Red Towers, 4 Douglas Drive, Helensburgh

Red Towers, a two-storey mansion with attic, was designed by William Leiper in 1898. It is an ambitious L-plan building combining Franco-Scottish Renaissance style with Shavian Old English details in an eclectic chateau-like composition with a varied roofline. The walls are constructed from snecked and stugged red sandstone rubble with ashlar dressings and decorative mock half-timbering. Windows are ashlar mullioned and feature bipartite and tripartite forms with chamfered and moulded reveals and roll-moulded architraves. Bargeboarded gabled dormers have mock half-timbering to their gableheads.

The south elevation facing Douglas Drive presents the principal façade. An advanced two-bay entrance block is positioned off-centre left, with a chamfered angles and moulded cill course at first floor supporting a cornice and balustraded parapet. A pedimented porch in Scottish Renaissance style is flanked by low ashlar quadrant walls ending in piers topped with ball finials. The porch itself features a basket-arch entrance with clustered colonnette piers flanking, a dentilled cornice, and a moulded panel and paterae to the tympanum, culminating in a fleur-de-lis finial. To the left sits a narrow ogee-arched window on the return, while a bipartite window with a stylised scrolled pediment and raised moulded panel occupies the left. At first floor, a tripartite window appears left and a bipartite to the right, both with moulded cill courses. An M-gabled dormer rises behind a balustraded parapet. The recessed bay to the right contains paired bipartite mullioned and transomed windows at ground level with lead-pane glazing to casements and decorated lead-pane glazing to fixed upper panels. Above this bay runs a balustraded ashlar balcony supported on heavy moulded ashlar consoles with strapwork decoration, with a bipartite French window behind at first floor. A canted dormer sits above to the left. The outer right features a full-height canted window with bipartite mullioned and transomed windows at ground and first floor. Small windows to the upper storey have roll-moulded surrounds with lintel and eaves course, beneath a finialled polygonal slate roof. A window with decorated lead-pane glazing appears left of the advanced entrance block, crowned by a Scottish Renaissance style dormer breaking the eaves with moulded apron and decorative gablehead. A three-storey circular tower anchors the left, containing bipartite mullioned and transomed windows with a transomed window at ground, a corbel course above, three windows at first floor with a raised blank panel above the centre window, and three small windows to the upper storey with roll-moulded surround and lintel course, topped by a finialled conical slate roof.

The west elevation features a circular angle tower to the right and a two-storey canted window to the left with bipartite mullioned and transomed windows at ground and first floor with decorated lead-pane glazing to the ground windows. A tall corbelled and coped parapet rises above, with a canted dormer behind featuring a piended slate roof and overhanging eaves.

The north rear elevation presents a lop-sided gabled bay to the outer right with a wallhead stack breaking the skew and a bipartite attic window. Bipartite mullioned and transomed windows occupy the right at ground and first floor levels. A stepped Elizabethan stair window to the left displays decorated lead-pane glazing. A pair of tripartite dormers rises above with a mutual gable divided by a tall sandstone stack. A canted dormer sits in the re-entrant angle to the left with a gambrel roof. The service wing projects to the outer left.

The east elevation shows a two-storey canted window off-centre right containing mullioned and transomed windows at ground and first floor levels (two-two-two arrangement) with decorated lead-pane glazing at ground, topped by a finialled polygonal slate roof. Tripartite dormers flank this feature. An advanced offset chimney wall stands to the left with a broad coped stack. A small window appears at first floor left, with a bipartite mullioned and transomed window to the right having lead-pane glazing. The service wing extends to the outer right.

The northern service wing comprises a single-storey and attic structure with two taller stair towers (later additions) abutting to the left. Its west elevation features bipartite windows at ground and first floor in a re-entrant angle, with a dormer to the left. The east elevation contains a window at centre ground level, a bipartite window to the left with a dormer above, and a gabled bay to the right with half-timbering to its gablehead and a tripartite window at ground and attic. A single-storey wing to the outer right includes a half-timbered porch in its re-entrant angle and a bipartite window. Single-storey outbuildings abut on the north return and opposite yard, now accommodating a garage, with the yard enclosed by a snecked red sandstone rubble wall.

Windows throughout feature lead-pane glazing to ground floor windows as noted, mostly plate glass to casement windows, small-pane glazing to fixed upper panes, and small-pane work to casement and sash-and-case windows. The roof is finished in green slate with tall coped ashlar stacks and original rainwater goods throughout.

The interior is of marvellous richness. The hall features wainscoting with rendered and lined walls above as ashlar, a coffered ceiling, a moulded and lugged ashlar chimneypiece with panelled and pilastered overmantle, and an ashlar stair with timber balusters. A half-glazed vestibule door provides entrance.

The drawing-room contains two-leaf panelled doors framed by fluted pilasters and entablature, wainscoting, and a geometric plasterwork ceiling with coved cornice. An inglenook recess displays a moulded and lugged ashlar chimneypiece with marble surround and an ashlar and marble overmantle.

The dining room mirrors this decoration, featuring wainscoting and ceiling work with an inglenook recess displaying fluted pilasters to its angles and an overmantle with three round-headed panels set in squared frames with decorated arch and spandrels. A pilastered segmental-arched sideboard recess has pilasters detailed as those to the inglenook.

The attic billiard room is finished with fielded wainscoting and red tartan carpet, containing two timber chimneypieces, one featuring a round-arched inglenook.

A bedroom at first floor includes an inglenook.

The boundary includes snecked red sandstone rubble walls with a low rubble quadrant wall featuring an ashlar balustrade. Square piers are fluted and banded with ball finials. A fine two-leaf wrought-iron gate of curvilinear design with fleur-de-lis finials completes the entrance. A wellhead with low circular form features a simple wrought-iron overthrow of similar curvilinear design to the lintel, topped with a fleur-de-lis finial.