Kilowatt House

Kilowatt House, originally known as Woodside House, is a Modern Movement house built in 1937-38 by Mollie Gerrard for the acoustic engineer Anthony Greenhill. The house is constructed of reinforced concrete with metal windows. The exterior is characterised by white walls, flat roofs, and Crittall windows. It comprises a two-storey central section, a single-storey studio section to the left, and a single-storey garage to the right, with a rooftop observation room. A glazed front door is set beneath a projecting flat roof. The windows are banded, with five horizontal panels on the ground floor and four on the first floor, and wrap around the corners on each floor. A tall window is featured in the projecting three-storey stair tower on the garden front, and a deep eaves cornice is present. The entrance hall contains a curved staircase, with kitchen and utility rooms leading to the garage on one side, and a dining room and sitting room on the other. A large room beyond the sitting room, formerly a sound studio, is now divided into two rooms—a sitting room and a drawing room. The upper floor includes two bedrooms, one with an en suite dressing room and bathroom, and a second bathroom. The house was originally built for Anthony Greenhill, a pioneer sound engineer, and the studio was designed for recording purposes. Mollie Gerrard, the architect, was the daughter of the Bath city architect Alfred Taylor. This house is an unusual design within the local context, representing a good example of Modern Movement architecture with a noteworthy history. Planning permission was initially granted on the condition that the exterior would be painted to resemble Bath stone. Accounts of the building’s construction by Anthony Greenhill, dated 1940, and plans held in the Bath Building Control section are available as reference materials.