BOURNEMOUTH, England—“For many years I had in my mind that someday I would build a house after my own heart, as an offering of ‘love and affection’ to my wife,” said hotelier Sir Merton Russell-Cotes (1835–1921).
In 1897, Merton commissioned Irish architect John Frederick Fogerty to build that exotic villa, called East Cliff Hall, in the seaside town of Bournemouth, in South West England.