Lululaund was the house of German-born British artist Hubert von Herkomer, in Bushey, Hertfordshire. It was designed in c.1886 and inhabited in 1894. Nevertheless von Herkomer wrote in the 1911 second volume of his autobiography :
"Completed it is not, nor would I wish to feel that the last touch had been put to it. It should still have the possibility of growth, otherwise expectancy would cease, and with it life's greatest stimulant."[2]
His biographer, Baldry, wrote in 1901 : "There has been in existence in his family for some generations an idea that there should be erected some day a house which would be at the same time a memorial of the Herkomers and a record of the work that they had done in the world."[3]
Herkomer's father and two of his three uncles contributed to the idea, which was honoured by the artist in the triptych The Makers of my House. His uncle John, a joiner and carver, as was Herkomer's father Lorenz, came from America to assist, and his uncle Anton, a weaver, provided the draperies designed by the artist.
In the 1880s, von Herkomer had travelled to America twice to paint portraits and to give lectures. In early 1886, he painted the American architect Henry Hobson Richardson in exchange for a home design he could bring back to Britain. Richardson, at the peak of his career and only months before his death at age 47, sketched a single picture of a four storey Romanesque castle, explicitly allowing Herkomer to change the exterior "at will".[2]
From this sketch, von Herkomer commissioned the house which he named after his deceased wife, Lulu, who had died from a heart attack in 1885. Sadly, Richardson also died long before the house was completed. The house was, for its time, built to a very high technical standard, had for instance electricity from its own generator (in a sidehouse), as well as hot and cold water in each bedroom.
Lululaund, nicknamed 'Bavarian castle' by Bushey inhabitants, was used for a time by the Bushey Film Corporation before falling derelict, 'the haunt of tramps, courting couples and schoolboys'.[1] It was pulled down in 1939, on the eve of another world war. But a small portion of Richardson's facade survives: the front door and its tympanum, now the entrance to the former local British Legion hall on Melbourne Road. The building had been offered as a gift to Bushey District Council, but was refused due to the high cost of maintenance at the start of the second world war. The rose garden, summer-house, sunken garden and pergola were preserved and are now public gardens.