Living History

Antiques-lover John was looking for his first home, and the drawing room of this apartment, which was once the billiard room of Ardara House,just about blew him away.

Ardara House was built in the Italianate style 1872 by Thomas Andrews, a prominent mill owner near Comber. Of his four sons, John, the eldest, and William, the youngest, both became managing directors in the family firm of John Andrews & Co., James, born in 1877 was a barrister-at-law, and his namesake Thomas, born in 1873, achieved worldwide fame as the designer of the RMS Titanic.

The house was enlarged in 1904, with curved bay windows added to each end of the façade, and was still lived in by the Andrews family until the 1980s, when the house was divided into apartments. One such apartment was partially created from the original billiard room in the house, reputedly panelled by the workmen who worked on the interior fit-out of the Titanic, built in the nearby Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast.

As John explains, ‘The period features were intact, it was unique, and you would never see such a big, high ceilinged room even in a much larger house or apartment. It was also the perfect backdrop for the period furniture I love to collect.’

For almost six months, he kept a watching brief on the estate agent’s website. In the slow market of the time the price began to fall, and finally he made a bid which was accepted three days before Christmas.‘It was so perfect, and only twenty minutes from Belfast,’ says John. The apartment is entered through a front door that was once a window, the entrance hall and drawing room are made from the original billiard room, the kitchen/dining, bedrooms and bathroom from part of the kitchens and back hall of Ardara House. ‘The drawing room and hall were completely in period and only needed basic renovation, but the converted servants’ areas were very dated, having been last refurbished in 1991,’ says John. ‘And it definitely needed a new kitchen and bathroom!’