Paul Phipps

• Birth date            3 March 1880
• Married                26 April 1909 at St James Church Manhattan, New York
• Death date          23 August 1953 at London.

The Hon Paul Phipps was born in New York, on 3 March 1880, the son of William Wilton Phipps and Jessie Percy Butler Duncan. His father was a member of the family firm, Phipps & Co, Brazilian coffee exporters, and his mother, Jessie, DBE, the daughter of a New York banker, was John Singer Sargent's cousin, a friend of Henry James and the first woman London county councillor.

After attending Eton and Balliol College, Oxford, (1898-1901), Phipps trained with Edwin Lutyens from 1901 to 1904 during which period he attended the Architectural Association classes. He commenced independent practice in London at the end of his pupillage and was admitted LRIBA in 1911, his proposers being Lutyens, Detmar Blow and R M T Hadders. Early commissions included various works for Edward Lyulph, Lord Sheffield the 4th Baron Stanley of Alderley. Early in 1911 he moved to Victoria, British Columbia.  There he was in partnership with Hoult Horton, also executing works under his own name, including a substantial residence in Shaughnessy Heights for John Binns Johnson, Angus Drive near Granville Street, Vancouver, B.C., 1912. Phipps left Canada in 1913 or 1914, and served overseas during WWI, then returned to England where he formed a partnership with another former Lutyens assistant, Oswald Partridge Milne, under the name Milne and Phipps. The firm was active from 1919 until 1924, specialising in country house design and alterations. Their commissions included Quietways, in Kent, the Garden Pavilion and Bathing Pool at Downshire House in Roehampton, Little Weirs, Brockenhurst in Hampshire and The Shaw in Kent together with 86 Vincent Square, London, previously occupied by the former Prime Minister, Lloyd George, in 1921-22.

Following the dissolution of the partnership in 1924 Paul Phipps designed several houses including Romany, on the Wentworth Estate in Virginia Water, Surrey for Lady Madame de Lafont, and alterations Dean Farm, Oaksey, Wiltshire, for his brother Capt. W.D. Phipps. Perhaps his best-known project was the urbane and impeccably detailed design for the Seventh Church of Christ Scientist, Wright's Lane, Kensington, London, in 1926-27.

In 1909 Paul Phipps married Nora Langhorne at St James Church Manhattan. Nora, was Nancy Astor's youngest sister and was addicted to betrothals before settling upon Paul Phipps. They had two children, Joyce being born in Knightsbridge in 1910 and Tommy in New York in 1913. Joyce later achieved fame as the actress Joyce Grenfell. However, marital infidelities continued to attend the five beautiful Langhorne sisters. In 1914 Nora “eloped” to Washington State with Maurice “Lefty” Flynn, an ex-football star, later a silent film star, where they seemingly married.  The affair lasted six weeks after which she returned to Paul Phipps and their children. Her extra marital activities continued. As a nurse in London during WW1 it was said that "she went through the Guards like a knife through butter." Having again eloped to the South of France with Lefty, in January 1930 she divorced Paul Phipps She properly married Lefty Flynn in November 1931 at Richmond Virginia, divorcing him in 1952. Scott Fitzgerald's story "The Intimate Strangers" is a thinly veiled account of their elopement. Paul Phipps never recovered from Nora’s betrayal, retreating into a shell of melancholy and loneliness until his death in 1953.

Paul Phipps was an accomplished caricaturist and made several drawings of Lutyens and his office staff. He was elected as a Fellow of the RIBA in 1921, and retired in 1951. He died in London on 23 August 1953.

 Address
1911             10, Queen Anne's Chambers, Westminster London,
1913             Paul Phipps 714 Pacific Buildings, Vancouver, B C, Canada (RIBA Kalendar)
1915-1919    Paul Phipps 2 West 47th Street, New York, USA (RIBA Kalendar)
1922-1924    Paul Phipps (Milne and Phipps) 64 Wigmore Street London W1 (RIBA Kalendar)
1927-1933    2 Boyle Street Savile Row, London W1 (RIBA Kalendar)
1927            14 Pont Street, Belgrave Square, London SW1 (RIBA Kalendar)

Residence
1911             29, Montpelier Square, London,    ?
1909-1930    28 St Leonard’s Terrace
After 1930    315 Chelsea Cloisters, Sloane Avenue, SW3
1953            9 Knightsbridge Court Sloane Street London S.W.1 (probate)

Obituary     The Times [London], 24 August 1953, page 8
Obituary     RIBA Journal, lxi, Nov. 1953, 38-39; biog. F. Chatterton,

Reference    Who's Who in Architecture, 1923, 195-6;
Reference    R.I.B.A., Directory of British Architects 1834-1914, 369;
Reference    D. Luxton, Building the West: The Early Architects of British Columbia, 2003, 401, 515).
Reference    Dictionary of Canadian Architects
Reference    Who Was Who
Reference    James Fox; Five Sisters – The Langhornes of Virginia
Reference    Adrian Tinniswood: The Long Weekend. Life in the Country House between the Wars
Reference    Information from Richard Fletcher

Image        National Portrait Gallery
Image        Library of Congress Library wedding1909