17, 19 John Street, Portobello, Edinburgh

17 and 19 John Street is a mid-19th century house that has undergone later alterations and is now subdivided. It is a two-storey building with a basement and has a rectangular plan. The front is made of painted ashlar, while the blank side elevations are constructed from squared and snecked rubble, featuring ashlar quoins. The building has a base course, cornice, and blocking course, with stop-chamfered arrises.

The northwest (principal) elevation features a panelled basket-arched door located in a projecting ashlar porch at the center, accessed by three steps. Above the door is a plate glass fanlight, and there is a basket-arched recess with floreate columns and a volute keystone at the center. The corners are accentuated by raised pilasters that are panelled at the front, and there is a cornice and balustrade-parapet above. The windows on the return elevations are round-arched, with a first-floor window that has a chamfered margin. To the right, there is a basement-level window, and at ground level, a tripartite window with corbels and a central tab above. The first-floor window above this has a corbelled balcony and a fine cast-iron balustrade. The left bay features a full-height canted window with a piended roof and a diminutive corbelled cill, which is adorned with an intricate ironwork window guard.

The southeast (rear) elevation is asymmetrical and mostly hidden by a garden wall. It includes a round-arched staircase window with engraved glass at the center and a tripartite window in the first bay to the right.

The windows are timber sash and case with plate glass. The piended slate roof has square-rendered shouldered wallhead stacks, with the northeast stack being polished ashlar and the southwest stack being unpainted render.

The interior was not seen in 1994. The boundary walls are made of stugged ashlar with polished copings and gatepiers, while a tall rubble garden wall at the rear features semicircular coping.