A Victorian villa which was once home to a wealthy impresario is far more modest than any of the grand theatres and luxury hotels that he built.
Theatre manager, agent and hotelier Richard D'Oyly Carte built one of London's famous landmarks, the Savoy Hotel - and in his lifetime he also owned both Claridge's and The Berkeley.
He is also responsible for two of London's most well-known theatres, The Palace in Cambridge Circus, and The Savoy Theatre - which became the first public building in the world to be lit entirely by electricity.
But music fans know him better as the inspiration who brought together dramatist W. S. Gilbert and composer Arthur Sullivan.
Their enduring partnership was forged in 1875 when D'Oyly Carte commissioned their one-act operetta Trial by Jury for his Royalty Theatre.
D'Oyly Carte believed that family-friendly English comic opera could rival French operettas and he saw in Gilbert and Sullivan just the clever wordplay and larger than life characters that would please audiences.
It led to a legendary collaboration that would give the world H.M.S. Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance and The Mikado.
As founder of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company he managed 13 of Gilbert and Sullivan's light operas which made him rich.
But he was not born with a silver spoon in his mouth.
Born in Greek Street, Soho in 1844, he first worked in his father Richard Carte's music publishing and flute manufacturing business.
As a young man, he composed and conducted music and it was between 1860 to 1870 that he lived at 2 Dartmouth Park Road in north London - when he was starting to make his mark as a theatrical and concert agent.
In 1870 he left his father's business to set up his agency representing artists, composers and lecturers including Oscar Wilde, the Italian tenor Mario Cavalleri and composer Jacques Offenbach.
Using profits from the huge success of The Gilbert&Sullivan operas, he built the Savoy Theatre in 1881.
By this time he was living in Bloomsbury before moving in 1888 to the Georgian Adelphi Terrace near Embankment.
D'Oyly Carte had another bright idea - to create accommodation for the theatregoers and international fans from America who flocked to London's burgeoning theatreland.
Moving into hospitality, he built the Savoy Hotel next to his theatre in 1889, then acquired Claridge's and The Berkeley, and in 1891 he built the Royal English Opera House - now the Palace Theatre - to promote English grand opera.
He married Blanche Prowse in 1870 and they had two sons, but when she died of pneumonia in 1885 he married his secretary Helen Lenoir who was also his business assistant.
Having left an indelible mark on both London and the musical cannon Carte died of heart disease at Adelphi Terrace on April 3, 1901, at the age of 55.
Helen continued his theatre and hotel businesses until her own health failed and the company continued to be run by the D'Oyly Carte family until the 1980s.
Share