Oliver Hill (architect)

[1] The family had roots in Aberdeen and he retained a lifelong affection for Scotland, choosing to serve in the London Scottish Regiment during World War I.

Following the suggestion of Edwin Lutyens, his early mentor, Hill's first step towards architecture was to gain experience in a builder's yard.

Setting up his own office, Hill's first major project (1910–14) was Moor Close, in Berkshire,[5] where he created a complementary composition of terraces and gardens around a Jacobethan house which he extended.

His work continued to be marked by his appreciation of the textures of natural materials,[11] as well as by a predilection for curving lines, including very free or irregular ones.

[11] The dominant feature of the Joldwynds plan, a curving front with a central, large-windowed circular stair-tower, recurred at the Midland Hotel in Lancashire, and at Holthanger, now known as Cherry Hill in Surrey.

[12] Hill was the lead designer for the Frinton Park Estate, an attempt at a modernist settlement in Essex, where a number of his curving buildings were constructed before the project failed.

The architectural historian Alan Powers has identified his style of decoration as "transitional modern",[15] or "Vogue Regency",[16] two roughly equivalent terms for a form of Art Deco.

He collaborated with the interior decorator Syrie Maugham, the creator of the "all-white room", in a redecoration of her house, 213 King's Road.

His designs covered a wide array of styles and his last house built in the 1960s, The Priory at Long Newnton, Gloucestershire, harked back to the 17th century.