INSIDE THE PARTY PAVILION
Baron Plunket’s former party pavilion is now a stylish one-bedroom home, writes Mark Keenan
Bray mansion’s former garden pavilion is now for sale as a huge neoclassical apartment
The Chapel 16 Old Connaught House, Ferndale Road, Rathmichael, Co Dublin ASKING PRICE: €445,000 AGENT: Savills (01) 2885011
WHEN the socialite couple Baron Terence Plunket and his wife Dorothe died horrifically in a plane crash in Florida in 1938, it made news around the world. The glamorous couple had mixed in aristocratic and royal social circles in London and also in the privileged cliques of Hollywood and were as well known as movie stars.
While on a visit to Hollywood, they were invited to dinner by the American media tycoon William Randolph Hearst at his famous San Simeon estate. He had sent a private plane to collect them and Hearst’s pilot was flying them into a small Californian airport when the plane floundered in heavy fog. The pilot came down too low through the fog and just over a mile from the runway, but realised the mistake too late. A wing clipped the ground, cartwheeling the plane and its passengers into a fireball.
Through the 1920s and 30s, the handsome Baron Plunket, later accompanied by his glamorous wife Dorothe (daughter of Hollywood actress Fannie Ward) had often imported much of the jet-set razzmatazz back to the Plunket seat at Old Connaught House in Bray for parties in its halls, banquet room and in its adjoining garden party pavilion.
Educated in England, after their deaths Terence’s orphaned son Patrick (later Lord Plunket) left to join the staff at Buckingham Palace, becoming a favourite of Princess Elizabeth, later her equerry and eventually master of the royal household. Absence through his royal role led to the house being sold in the 1940s to the Christian Brothers, who turned it into a school.
Old Connaught was later purchased by developers and has been in apartments since the early 2000s.
The home’s misleadingly named “chapel” extension (it did serve as one during the house’s tenure as a Christian Brother’s school) was in fact originally believed to have been constructed as a leisure pavilion off the main house in the early 1900s by William Lee, the fifth Baron Plunket and Terence’s father.
For his part, William had served a long career abroad as a British diplomat in Italy, Turkey and New Zealand before returning home to retire at Old Connaught around 1910.
Having been away for so many years, the old Baron planned on enjoying his house and estate. His installing a grand pavilion for billiards, drinks and cigars, was in essence the creation of a rather large neoclassical man cave.
However, it would turn out that his dashing son Terence would get even more use out of it for his social set from his teenage years onwards. Many well-knowns of the age partied here.
Now there’s a chance for someone to call this remarkable aristocratic leisure den a home. Converted into a single, mostly open-plan apartment following the redevelopment of the big house, the pavilion (or ‘The Chapel’, as it has been called) is now being offered for sale through Savills for €445,000.
Although it’s a one-bedroom apartment, 16 Old Connaught House spans 995 sq ft, just short of the floor space of an average semi-detached house, and would once again make an ideal base for a single man, woman or couple of taste.
Accessed via an enclosed courtyard, French doors open into an open-plan living, dining and kitchen area that looks out over the scheme’s gardens to the mountains on one side, and right to the sea on the others.
With a high ceiling and exposed beams, it’s a big, airy and very elegant space.
Spiral stairs from the living area rise to an overhead mezzanine. Currently used as a study, this could easily make a second bedroom area. A door into a rear hall gives access to a hot press and into the communal hallway. The main bedroom and bathroom are accessed by a separate door.
The bedroom includes built-in storage and a sash window with picturesque views. The kitchen area has granite work tops and splash backs with a breakfast bar lip. There’s a recessed sink and built-in oven, dishwasher, under-counter fridge and separate under-counter freezer.
The bathroom includes a jacuzzi-style bath with mixer tap and a separate thermostatic shower. There’s a mosaic-style tiled floor and wet areas. And in an interesting reversal, its businesswoman owner claims she purchased the property with the sole intention of providing a setting for her favourite Swarovski crystal chandelier, which was imported from Austria. This comes with the property if the asking price is proffered.
There are in fact three entrances, one through the main house, another via its own grand double-door entrance from the patio and garden, and another from a courtyard area. Aside from the home’s architecture and grand dimensions inside, its biggest plus is the raised reception patio, which once hosted so many grand evening soirées, and can do again. This is accessed via granite steps and balusters and looks over the gardens and tennis courts to the sea. Set on 8 acres, Old Connaught House is a Georgian property rich in history, dating back to 1784. Residents benefit from private tennis courts, croquet lawns and even their own garden allotments upon landscaped lawns.
The pavilion spans 995 sq ft, nearly the floor space of an average semidetached house