Windy Hill or Windyhill is a house designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh and furnished by him and his wife, Margaret Macdonald, in

Kilmacolm Kilmacolm () is a village and civil parish in the Inverclyde council area, and the historic county of Renfrewshire in the west central Lowlands of Scotland. It lies on the northern slope of the Gryffe Valley, southeast of Greenock and aroun ...

, Scotland. It is Category A listed and remains as a home in private ownership. Windy Hill is also the name of a hill in the

Clyde Muirshiel Regional Park Clyde Muirshiel Regional Park is the collective name for areas of countryside set aside for conservation and recreation on the South Clyde estuary in Scotland. The park covers an area of of Inverclyde, North Ayrshire and Renfrewshire, stretchi ...

which borders Kilmacolm.

History

The house was commissioned in 1900 by William Davidson, a provisions merchant, who was Mackintosh's friend and patron. Mackintosh not only designed the

Art Nouveau Art Nouveau (; ) is an international style of art, architecture, and applied art, especially the decorative arts. The style is known by different names in different languages: in German, in Italian, in Catalan, and also known as the Modern ...

-style house, but also, with Macdonald, its decor, furniture and fittings, including fireplaces, panelling, stained glass and lights. They also designed the garden. The house was completed and occupied in 1901. Job books and correspondence relating to the commission are held at the

Hunterian Museum The Hunterian is a complex of museums located in and operated by the University of Glasgow in Glasgow, Scotland. It is the oldest museum in Scotland. It covers the Hunterian Museum, the Hunterian Art Gallery, the Mackintosh House, the Zoology M ...

, who have made digital scans available online.

Walter Blackie and his wife viewed the house, with Mackintosh, before commissioning him to design Hill House. The Davidson family lived in Windy Hill until 1911 when they moved back to Glasgow so William could be closer to his work. The house was then rented out, until 1934 when Davidson sold it.

Design

The house consists of two floors in an L-shape arranged in two distinct volumes. The larger volume comprises a long hallway with three family rooms leading off of it on the ground floor, with five bedrooms on the upper floor. The second volume contains service rooms like the kitchen and laundry situated at the end of the previously mentioned hallway, with housemaid and servant bedrooms above it. The exterior is harling with a smooth uniform appearance with small deep-set windows. The Davidson's son Hamish wrote in article for ''The Scottish Art Review'' that fellow passengers on his father's daily train commute compared the design of his house to "a barracks or a prison".

Ownership

In 2014, the house's fifth owner, David Cairns, who had painstakingly sourced craftspeople to authentically restore it, placed it on the market for an estimated £3 million. After it initially failed to sell, there were calls to buy it for the nation, to ensure its preservation. As of 2022, the property had been removed from the market.

References

{{Charles Rennie Mackintosh Art Nouveau architecture in Scotland Charles Rennie Mackintosh buildings