Rothmar, High Askomil Road, Campbeltown

Rothmar is a 2-storey American-style villa designed by John James Burnet in 1897 and extended by Burnet, Tait & Lorne in 1937. The building is asymmetrical, comprising a 4-bay principal block with a 3-bay service wing to the north.

The main structure is constructed from bull-faced squared and snecked walls with droved red sandstone ashlar dressings and details. A projecting cill course and margins define the 1st floor windows of the main block, with plain eaves course throughout.

The south (principal) elevation is the most architecturally distinguished. A large single storey 3-light semicircular bow window occupies the wider outer right bay, featuring engaged Ionic columns, entablature and parapet. Above this, a pilastered window is set within an advanced panel that breaks the eaves into a shallow segmental head. Three further bays are evenly spaced to the left. The windows throughout combine plate glass lower sashes with multi-pane upper sashes, while other parts of the building retain a variety of original glazing patterns. All windows are timber sash and case.

The east elevation comprises 2 bays flanking a slightly advanced chimney-breast at the centre, which contains a boiler flue and projects as an ashlar buttress to the left. A ground floor bay to the left is further advanced and contains a door with a roll-moulded surround, with mask carving centred above.

The north (rear) elevation is 2-storey and 4-bay with irregular fenestration. Two bays to the right are advanced. A tiled entrance area is set within a re-entrant defined by bull-faced dwarf walls with ashlar copes, with a glazed timber canopy above supported at the north-east corner by a squat Tuscan timber column. A single storey and attic kitchen wing with 2 bays projects to the right.

The west elevation features a service wing projecting at ground floor centre. A 4-light rectangular stair window projection with stained glazing rises at 1st floor level. A canted inglenook at ground floor occupies the bay to the right, with an ashlar parapet articulated at the centre face and narrow windows in the flanking faces.

The service wing is a 5-bay structure of single storey and attic with a gable to the west, projecting to the north of the main block. Its south elevation contains three evenly spaced bays to the left: a small bipartite window at the outer left, a blank opening at the inner left, and a vertically-boarded timber door with a 3-pane upper at the centre bay. Dormers breaking the eaves at the left three bays have segmental-arched ashlar fronts and slate-hung sides. A chimney gable rises at the penultimate bay to the right, with a bipartite window offset to the right at ground floor and a centred window in the gable above. A 4-panel 2-leaf timber door occupies the bay to the outer right. The north elevation is asymmetrical and harled, recessed to the left, with a small window and 2 vertically-boarded timber doors to the right.

The roof comprises green-grey slate with piended and bell-cast profiles at the main block and deeply overhanging timber eaves featuring a deep mutuled soffit over cornice. Pitched roofs with overhanging timber eaves and bargeboards cover the kitchen and service wings. Profiled cast-iron gutters and downpipes with decorative hoppers throughout. Chimneys are constructed as bull-faced rubble stacks with ashlar ends, incised at the corners, overhanging cornices, and circular cans.

The interior retains a fine decorative scheme with most original internal fittings surviving. Notable features include fine joinery with panelled dados, doors and shutters, patterned timber floors, and delicate plaster ceilings. A timber chimneypiece survives in the dining room, though the drawing room chimneypiece was replaced during the 1937 works.

A harled garage with a piend roof stands nearby, fitted with 12-leaf vertically-boarded folding timber doors with glazed uppers.

The terrace and boundary walls form an integral part of the composition. A battered rubble retaining wall with ashlar cope runs along the south elevation terrace. Random rubble boundary walls with ashlar copes define the frontage to High Askomil Road. Contemporary timber gates with ashlar gatepiers are positioned to the west, with a pyramidal cap to the right, a matching timber pedestrian gate to the left at raised and coped wallhead, and an additional matching timber pedestrian gate to the east.