G. Kay Green

Born in May 1877,[1] Green was educated at George Watson's College, Edinburgh,[2] and was active in business in Edinburgh from at least 1897,[3] when he went into partnership there with William H. McLachlan.[4] While no trace of Green's formal training as an architect has come to light,[5] in 1899 he submitted designs for a new Upper Hall at the Signet Library,[6] and was described as "George Kay Green, Architect". He was then of 42, Blacket Place, Edinburgh.[7] A drawing by Green of the Laigh Hall, Edinburgh, appeared in the 1902 volume of the journal Judicial Review.[8] Green was in Edinburgh in 1909, when he wrote from there to The Berwick Advertiser on the subject of farming in the Borders.[9]

During the First World War, he served as a quartermaster sergeant in the Royal Engineers and then was commissioned as a second lieutenant into the Royal Army Service Corps. In 1920, he was living at 1, Walpole St, London S.W.3.[2]

In 1927, Green was a director of Peacehaven Estates Ltd, Peacehaven Hotel Company Ltd, Peacehaven Water Company Ltd, and Peacehaven Electric Light Company Ltd., which had an address at South Coast Road, Peacehaven, Sussex.[10] In 1928 the companies also had an office at 7, Pall Mall, Westminster, and the directors were Lord Teynham (chairman), C. W. Neville (managing director), and Green.[11] Peacehaven was a large self-build development described in 1940 as "a holiday resort or bungalow-town... founded at the end of the War of 1914–18. It lies at the edge of the cliffs, its plan being a grid of unmade roads".[12]

In London, Green began to specialize in designing large apartment blocks. He was the architect of Sloane Avenue Mansions, an 11-storey Art Deco residential building in Chelsea, London, built between 1931 and 1933.[13][14][15] Another such building he designed was Du Cane Court, Balham High Road, Balham, an early example of an apartment block with revolving doors,[16] the largest block of flats in Great Britain when it was completed in 1934.[17] Perhaps his final major building was Nell Gwynn House in Sloane Avenue, Chelsea, which was finished in 1937.[18] The footprint of the building forms a capital W, and it makes use of Cubist geometric designs, with ancient Egyptian, Aztec, and Mayan patterns.[19]

In May 1930, at Brighton, Green married Edna Kathleen Hiscock,[20] the 27-year-old daughter of a builder, Herbert Woodbridge Hiscock, and his wife Eleanor.[21] In 1935, they were living at 241, Richmond Road, Twickenham, and the next year at 1, Walpole Street, Chelsea.[22] In September 1936, they announced the birth of a son, Charles.[23] The Post Office Directory for 1938 has Green listed at 8, Orange Street, Haymarket, Westminster W.C.2.[24] In October 1939, the family of three was back in Twickenham,[1] and Green died a few weeks later.[25]

When Green's widow died in 1993, her death was registered as Edna Kathleen Green or Kay-Green.[26]

• George Kay Green at themodernhouse.com