Irish trees are gifted storytellers, perhaps as much so as their countrymen. It's the sense you get walking the woodlands west of Dublin in County Laois (pronounced leesh), the way the beech trunks bend and twist into alphabet letter shapes, leaning into footpaths to whisper a story.
If the trees could talk inside the walled estate of Ballyfin Demesne, they might marvel at the story of a 10-year-old boy who became the equivalent of a billionaire overnight. It was two centuries ago, and when this boy-Sir Charles Coote, a descendant of the first earl of Mountrath-grew into his bank account, he bought the land where this forest of raconteurs is rooted and built a grand country house on it. Oh, and what a show that was, with Pompeian tiles and Belgian fireplaces and a Roman sarcophagus shipped back from his Grand Tour adventures. "Cost what it may!" echoed across the grassy meadows, while behind the house, the finest gardens came alive with fruit trees and vegetables and flowers to fill the residence. Sir Charles's wife, Lady Caroline, got herself an aviary for her peacocks and doves, plus a beauty of an orangery with curved glass walls and space for all her exotic plants.
And then the century turned and the wars chased everyone away. When a Catholic boarding school moved in, the schoolboys created a new leisure class, playing handball in the old grapery, ducking behind the stables for a smoke. After the turn of another century, the children disappeared and a rescue of the house commenced: top-to-bottom repairs, a slow slog over nine years. But when it was finished, the grand limestone house was grand again. It opened as a hotel, and soon the well-to-do were back. Some of the schoolboys too, returning to work on the very estate they whipped through as children.
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Denne historien er fra September - October 2023-utgaven av Veranda.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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Aged to Imperfection
In the Cotswolds, Oka cofounder Sue Jones stirs an alluring cocktail of old and new in an agrarian compound, now her forever home
AMERICA'S ENGLISHMAN
From wide-eyed novice to decorating nobility: how Mario Buatta's journey to mad Anglophile draped a nation in chintz, silk, swags, and a legacy of humor and optimism
Estate of Play
MARTYN LAWRENCE BULLARD revives a romantic Georgian country home in Ireland, deploying grand artistry, craft, and levity in the footprint of local traditions
A PASTORAL PLAYGROUND
Out of an ancestral millhouse, designer MARY GRAHAM raises a new family home in the country, alive with checks, florals, and ruffles
LONDON CORDIAL
MIXMASTER LORENZO CASTILLO DECKS A CHELSEA TOWNHOUSE IN IMMERSIVE PRINTS, RADIANT SEATING, AND A WELCOMING SPIRIT THAT TIPS TO THE WILD SIDE
Minding the Manor
How are Ireland's old noble houses seeding their future? At Ballyfin Demesne, it glimmers in the forests, parklands, gardens, and a way of life that goes back centuries
Perennial Bloomsbury
The creative troupe that ruled the English countryside in the early 1900s had a muse wilder than its lifestyle: the Charleston garden, reborn here in four riotous arrangements.
ENCHANTED GLIN
Along the River Shannon, landscape designer Catherine FitzGerald grows her family's castle gardens into a living wonderland bridging generations
Portrait Mode REVISITED
A new guard of English painters leads a resurgence of the deeply personal art form, capturing faces and figures in a fresh light
The Bold SPIRITS SPEYSIDE
Scotland's famed whisky region reemerges as a stunning epicenter of Celtic craft. Single malt in hand, writer Tracey Minkin joins gallerist and author Hugo Macdonald to discover its decorative arts bloom