A Collector's 'Clock House' in London

HOUSE TOUR | ROOMS & GARDENS | WORLD OF CABANA

The Clock House, a Georgian Bloomsbury townhouse in London, was the final home of gallerist, collector, filmmaker, and photographer, Ian Rosenfeld. Lucrezia Lucas speaks with Ian’s brother, Michael, and the home’s co-architect, Maddalena Cannarsa, about a life lived through art—and a home designed to share it. 

BY LUCREZIA LUCAS | ROOMS & GARDENS | 13 JANUARY 2026

“I’m so late to everything,” Ian Rosenfeld used to confide in his brother. “I got married late. I figured out what I wanted to do late. Everything came late.” It seems fitting then that Ian’s Bloomsbury townhouse was known as The Clock House, with the phrase 'You’re Late' engraved beneath the clock on its façade: gentle comedy that now feels rather profound. 

The life of the late gallerist, collector, filmmaker, photographer, and cultural polymath was anything but belated—or dull. As his brother, Michael, recalls, Ian’s life unfolded in “pinball turns”: from the glare of LA to the vita è bella of Venice and Florence, before opening his gallery Rosenfeld in Fitzrovia in 2011 and settling in Bloomsbury. Each place sharpened his eye and expanded his already vast sense of all that culture could be.

Born and raised in London, Ian’s earliest instincts were those of a collector—first expressed through an extensive vinyl collection, a devotion to art-house European cinema, and an appetite for pop culture. Rather than rule or convention, curiosity was his guide. 

That same instinct shaped The Clock House. Purchased in 2009 and completed in 2023 after a radical reconfiguration, the Georgian townhouse was conceived as a place to coexist deeply with art. Working with designer Maddalena Cannarsa, Ian sought clarity, restraint, and natural light: “earthy” materials, lime-plastered walls, wooden floors, soft diffusion rather than theatrical spotlights.

Original Georgian detailing, long lost, was not artificially reinstated. Instead, old and new come into dialogue in shared harmony. Maddalena emphasises that they didn’t want the house to feel like an “old Georgian building with a modern extension”—neither fully historic nor overtly contemporary—but rather a synthesis of the two.  

Here, Old Masters sit comfortably alongside contemporary works, united by craftsmanship rather than period. Paint, light, surface and gesture matter more than subject or fashion. When Ian entered the world of Old Masters, he learned that it was not enough simply to look. Art, he believed, had to be shared—displayed with care and opened up to those who might not yet know its language.

That philosophy extended into his domestic life, where art became a conversation rather than a possession. Decisions were shaped through dialogue—often with his wife Mariana, a restorer—where compromise refined rather than diluted the whole. The result is a house that feels generous rather than didactic: books and records grounding the space, artworks curated with an openness that invites curiosity rather than reverence.

This ethos manifested itself through gallery Rosenfeld, which became known as a platform for emerging voices, particularly in the later years of Ian’s life. Human connection mattered deeply to him—meeting artists young and old, listening to their journeys, and supporting practices rooted in persuasion rather than trend. He was unafraid of judgment, uninterested in fashion, and steadfast in the belief that good art would endure beyond the present moment.

Collecting, for Ian, was never static; each work opened the door to another way of seeing, another 'pinball turn' redirecting him to new inspiration. He absorbed insatiably until the very end—books stacked three-deep, music playing, newspapers from multiple countries spread open at once—consuming culture not as information, but as life’s nourishment.

The Clock House reflects that same vital spirit. It is confident but unshowy, rigorous yet humane—a domestic space shaped by looking closely and staying open. Ian may have been late, perhaps if one insists on time as linear—but his life was lived full, and most importantly, as Michael recalls, never with regret. And as The Clock House gently reminds us, it is always worth arriving.