The largest house at the centre of the terrace, 2 Willow Road was always used and regarded as a family home.

As all its contents were taken on by the National Trust on acquisition, it has been possible to present the house as a unique combination of architecture, gallery and family home.

Goldfinger and his wife, the artist Ursula Blackwell, already had two children when they moved in. The children had a purpose built nursery, with moveable partitions to create individual bedrooms, a fold-out bed for the nanny and a host of educational toys. Their third child, Michael, was born in 1945.

The eldest child, Peter, recalls how the meals were prepared in the ground-floor kitchen and lifted, via a dumb-waiter, on hemp ropes to the first floor dining room. This servery was later boxed in and turned into a broom cupboard.

The house was a haven for numerous guests. Often they arrived for a short stay but would still be found there months later. Many were fellow artists and architects, some of whom left gifts in the form of art works for their hosts.

With the children grown up, Ernö's mother, Regine, moved into the nursery in her eighties, both his sons lived at different times in a flat created later on the ground and garden floors. Ernö and his wife continued to live in the house until their deaths, in 1987 and 1991 respectively.