A 60,000-wed home
From consulate and club to the venue where thousands of couples tied the knot – now the marriage suites can be your perfect match
FINDING the perfect place to live is often compared to a marriage made in heaven. When it comes to La Casa, sitting at the end of a handsome terrace in Glasgow’s West End, the association with matters matrimonial could not be more apposite. For almost 20 years the building served as the city’s only register office, where the words ‘I do’ were heard 60,000 times (that’s 30,000 weddings, remember).
But times change – and while La Casa once had exclusive rights to civil nuptials, all manner of establishments have now been declared fit to host the joining together of loving couples, including football stadia.
Ironically, footballers were often to be found at 22 Park Circus, attending weddings of their own or team-mates.
Taggart actor Colin McCredie tied the knot here with wife Simone in 2002.
But the two decades in which La Casa enjoyed that most romantic of purposes are but a small slice of its 140-year history. Prior to weddings, it was Glasgow’s Italian consulate. Before the war, it was used as a community hub for the city’s Italian community.
But such grand architecture was never designed to host anything as mundane as a social club.
No 22 Park Circus has its genesis in the white heat of Glasgow’s expansion as the engine room of the Empire. It was commissioned in 1872 by wealthy industrialist Walter Macfarlane, whose Saracen Ironworks was contributing to buildings all over the world. These included the Sammy Marks Fountain in the National Zoological Gardens in Pretoria, South Africa’ the frontage of the Jose de Alencar Theatre in Fortaleza, Brazil and the cast iron panels for Selfridges in London.
It also mass-produced park railings, drinking fountains, iron bridges, street lamps and bandstands. Mr Macfarlane had intricate designs in mind when he drew up plans for a palazzo-inspired mansion over four floors in one of Glasgow’s finest addresses.
This was a man who employed such architects as Alexander ‘Greek’ Thomson and John Burnet to lend his products an attractive edge. The evidence of the high-quality design at 22 Park Circus suggests he took his work home with him.
First impressions are formed the moment you enter the property, through a procession of columns to the marble staircase beyond.
Comparisons with the grandeur of Glasgow’s City Chambers seem appropriate; but that civic masterpiece did not even exist when 22 Park Circus was completed in 1874.
The building’s main reception rooms lie on the first floor. Striking features abound, from elaborate cornicing to intricate forged metalwork.
‘The brushed copperwork on the second floor landing is a joy to behold,’ says Maitland Walker of selling agent Rettie. ‘The workmanship is out of this world.’ According to Mr Walker, the building comes with its own range of superlatives. He adds. ‘The comparison to the City Chambers is appropriate, because that is where they relocated the civic marriage suites when 22 Park Circus stopped holding weddings last year. It was the only venue capable of recreating this building’s opulent atmosphere.
‘It is a mini-palace. Where else would you find 12,600 square feet of luxury over four floors so close to a city centre? I believe it could be an embassy, or perhaps a gallery where a rich individual could show off works of art. ‘Whoever does buy it will have one of the most historic pieces of Glasgow history in their possession.’
But they’ll be finding confetti for years to come...