Romancing the stone, west Cork style

THERE’S passion aplenty round Peter and Anna Warburton’s west Cork heartland.

The couple - who met in Tenerife, and who forsook the sun for the wilds of Ireland’s weather vagaries, in what they admit was “an early mid-life crisis”, - have personal passions, and some of them at least revolve around doing up old stone buildings.

Essentially, they transform ramshackle buildings with long histories into colourful love nests, cosy and romantic retreats for couples. Cue candles, petal bedecked beds, bottles of bubbly, Cupid arrows with definite targets.

Working with old farm cottages, run down barns and ruins, Donegal-born Anna and Peter have so far rescued 10 buildings, and put them back with a bit of heart, soul and more than a hint of sex.

Apart from the 10 building rescues so far in west Cork since 1994, they’ve also done up a place in Andalucia, and their Irish trademark is more a water-mark: they put double Jacuzzis in the bedrooms, and most now also have outdoor hot-tubs as well, guaranteeing the cleanest dirty weekend anyone could wish for.

Their Eureka! bath moment came two years after buying the Georgian Grove House near Skibbereen, and three cottage/bar/stable renovations.

“From my travels I had always admired how the Americans used space, and how blown away I was from seeing a double jacuzzi in a bedroom,” says Peter Warburton. He suggested they follow suit in Skibbereen, she replied he was being “ridiculous” (this was back in the mid-1990s remember, before Jacuzzis flooded the country).

“We argued about this with me maintaining that ‘sex sells’, and Anna saying ‘romance sells’. As usual, she was right — but I got my double jacuzzi in the bedroom. It was to be the first of many. The phone never stopped ringing — with guests always wanting the ‘cottage with the jacuzzi’. It was a lesson that we never forgot.”

Entrepreneurial Peter qualified in his early 20s as a doctor of genetics, working in Great Ormond Street Hospital until the travel and business bug bit. He went into property, printing and publishing and soon employed 18.

Then, he met Anna, in a bar in Tenerife as she was taking a year out from ITV Central having helped secure the franchise for the next 10 years. She was also shortlisted for the job of Director General of RTÉ, says an impressed Peter. He employed her, then made her MD, and then Mrs: “a thunderbolt struck me and within a few weeks we were married — and have been, happily for nearly 20 years. She is most definitely my Donegal Catch,” he cods.

Deciding to get off the treadmill early, Anna took Peter to see her native country, and starting the search for a big old house and outbuilding for a B&B, they began in Donegal, considered an estate in Roscommon, and ended up in west Cork, “often described as ‘a place apart’. It ticked all the boxes and in 1994 we purchased a run down Georgian house, Grove House, a mile from Skibbereen with our seven year-old daughter, Kelly, in tow.”

Peter sort of knew what he was getting into, as his father Ted had been a bricklayer and had done a few quick renovations in Britain in the 1980s. But, it was all a baptism of fire for Anna, Peter remembers, as she moved from pencil pushing to hauling buckets of rubble.

Apart from saying his father’s 80-year old pointing trowel is now among his most treasured possessions, Peter says he got reassurance from his dad when he found a huge crack running down the entire inside of Grove House.

Mr Warburton senior asked how old the house was (200 years) and followed it up with “has it fallen down? Well what are you worrying about?” No worries since, although some of the renovations were more than half-cracked, with one renovation near Caheragh bringing a fantastic house (since sold) out of clusters of rubble as ‘Ruins R Us’ got into gear.

Anna and Peter have used the services of a small, skilled crew ever since, including local builder Tim Leahy; the enterprising Barbara O’Regan, who at the age of 18 had rebuilt her family home when it was destroyed by fire; Neil Gilmore from Zimbabwe, and sometimes, Ted Warburton.

Three conversions at Grove House were followed by Riverbank Cottage and Riverbank Barn, next up the Old Stone Cottage, another barn, at Kilnagospagh, and finally last year they finished the third and last of the ruins (to-date) at Lassanroe, three miles from Skibbereen. “As it was the last of our portfolio of ruins we decided to push the boat out and create something special — and we are happy with the result.

“The old stone house and separate old barn are now two cottages, Lassanroe Cottage and Lassanroe Barn, bringing the standard of finish and luxury to new heights, including vaulted and cathedral-like ceilings for extra airiness (all Cottages for Couples have satellite TV, DVD, CD and most have free broadband too).

Time and again on the renovations, locals — and not a few professionals also — advised: “Pull it down and build a new house. We never did and we never will,” say Anna and Peter proudly.

The pitch to couples (mostly from Cork city, but now the M8 has opened up the Dublin market all the more too) has paid dividends, created a niche business, and set love stories in train, but recently a different couple called by.

“We’d just finished the restoration work at Lassanroe when an old gentleman and a young girl of about 10 wandered in through the gate. He had come over from Canada, it had been his family home 50 years ago and she was his grand-daughter. We showed him round and he told us where the animals were kept (in the bedroom of the barn) and it was an emotional journey for him, and illuminating for his grand-daughter.”

The cottages (see www.cotagesforcouples.ie) have led to marriages, proposals and lots of fun and frolics.

“Anna and I still argue over whether its for romance or for sex that people enjoy a stay. On the evidence of some of the things left behind, I’d be right — but it’s romance that wins every time.”