Sir George Coppin built a two-story Jacobean mansion here in 1605. William and Mary bought it, then called Nottingham House, in the summer of 1689 for £20,000. Christopher Wren kept the house and added three-story pavilions at its four corners. He turned it to face west and added north and south wings around a court entered through an archway with a clock tower.
Nicholas Hawksmoor designed the South Front and the King's Gallery, and the Orangery of 1704. After a fire in 1691 the King's Staircase was rebuilt in marble. In 1722 George I hired William Kent, who painted trompe-l'oeil ceilings and walls in the state rooms and 45 courtiers on the King's Grand Staircase.
Queen Victoria was born here on May 24, 1819, and the State Rooms opened to the public in 1899. A Blitz bomb damaged the State Apartments in 1940. It is Grade I listed, and Historic Royal Palaces manages it.
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