David Paton (architect)

[1] When he returned his family lived at his father's huge house within the central north “palace-block” pavilion, at 66 Great King Street, in Edinburgh's Second New Town.

[2] In July 1833, following the death of his wife, he travelled to the United States, arriving, as was the norm, in New York City.

Paton reached Raleigh on 16 September 1834, to oversee the construction, at which stage the outer walls were virtually complete.

[3] Paton made many adaptions to the interior plan-form and roof, many adopting specifically Scottish building techniques, such as the cantilevered “pen-checked” stone stairs.

He also borrowed some ideas from his time with John Soane in the form of top-lit corridors and use of balconies.

In 1835 he is recorded as having met William Bell, a likewise Scottish architect far from home, in a quarry at East Chester near New York and developed a friendship.

On 2 August 1837 Paton married for the second time: Diana (‘’Anna’’) Bertie Gaskin Farrow of Washington, North Carolina.

Thereafter he appears to have been employed teaching architecture and building practice in Brooklyn until disabled by a stroke in 1875.

In 1878 he declined a commission to design the governor's mansion in North Carolina and the job instead passed to Samuel Sloan.