13-05-2025
A Scottish architect's Italian Renaissance dream is on sale for £2.7m
The Scottish architect John Kinross (1855-1931) was renowned for his spectacular restorations of older properties, including most famously the Falkland Palace, once the favourite retreat of Mary, Queen of Scots. Having toured Italy extensively during his lifetime, an Italian influence was obvious in much of his best work. Not least in the design of his own home, the bellissima 33 Mortonhall Road in the Grange area of southern Edinburgh.
The A listed six-bedroom villa, also known as Seven Gables, is the most prestigious of the so-called Mortonhall Road Quartet — four houses each designed by Kinross in 1898. Combining 17th-century Scottish baronial style features with a strong Italian Renaissance flourish, they were all broadly similar. But his was the pick of the bunch, with its
