St Andrew's House, Regent Road, Edinburgh

St Andrew's House, located on Regent Road in Edinburgh, is a monumental and symmetrical Classical Art Deco office building designed by Thomas Tait between 1934 and 1939. It is dramatically positioned on a sloping hillside and features a square-plan internal courtyard. The building has a central eight-storey, nine-bay block flanked by six-storey stair towers and three-storey wings with recessed attics. The exterior is constructed of ashlar stone, channelled to the ground, with some moulded margins, and includes a stepped base course, band course, and cornice. The wings have curved three-storey projections at the southern outer bays.

The north elevation facing Regent Road is characterized by a central, vertically emphasized seven-bay section divided by six engaged square columns, each topped with figurative statues. Decorative metal panels are located between the fourth and fifth storey windows, and the recessed upper storeys have few narrow window openings. A prominent two-storey, seven-bay entrance porch with a flat roof features massive bronze entrance doors with carved reliefs and flanking circular columns, with a carved Scottish Coat-of-Arms above.

The building predominantly has metal, multi-pane, lying-pane casement windows, some of which include top hoppers, and flat roofs.

Inside, as of 2007, there are a series of high-quality Art Deco rooms with fine detailing and timber panelling. The interior features two full-length, open-well cantilevered staircases with terrazzo risers, metal balusters with horizontal banding, and brass handrails. Conference rooms are adorned with full-length Indian silver-grey wood panelling, fine Art Deco detailing, and distinctive rounded stone fire surrounds and hearths. One room is panelled in walnut. The Art Deco theme extends to door handles, lamps, and fire surrounds, with a clerestoried restaurant and the majority of the remaining space converted to open-plan offices.

The boundary walls and gates to the north consist of a low, curving ashlar wall with two tall, geometric ashlar lamp standards featuring round-edged glass and metal lamps. Heavy metal gates lead to drives on the far right and left. To the south and east, there is a 19th-century tall, battered rubble retaining wall interspersed with castellated turrets.