* BUILDING got into Stephen Cullis's blood when he visited building
sites with his father as an eight-year-old, although at one point in his
youth he harboured an ambition to be a commercial artist.
An agency told Stephen the truth -- that his art work was ''average''
-- and he quickly returned to his first love, of construction. He
studied civil engineering at Bell College in Hamilton, and worked in the
construction industry for several companies until six years ago when he
formed a building company called Beechwood.
It built three bungalows at Symington in Lanarkshire with the help of
an overdraft from the Royal Bank of Scotland. Then it went on to build
on several small sites in Clarkston and East Kilbride, three or four
houses at a time.
Other property developers asked Stephen if he would build for them,
and he completed several #1m projects.
Stephen and a partner then formed their own development company,
Westpoint Homes, but this split up when his partner wanted to diversify
into kitchen furniture and Stephen decided to stick to housebuilding.
''If people ask what I am, I say I'm a housebuilder,'' he says.
''There is nothing I like more than being on a site in my hard hat.''
After several smaller developments last year Westpoint built 28 flats at
Woodlands Court at Rouken Glen on the outskirts of Glasogw.
''It was a #2m job, and my first major development, and we built it
within five months,'' says Stephen proudly.
Encouraged by the success of the Rouken Glen project he took on a more
ambitious project when he bought the 150-year-old former Westbourne
School for Girls building in Cleveden Road, Glasgow.
The #4m Westbourne Grange development includes 39 flats, seven of them
in Kelvinside House which was the nursery section of the former girls'
school.
''The seven flats in the original building were sold within four weeks
of us starting work,'' he says.
Stephen has found a book with the history of the school and of the old
building and he plans to decorate the common hallway in Kelvinside House
with photographs from the school in its heyday.
Westpoint came through the difficult period of the housing slump which
arrived not long after the company was formed. Stephen now believes it
will expand and has plans for a #3m development in Bearsden which will
include 32 flats.
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