Dean Park House, Queensferry Road, Edinburgh

Dean Park House is a large villa of 1874, designed by Frederick Pilkington in the Second Empire style. Originally a private residence, it is now used as boarding accommodation for pupils at Stewart's Melville College.

The house is two storeys and has an attic, and is five bays wide. A prominent, full-height bowed bay dominates the centre, with slightly advanced and pilastered terminal bays. It is constructed of sandstone ashlar, with channelled pilasters on the ground floor. A moulded string course runs along the ground floor, and a bracketed, moulded cill course is present at the first floor. The eaves are corniced, topped with a blind balustrade, with urns on the balustrade piers. The window surrounds are architraved in moulded detail at ground, first, and attic levels. Ground floor windows flanking the bowed bay are bipartite, while arcaded round arched windows are featured in the bay itself. The first floor has a similar arrangement, with segmental arched windows, again with the exception of the bowed bay. Segmental arched bipartite dormers with sandstone ashlar are situated in the attic, flanking the bowed bay, with a shaped dormer and foliate panel at the apex of the central bowed bay. Later single-storey additions with flat roofs have been added to the south and west.

An attached porte-cochère extends from the east elevation, forming an advanced single-storey block constructed of both coursed squared rubble and channelled sandstone ashlar. A large, round arched carriage doorway sits to the north and south, with a crest above the northern doorway, featuring an urn to the left.

To the southwest of the main house stands a two-storey former coach house, with some first-floor windows breaching the wallhead. It is built of coursed squared sandstone with sandstone ashlar dressings and quoins. A band course is present at ground floor level, with a banded cill course at the first floor, and a corniced eaves course. Large triangular dormers with shaped sides, moulded ashlar skews, a fielded panel, and a shaped finial at the apex are featured on the south elevation.

The windows are predominantly plate glass in timber sash and case frames. The roof is multi-pitched, covered with grey slates. It features shouldered, corniced ashlar wallhead stacks with modern clay cans, and cast-iron rainwater goods.

The interior retains a richly decorative classical scheme, though adapted for boarding accommodation. A large hall is centred on Corinthian pilasters and a consoled cornice, with principal rooms leading off via double leaf doors within large doorcases. The northern drawing room, now subdivided, once featured Louis XV panelling and a white marble fireplace. A dining room is located to the west. The former porte-cochère has been converted into a room, with a lowered ceiling added later. A grand Imperial staircase, with carved scrollwork balustrades culminating in winged dragons, features a large Venetian window with elaborate stained glass and a large coffered ceiling with foliate console brackets and a central cupola. Later alterations on the upper floors provide dormitories.