William Adam has turned his father's building firm in Kirkcaldy into Scotland's largest construction and contracting enterprise of the time.

Adam uses a wide variety of sources for his designs, often reminiscent of Continental Baroque, as well as Gibbs and Vanbrugh.

The best known of his early works is the extension of Hopetoun House in 1721.

Adam had in 1728 become Clerk and Storekeeper of the King's Works in Scotland, and from 1730 Mason to the Board of Ordnance in North Britain.