East Gables, 5 Rowallan Street, Helensburgh

East Gables, located at 5 Rowallan Street in Helensburgh, is a pair of two-storey L-plan semi-detached villas built in 1895 by A N Paterson, designed in the Scottish Arts and Crafts style. The buildings are harled with red sandstone dressings, featuring sandstone margins around the windows on the south side, with ashlar mullions for the bipartite and canted windows. The buildings also have sandstone cills and lintels, and a crowstep gable.

The east elevation facing Rowallan Street has four bays, with an off-centre left entrance featuring an architraved doorpiece that has chamfered and roll-moulded edges and a cornice. Above the door is a similarly detailed window with an apron resting on the cornice of the doorpiece. The entrance includes a panelled fanlit door with leaded glazing in the fanlight and upper panels, leading to a deep-set vestibule door. There is a slightly recessed bay to the outer left with a wallhead stack that is corbelled at the first floor, along with a window to the left at ground level. To the right, there is a bipartite mullioned and transomed stair window with segmental arches to each light, featuring leaded and stained glass, and a narrow window below. Additional windows are present to the outer right at both ground and first floors.

The south elevation features a two-storey crowstepped gable on the outer right, with a corbelled canted oriel supported by buttresses. Each window has a roll-moulded architrave with label-stops, and the roof is piended with slate. To the left is a single-storey and attic wing that includes a bipartite window at ground level and a flat-roofed tripartite slightly canted dormer above.

The north elevation has three windows at ground level and a bipartite window on the first floor. There is a single-storey wing to the left with a door on the west face.

Inside, the original chimneypieces and timber balustraded stairs remain intact.

West Gables, the mirror image of East Gables, features a full-height canted window on the gabled bay of the south elevation. The west entrance elevation has a modern window to the outer left at ground level and a modern lean-to conservatory to the outer right. The interior of West Gables has not been seen.

Both villas mostly feature sash and case windows, with plate glass in the lower sashes and six-pane upper sashes. The roofs are grey slate with beak skewputts and an ashlar coped mutual stack at the centre and on the east and west elevations.