Stanely House, Stanely Crescent, Paisley

Stanely House is a late 19th-century villa of rectangular plan, two storeys high, built in the plain classical style. It is constructed from polished cream sandstone ashlar and features a low slated pavilion roof with decorative cast-iron brattishing around a central lantern positioned over the hall and principal staircase.

The entrance elevation displays a projecting single-storey entrance porch at the left-hand bay, with a two-leaf door set in a lugged and moulded architrave doorcase. The porch has a balustraded parapet. The main block features canted bays with plain parapets at ground floor. At first floor there are single and bipartite windows, all fitted with plate glass sashes. Bipartite windows appear to the left and on the south and north flanks. The ground floor has bipartite windows at the centre and tripartite windows at the right-hand bay; three original windows survive at first floor, though those at the centre and right-hand bays have been altered by the insertion of fire-escape doors to the left of the windows.

A two-storey, two-bay service wing is recessed to the right, topped with a piended slate roof and featuring a wallhead stack over the north elevation. The service block windows include a narrow light paired with a single window at the left-hand bay, next to a small flat-roofed projecting bay in the re-entrant angle, and bipartite windows at the right-hand bay. At first floor there are a pair of bipartite windows. The service wing carries a cornice and blocking course.

The south elevation of the main block displays three bays at ground floor and four bays at first floor. The outer ground floor bays are canted with four-light windows and plain parapets; the centre has a single window with a corniced drip-mould. At first floor, pairs of bipartite windows flank a centre pair of single windows. A central wallhead stack serves this elevation.

The west (rear) elevation has four bays at ground floor with three single windows and a canted bay to the right; at first floor there are three paired windows over a single window at ground, with a blind over the canted bay.

The building is finished with a first-floor string course, cornice and blocking course, and corniced wallhead stacks throughout.

The interior displays Jacobethan style detailing. The main staircase features arcaded pyramidal balusters, fluted newel posts with thistle-patterned carved friezes and dentil and ovolo mouldings below deeply projecting cornices. A circular coved lantern rises above. The entrance porch has a terrazzo floor with a floral border.

The principal apartments at ground floor are accessed from the entrance hall through lugged segmental-arched oak doorcases. The drawing room contains a baroque-style oak chimneypiece with curved and consoled brackets, pilasters with shell and garland raised carved detail, and a central cartouche at the frieze, topped with a tall mirror overmantel and cast-iron and brass grate. The ceiling is compartmentalised in Jacobethan plasterwork with fleur-de-lis detail, a deep cornice with egg and dart moulding at the centre, and a panelled window bay.

A variety of Jacobethan-style oak chimneypieces are found throughout. The dining room features one with fluted Doric pilaster style, a three-centred arch with red tiled inset, and a panelled overmantel with miniature fluted pilasters and deep cornices. The south-east room at ground floor contains one with Doric pilasters, half-panelled and half-fluted, with naturalistic carving at the neck below volutes, ovolo detail frieze and dentilled cornice, and paired fluted miniature Doric pilasters raised over panelled plinths flanking a plain rectangular mirror with an elaborate frieze and cornice at the overmantel. Other examples include one with a distinctive tall tapering Jacobethan-style panelled overmantel and another with a small broken-pedimented overmantel.

Bathrooms and service quarters are vertically boarded in pine; bathrooms retain original brass fittings.