sculpture and paintings. The small picture room houses more than 100 paintings, displayed on panels that unfold to reveal additional paintings and, on one wall, unfold again to reveal a statue of a nymph and a view to the room below.

Soane left his collection to the nation through an 1833 act of Parliament to ensure that his son George, who led a dissolute life, could not challenge the bequest. Soane also stipulated that nothing be moved, and it’s all still here.

The collection of a very different man is on display at No. 1, the house at Hyde Park Corner that was the first home after the western tollgate into the City. Now known as Apsley House, this 1770s mansion was home to Arthur Wellesley, the duke of Wellington, and contains his collection of memorabilia, paintings, silver and sculpture. The duke bought the house two years after the 1815 Battle of Waterloo and lived in it until his death in 1852. A large statue of Napoleon and the striped drawing room echoing a military tent, like Napoleon’s room at Malmaison on the edge of Paris, recall the duke’s victory.

This house offers a view of a great man and grand events, when the cream of London society was invited to parties here and the rest would stand outside for a glimpse of the comings and goings.

We also peeked at the homes of two writers who are closely linked to London, Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) and Charles Dickens (1812-1870), which reveal life on a simpler scale.

Johnson’s three-story house, where he lived for 11 years beginning in 1748, is the only 18th century domestic residence remaining in the City, the oldest part of London, roughly defined by the original Roman walls. The three-story house is topped by a spacious attic where Johnson and his six assistants created his dictionary, the first to use the now familiar format of word, definitions and examples of use. Working at long tables, they defined more than 40,000 words and included more than 114,000 quotations.

The house was sparsely furnished when Johnson lived there, but today, reopened after renovations, it contains some furniture, art and display cases with letters and other personal items, including a copy of Johnson’s will.

Over in the Bloomsbury district, a three-story brick building on tree-lined Doughty Street is where Charles Dickens did some of his finest work.

He lived here from April 1837 until December 1839, completing “The Pickwick Papers,” “Oliver Twist” and “Nicholas Nickleby.” (His third child, Kate, was born in October 1839, necessitating a move to a larger home.)

Dickens’ wit seemed almost palpable to me in this house. Hanging next to a clock is the text of a letter he wrote to a clockmaker noting that since being cleaned, the clock “has struck the hours with great reluctance, and after enduring internal agonies of a most distressing nature, it has now ceased striking altogether.”

And so time crept by silently, but at these houses, it has largely stood still.

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Guidebook: London Inside Out

Getting there: From LAX, nonstop service is available to London’s Heathrow on American, British Airways, Air New Zealand, Virgin Atlantic and United, and direct service is offered on Delta, US Airways and American. Restricted round-trip fares begin at $656.

Telephones: To reach numbers below from the U.S., dial 011 (international access code), 44 (country code for England), 20 (city code for London) and the local number.

Where to stay: We stayed at the Commodore Hotel, 50 Lancaster Gate, Hyde Park, London W23 NA; 7402-5291, fax 7262-1088, www.commodore-hotel.com, three Victorian townhouses joined together. A small family room is $143 per night with continental breakfast. Rooms and rates vary, with doubles listed at about $200 per night.

In the same area: Columbia Hotel, 95-99 Lancaster Gate, London W2 3NS; 7402-0021, fax 7706-4691, www.columbiahotel.co.uk. Double rooms with full English breakfast about $110.

London Elizabeth Hotel, 4 Lancaster Terrace, Hyde Park, London W2 3PF; 7402-6641, fax 7224-8900, www.londonelizabethhotel.co.uk. Doubles with continental breakfast begin at about $170.

Where to eat: We had a good, simple dinner near our hotel at the Swan Pub, 66 Bayswater Road opposite Kensington Gardens, 7262-5204.

We also ate at Tootsies, 35 James St., 7486-1611, a small chain of American-style eateries emphasizing burgers.

We bought packaged but freshly made sandwiches from the Holborn Street branch of Pret a Manger, a chain that seemed to be doing brisk business for good reason: the delicious sandwiches, great coffee and cocoa, and chips (about $18).

Seeing the houses: Apsley House, 149 Piccadilly; 7499-

5676, www.apsleyhouse.org.uk. Open 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesdays through Sundays. Adults $6.75; under 18 and 60 and older free.

The Dickens House Museum, 48 Doughty St.; 7405-2127, www.dickensmuseum.com. Open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Mondays through Saturdays. Adults $6; students and seniors $4.50; children $3; family $13.50.

Handel House Museum, 25 Brook St.; 7495-1685, www.handelhouse.org. Open 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays (until 8 p.m. Thursdays) and noon-6 p.m. Sundays. Adults $6.75, children $3, seniors $5.25.

Sherlock Holmes Museum, 221b Baker St.; 7935-8866, www.sherlock-holmes.co.uk. Open 9:30 a.m.-6 p.m. daily. Adults $9, children under 16 $6.

Dr. Samuel Johnson’s House, 17 Gough Square; 7353-3745, www.drjh.dircon.co.uk. Open 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Mondays through Saturdays, October through April (until 5:30 May through September). Adults $6; children, seniors $4.50.

Sir John Soane’s Museum, 13 Lincoln’s Inn Fields; 7405-

2107, www.soane.org. Open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays. Free.

The Wallace Collection, Hertford House, Manchester Square; 7935-0687, www.the-wallace-collection.org.uk. Open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Mondays through Saturdays; noon-5 p.m. Sundays. Free.

For more information: British Tourist Authority, 551 5th Ave., Suite 701, New York, NY 10176; (800) GO-2-BRITAIN (462-2748), www.btausa.com.

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Don Whitehead is a freelance writer who lives in Los Angeles.