Kellas House

Kellas House is a large, asymmetrical house dating from 1913 to 1921, designed by Frank Deas and built in the Scottish Arts and Crafts style. It is arranged in a roughly L-plan shape, with the main entrance facing north and the south garden front forming the principal arm of the ‘L’. The exterior is largely harled with ashlar dressings.

The north entrance front features an off-centre entrance, a circular drum tower stairwell in the re-entrant angle, and a service wing to the left. A two-storey rectangular porch with a segmental-headed, keystoned entrance, chamfered angles at the first floor rising to an ashlar balustraded wallhead, is a prominent feature. A small, centrally located corbelled oriel window is decorated with carved stylised foliage and roses. Two long, round-headed windows light the stair tower, and the irregular fenestration includes first-floor oculi within the gablets.

The south garden front has six bays, with segmental-headed ground floor windows, a side entrance, and a full-height projecting canted window. A single-storey verandah, situated at the southwest corner, has shaped wooden balustered wallhead infills between the gables.

The east elevation is irregular, featuring another drum stair tower and a mullioned window beneath a wallhead balustrade. The west elevation is narrow, with a single-storey bowed and balustraded porch leading to a study or gunroom. A rear service court is accessed through a segmental-headed arch linking to an integral garage.

The house has multi-pane glazing, shaped gables with flat skews, coped ridge and wallhead stacks, and Caithness slate roofs.

The interior entrance porch leads to a hall-corridor running east to west. A study is located to the right (west), and the stairwell is positioned to the east. The simple staircase has wide lower treads and a splayed balustrade seated in a tapered newel-column that rises to the ceiling. Flat, shaped oak balusters are linked at the turn of the stairs by a square newel post carved with low relief thistle decoration.

The drawing room, a long south-facing room, has fireplaces at each end, divisible by sliding doors across the centre of the room. A wide recessed chimneypiece at the east end features a tiled area below the mantel shelf, with plain white or decorative coloured Dutch tiles above, and panelled detail. The original grate and fender remain. The west hearth is set into a deeper, inglenook-style recess, similar to the east but narrower. This is flanked by round-headed shelved alcoves, and the ceiling is simply moulded.

The dining room has a D-ended shape at the north end, with a tiled chimneypiece on the right and a service door on the left. A shelved alcove is positioned above the fireplace, and the room has a moulded cornice.