Wrest Park

Completed in 1839, for Thomas de Grey (1781-1859), 2nd Earl de Grey, an amateur architect and the first President of the Royal Institute of British Architects, who was inspired by chateaux he had seen on various trips to France. In the early 1900s, it was leased to the U.S. Ambassador to the United Kingdom, Whitelaw Reid (1837-1912), who also kept Dorchester House in London, the unofficial American Embassy.