The Leighton House Museum is an art museum in the Holland Park area of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in west London. The building was the London home of painter Frederic Leighton, 1st Baron Leighton (1830–1896), who commissioned the architect and designer George Aitchison to build him a combined home and studio noted for its incorporation of tiles and other elements purchased in the Near East to build a magnificent Qa'a (room). The resulting building, completed between 1866 and 1895 on the privately owned Ilchester Estate, is now Grade II* listed. It is noted for its elaborate Orientalist and aesthetic interiors. The house The museum has been open to the public since 1929. In 1958 the London County Council commemorated Leighton with a blue plaque at the museum. The museum was awarded the European Union Prize for Cultural Heritage / Europa Nostra Award in 2012. It is open daily except Tuesdays, and is a companion museum to 18 Stafford Terrace, another Victorian artist's home in Kensington. Design and construction Aitchison designed the first part of the house (2 Holland Park Road, later renumbered as 12) in 1864, although Leighton was not granted a lease on the land until April 1866. Building commenced shortly afterwards, and the house, which cost £4500, , was ready for occupation by the end of the year. The building is of red Suffolk bricks with Caen Stone dressings in a restrained Classical style. The architect extended the building over 30 years; the first phase was only three windows wide. The main room was the first floor studio, facing north, originally 45 by 25 feet, with a large central window to provide plenty of light for painting. There was also a gallery at the east end and a separate staircase for use by models. The house was extended to the east in 1869–70. Additionally, a major extension was made in 1877-79: the two-storey "Arab Hall", built to house Leighton's collection of tiles collected during visits to the Middle East. According to Aitchison and Walter Crane, the design was based on the palace of La Zisa in Palermo. The 17th-century tiles are complemented by carved wooden lattice-work windows of the same period from Damascus. There are also large 16th-century Turkish tiles. The west wall has a wooden alcove with inset 14th-century tiles. The room also contains Victorian elements. The capitals of the smaller columns are by