Alfred Hitchcock was in town to promote his latest thriller, North by Northwest (1959) and John Reid was about to commence building his Bruce Rickard-designed house at Castle Hill, north-west of the city. It called for the kind of rustic random coursed masonry which featured in the set in the tense closing scenes of Hitchcock’s movie, jutting out at the top of the mountain. Reid rang Hitchcock and inquired about the house, which had been specially constructed for the film and was not an actual Frank Lloyd Wright house. Hitchcock was helpful and suggested to Reid he contact the studio…