Originally intended as a southern Belgravia, Pimlico was constructed over the marshlands at great expense by Thomas Cubitt. But the arrival of the railway ended the area's social aspirations overnight, and this house built in c.1862 was multi-occupied from the start. The ground floor was used as a tobacconist's shop from the early 1870s until 1941, with up to twenty-five people living on the upper storeys and in the basement. A resident in 1911 was magical comedian and music hall artiste Fred Culpitt, who later became the first magician to appear on a regularly scheduled television programme in England. Another in the early 1920s was a Regimental Sergeant Major who had been shot in the leg at the Siege of Sidney Street.
From the late 1950s the district became increasingly 'gentrified', and residents of the house included film producer Timothy Burrill and Baron von Distler, who was the unfortunate target of a violent burglary in 1969. The raiders made off with valuable antiques and three diamond and emerald rings, worth £3,000, wrenched from his fingers.