Gribloch House, Kippen

Gribloch House, built in 1937-9 by Basil Spence and Perry Duncan, was originally designed as a house combining modern streamline style with traditional details. The house was commissioned by John Colville of the Steel family and was likely the largest private house built in Scotland during the 1930s; a model of the house exists at Glasgow School of Art.

The design features a curved front with five central bays, a wider bay to the east, and a projecting bow on the west elevation. The garden front presents two deep, splayed wings of three bays each, flanking a swimming pool, with a lower service wing extending to the east. The house is two storeys high, with an ashlar base course and dressings, harled walls, and a very shallow pitched copper roof concealed behind a parapet. A porch is supported by tall, fluted wooden columns, with a moulded architrave and oculus above the door. The curved bay between the wings on the garden front is filled with a tall, five-light stair/hall window.

All windows are metal-framed casements, taller on the ground floor, and with some first-floor windows projecting as cantilevered balconies. The west bow has closely-spaced windows, including some porthole windows. A long service range extends to the east.

The interior is notable for the central, oval stair hall with a sweeping cantilevered stair, finely looped wrought-iron balustrade, and a mahogany handrail; a plaster frieze of shells linked with ropes decorates the hall. The study exhibits sophisticated Art Deco detailing with curved ends. The drawing room is in a simple neo-Georgian style, while the dining room has a buffet recess and a coved cornice. Original details remain in the first-floor bedrooms, such as mirrored surrounds to the fireplaces, and in the nursery. A swimming pool is situated between the wings on the South front, featuring a sea lion fountain from Compton Pottery in Guildford.