Starleyburn House, Burntisland

Starleyburn House is a mid to later 19th-century house, likely dating from 1861. It is a two-storey, three-bay building with a piend roof, accompanied by single-storey, piend-roofed pavilions. The south facade is finished with polished ashlar, while the remaining elevations use dressed ashlar, with rusticated long and short quoins. Architectural details include a moulded cornice, base and eaves courses, chamfered arrises, stone mullions and cills.

The south (entrance) elevation features a deeply recessed panelled door with a letterbox fanlight at the center, a window to the right, and a further window in a recessed wing on the outer right. A full-height canted window sits to the left, with another window in the recessed wing to the outer left. The first floor displays a regular arrangement of bays.

The north elevation has a door at the center, flanked by windows, with a window extending outwards from the left of the recessed pavilion. A stair-window is centrally positioned on the first floor, flanked by windows.

The east elevation has a small window at center on the first floor, and a window to the outer left. The west elevation incorporates a glazed door to the right of a single-storey wing, a window to the left, and a first-floor window on the outer left.

The windows are predominantly sash and case, with a 4-pane and 12-pane glazing pattern. However, the west elevation's first floor and stair window feature plate glass glazing. The roof is covered with grey slates. Hipped roofs are topped with cavetto-coped ashlar stacks, polygonal cans, cast-iron downpipes and decorative rainwater hoppers.

The interior includes a part-glazed door with adjacent lights and fanlights etched with an Art Nouveau design, a winding stair with decorative cast-iron balusters and a timber handrail, ornate cornicing and ceiling roses, and a marble chimneypiece with a cast-iron inset.

Low terrace walls run along the house's base, leading to a high flat-coped rubble terrace wall via a long flight of steps. Decorative cast-iron gates are set within pyramid-capped rendered gatepiers, and a long stretch of coped random rubble boundary walls enclose the property.

The 1867-8 Valuation Roll identifies the Earl of Morton as the proprietor of Starleyburn, though local tradition suggests it served as the quarrymaster’s residence, possibly leased. The west wing was originally designed as a garden room. A much-altered coach house and stable are located immediately north of the property, but they do not meet listing criteria.