A MAJOR restoration project is underway at a South Side villa considered the finest and most elaborate example of Glasgow architect Alexander 'Greek' Thomson.

Specialist restorer Calvin Howie, 25, is using hand mixed paint to restore the original decor scheme of the Neo-Greek style cupola of Holmwood House, which was built in 1858.

Extensive research has been carried out on the cupola by using scratches to work out the original colour scheme from 1870 which is now being re-created.

The cupola stands at 10m and is adorned with sculpted Chimera, a mythical Greek beast.

Howie said he is often joined by a pigeon who sits on the cupola as he paints.

The building on Netherlee Road is considered  rare in retaining much of its original interior decor, and being open to the public and is said to have influenced Frank Lloyd Wright and other proto-modernist architects.

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Holmwood was constructed for James Couper, a paper manufacturer in 1857-1858.

Couper owned the Millholm paper mill in the valley of the White Water of Cart immediately below the villa.

Holmwood was altered in the 1920s by the owner, James Gray and after World War II it was purchased by a local vet, James McElhone and his family.

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It was then sold to the Sisters of Our Lady of the Missions who obliterated much of the original decoration with plain paint. The gardener's cottage was demolished in the 1970s; the grounds and those of an adjacent villa were used for a Catholic primary school.

The nuns put the property on the market in the early 1990s and following an appeal, Holmwood was acquired by the National Trust for Scotland in 1994 with the support of £1.5million from the National Heritage Memorial Fund.

It was restored by Page\Park Architects in 1997-1998.