736 Antrim Road, Belfast, Co. Antrim, BT36 7PQ

736 Antrim Road is a detached modernist villa built in 1934 to designs by local architect Hugh Gault. It stands as a Grade B1 listed building of considerable architectural and historical significance, being one of relatively few modernist buildings constructed in Northern Ireland during the interwar period.

The house is a well-proportioned and detailed structure of three storeys with four bays, rendered in smooth finish and painted white. Its most distinctive modernist features include a flat concrete roof with a raised stepped parapet and flat coping stone forming a roof terrace on the south and east sides. The second floor is set back, and the building incorporates curved plan elements: a two-storey circular bay to the north-east corner and a curved south-east corner with windows at ground and first floor levels. A single-storey extension projects to the west. The flat roof has a lead-lined gutter discharging to cast-iron hoppers and circular downpipes, and the top of the parapet is finished with painted horizontal metal railings.

The rendered walls are roughcast finish with a smooth rendered and painted plinth, and a painted horizontal band marks the first floor string course. All openings are square-headed with painted renders and sills. Windows throughout are timber casement frames unless otherwise specified. A smooth rendered chimney with terracotta pots rises from the north elevation.

The east elevation is four-bay two-storey with a set-back second floor and a curved corner. The south elevation is similarly proportioned with four bays, two storeys, and a set-back upper floor with curved corner element. A recessed entrance porch with smooth rendered splayed surround and stepped reveals opens from the south elevation, featuring a timber panelled door and tiled floor. The west elevation is four-bay three-storey and includes a striking picture window that extends from first floor to second floor, incorporating leaded coloured glass inset panels which create artistic contrast against the white rendered walls. The north elevation is three-bay three-storey with the two-storey circular bay to the north-east corner.

The building occupies an elevated corner site at the junction of Antrim Road and Glencoe Park, with unobstructed views eastward towards Belfast Lough. This prominent position allows the modernist design to make a strong positive contribution to the character of the area.

The setting includes a detached garage to the west, positioned at basement level with flat roof finished with painted coping and metal railings, rendered walls, and a square-headed opening with metal shutter door. A rendered retaining boundary wall bounds the property to the south, while a coursed sandstone retaining wall to the east features a pair of painted rendered splayed piers with a decorative metal gate providing access to rendered steps. The gardens are enclosed to the south and east. The extents of listing include the house, garage, walling, piers and gates.

Hugh Gault (c. 1900–1956) was a local Belfast architect who specialised in domestic commissions in the suburbs. He designed three flat-roofed modernist houses in Belfast, of which 736 Antrim Road is one; the others are located in Lismoyne Park (1933) and Cleaver Gardens (1937). The house was constructed on land leased by J. F. Miller and was originally valued at £58 upon completion in 1936–57 surveys. The first occupant was John Colgan, a local auctioneer, who resided there until approximately 1970. The adjacent No. 738 Antrim Road was built in the same year but in a more conservative Neo-Georgian style, providing instructive contrast to Gault's modernist approach.

Field inspection has confirmed that the building has undergone few changes to its original layout. The building was listed in 1994 and stands alongside No. 5 Waterloo Park as an excellent surviving example of interwar modernist domestic architecture in Northern Ireland, a style of which only limited examples remain extant in the region.