Public tours Prince Charles's home

A hand-out photo shows the Morning Room of Clarence House in London. PHOTO: REUTERS

Prince Charles is letting the public tour his new digs at Clarence House -- a stately home for him and his sons, with a room reserved for longtime love Camilla Parker Bowles.

The early 19th century house was the home of Charles' grandmother, the Queen Mother Elizabeth, for nearly 50 years. The public paid US$7 million to refurbish the home, with the prince chipping in another US$2.6 million for decorations.

Parts Clarence House opened to the public for the first time yesterday, while the family is away for the summer holiday. Small tour groups will be guided around five rooms on the ground floor until Oct. 17, when it becomes a private home again for Charles and his sons, Princes William and Harry.

Parker Bowles will have a room and bath there -- as she did at their previous home in York House at St. James's Palace.

The move from York House on Monday couldn't have been much easier. The brick palace adjoins Clarence House, and the family wouldn't even have had to leave the grounds to get from one home to the next. Just yards from the bustling traffic that swirls around Buckingham Palace, the house has a tranquil air in its brick-walled setting of lush green lawn and flower borders. Huge plane trees rise beside the gravel drive.

Clarence House, though never a tourist attraction like Buckingham Palace, was a favorite gathering place for the legions of admirers of the queen mother, who died last year at 101. It was a familiar place to her grandchildren, especially Charles.

The graceful, cream-colored building remains very much a home, and is not at all palatial, despite the antique furniture and the many paintings that adorn the walls.

Prince Charles' offices for his charity work are there, and the ground floor will be used to receive official guests, hold seminars, receptions and dinners. York House was small, without enough room for official entertaining, so the prince used Highgrove, his country house in western England, for receptions. But that involved a long trip out of London for guests.

Memories a much-loved grandparent are everywhere at Clarence House, from the pale blue morning room with its French doors into the garden and its family portraits, to the Horse Corridor, where equine paintings and racing memorabilia are reminders the queen mother was an avid racehorse owner.

A framed painting of her favorite corgi dogs is on a table in the morning room beneath an oil portrait of her daughter, Queen Elizabeth II, as a child. On the library shelves among books on art and history are P.G. Wodehouse's novels, and thrillers by Dick Francis, who once was a jockey for the queen mother's racing stables.

The house has happy memories. It was the first real home of the newly married Prince Philip and Princess Elizabeth before she became queen in 1952. Prince Charles was a toddler there, and Princess Anne was born in the house in 1950.

Built the 1820s, the house got its name from the Duke of Clarence, third son of King George III. The duke was so happy there that when he became King William IV in 1830 he decided not to move into newly built Buckingham Palace.

For the next hundred or so years, royal relatives lived in Clarence House. During World War II, it was used as headquarters for the Red Cross and St. John Ambulance Brigade and suffered bomb damage.

Much the substantial work on the house, including plumbing, electricity, fire protection and basic decoration were paid by the taxpayer -- US$7 million in all, a St. James's Palace spokesman said. Prince Charles paid US$2.6 million for carpeting, curtains, lighting and to reupholster furniture, the spokesman said on customary condition of anonymity.

The cost of Parker Bowles' room and bath, he said, was shared. The basic decoration -- to "guest room level" -- was paid out of public funds, like the rest of the rooms. Prince Charles paid for additional decoration.