Ballyfin Demesne

Settled from ancient times, the site of the present-day Ballyfin Demesne in Co. Laois was ancestral home in succession to the O’Mores, the Crosbys, the Poles, the Wellesley-Poles (the family of the Duke of Wellington) and later the Cootes, descendants of an Elizabethan adventurer who came to Ireland in 1601. 

The present Neoclassical house was built in the 1820s for Sir Charles Coote to designs by the great Irish architects Sir Richard and William Morrison. Conceived on a generous scale, Ballyfin’s reception rooms have long been acclaimed as among the finest of the Neoclassical and Empire periods in Ireland. They include an enormous Saloon, an eighty foot library running the length of the south façade, and the French-inspired, richly-stuccoed Gold Drawing Room. The spectacular conservatory was designed in 1848 by Richard Turner who also created London's Palm House. 

The Demesne’s stone walls now enclose 614 acres of parkland, a lake, ancient woods, a restored Edwardian rock garden, a walled garden, and an 1860s folly in the style of a medieval tower. Laid out in the mid-eighteenth century, Ballyfin’s landscape is one of the finest Irish examples of the natural style of gardening inspired by Capability Brown. 

The Coote family enjoyed a life of refined leisure at the house for exactly one hundred years. With the dawning of Irish Independence, they sold the estate to the Patrician Brothers who, for much of the 20th century, ran a school there. Following nine years of meticulous restoration, Ballyfin reopened its doors in May 2011 as a five-star country house hotel.