Boissiere House from the East | Photograph: Courtesy Noel Norton
26 Queen’s Park West is better known as “The Gingerbread House”, the residence of the Boissiere family.
The house was designed and built by the architect Edward Bowen, a personal friend of the owner, C.E.H. Boissiere.
The ceilings in the sitting and dining rooms are of gesso work, executed by the same Italian craftsman who did the ceilings of Killarney and the Council Chamber of the Red House. The stained glass windows, with their meandering strawberry vines, in the little study with its pagoda roof, filter the morning sun and cast a soft light into the room. The floor tiles of the study and verandah were imported from England and the large single slab marble steps to the entrance were imported from Italy.
Now for sale, the house is one of the most photographed in Port of Spain.