Country living with a stylish, modern twist

Bill and Brigid Hatchett have combined good taste and great knowledge to revamp their west Cork farmhouse, says Tommy Barker

WHAT do you do when you’ve done the authentic Irish farmhouse conversion to the very best level you can, you’ve packed it with creature comforts, but you still have a bit of oomph and ambition before you huddle over the open fire, and face into advancing years?

If you are Bill and Brigid Hatchett, well, you simply dust down the house you’ve loved and saved, put it up on the market, show it as best you can — and get ready to build a state-of-the-art Passiv energy new home. Staring at an unwavering thermostat, little or no energy bills, will surely warm the cockles of hearts and hearths.

It’s a planned, downsizing move they feel very comfortable with, largely because of their family’s special skillsets, which includes setting up their own company Greenhus, to adapt, import and build low-energy Swedish frame-built homes.

Across two generations (primarily father Bill, and son Toby, a shipbuilder turned carpenter turned skilled house-builder), and now likely heading into a third, they all know houses, and their extended clan and niche, eco-driven building interests saw them feature last November on RTÉ’s Nationwide.

Not only do they have a feel for houses, they also are sure-footed at making them into homes.

Irish born Brigid, and British-born Bill, have decades of interior design experience behind them, Bill goes out and gets the work, and Brigid is more the back-room ops, a skilled seamstress. They ran a series of shops/businesses in England before moving to Ireland, and here, Brigid has done exemplary work with top quality fabrics for soft furnishing commissions during the decade of boom: verily, for some clients, Brigid’s fine-furnishings are the only soft landing they’ll have after the economic volte face.

The couple fetched up at Dromforde, a few miles from Bantry in west Cork and, nicely, a half mile in off the Cork-Bantry Road, in pleasurable peninsular walking territory. And, if you want to spoil a good walk, there’s always golf, with the Bantry Golf Club about a 15-minutes drive away.

Selling agents for Dromforde are MCS in Schull, and they guide it at €439,000. Both Schull and Bantry have sailing options for those who want to move to these parts for lifestyle reasons and there is also, or course, a smorgasbord of artisan food producers, and a lively literary and music festival scene in Bantry itself.

The family came to the area while house-hunting, and ended up buying the home of a friend of theirs they stayed with, converting the old cow-byre for her to use, while they got stuck into the main house renovation, restoration and upgrading.

It wasn’t bad when they started, but they effectively stripped it back anyway to secure it into the future. So down went new floors with underfloor heating, while the roof was re-done in slate, and the main central space was opened up more by taking out a corridor.

Now, the real heart of this vernacular farmhouse home is, most appropriately, the living space with a big open hearth fire, with its exposed stone arch.

Being practical, the heat source now is a large cast iron solid fuel stove conduited up the cavernous chimney, allowing the rest of the space above to be sealed off to cut down draughts. Otherwise these huge, sit-in hearths let in as much cold as they let out heat: stoves really have brought them into the 20th and 21st centuries.

Bill reckons their house is about 140 years of age, and they set out to maintain the sentiment of the old farmhouse, while giving us all the benefits of modern living.

“It still keeps all of its original features that make it a very unusual conversion,” he comments, reckoning that because of the care taken to maintain authenticity in its feel and essence, “it now stands as an exceptionally rare example of a well-modernised west Cork farmhouse”.

He’s even revived an old lane term for part of its grounds, noting “it faces south-east, and the front of the home has the old ‘street’ which is a total sun trap.”

There are about 1.2 acres of grounds, which include the original cow byre, first done up 10 years ago, and then re-done five years ago to put in a second bedroom, adding to its usefulness for guests, either paying or calling simply for pleasure. In addition, there’s a two-storey garage/workshop, and a former piggery/dry store.

Both the byre and the main house share some common design touches, with simplicity and respect for tradition paramount. In decor terms, the house has lots of timber, with paintwork distressed “to maintain the character of the building”, says Bill, while walls have soft hues, luscious drapes surround the windows, and sisal is a natural floor covering in the main living room and dining room — the latter with its out-of-character fine circular mahogany dining table.

There are no typically-timber-sheeted ceilings downstairs. Instead the joists are left exposed, given a distressed look with their edges chamfered for a mellow, aged look.

The kitchen floor is salvaged old oak, narrow strip, and internal doors are hand-made in oak, with hand-made wrought iron door furniture to boot.

Apart from the warming look of a strong green-coloured Stanley range oven, pride of place goes to a traditional dresser, groaning under the weight of crockery. In fact, the dresser was salvaged from a neighbour’s house as it was about to be pulled down.

Son/carpenter/ship-house-builder Toby did much of the internal joinery here, such as the thick oak stair treads (thrown into relief by virtue of having the stairs risers painted in cream) and he also made the kitchen units, oak stair hand rails, and a whole host more details with a restrained, pared-down palette.

A second reception room, billed as a TV/family room, has larger windows than the rest of the house, with a second, smaller cast iron stove for when winter evenings draw in. Better than gazing at the telly is the entire wall of bookshelves, and there’s also a large practical workspace or bedroom five, handily with external access if anyone new wants to used it for work-visitors, plus utility and guest WC.

The house is typical of the type in that is long (very long, now, thanks to a latter day gable end add-on), is low-slung and generally effectively just one room wide, so making sense of that shape is the fact it has not one, but two staircases. One, a private stairs with latched door access goes up to serve the main or master bedroom, with adjoining bathroom, while the other stairs serves three more bedrooms, two of them good doubles, and with high ceilings giving a welcome note of airiness.

Throughout, there’s an air of calm, quiet good taste and a mixum gatherum of fine antiques, select artworks (the couple ran art galleries as well as tea houses and interior design shops in Devon.) Bill says that his role when working on interior design is “to give people confidence to be individual, to go with their own style and tastes, what they are comfortable with”.

Home décor, he argues, is only a means to making people feel better, not a reason in itself. ” “I hate the whole lifestyle ‘designer’ culture, where people feel intimidated if they don’t buy into the fashion of the moment,” he feels.

“Designer style is simply a person’s opinion at a point in time. There’s no such thing as objective ‘style’. Work with what you are comfortable with.”

Here, the same easy-on-the-eye look is down to quality objects and furniture, mixed vernacular Irish and antiques, treated well — and properly dressed and upholstered.

There’s attention paid to character lighting, with some special feature Italian designer lamps picked up, mixed with lots of track and low-voltage lighting in the ceiling joists.

With its own access/entrance off the road, the adjacent cow-byre cottage conversion goes with flow too, with local valley views. It has recently been upgraded and could also suit for home-based workers, or as a bit of added extra rental income.

The main house has four doors (including a half-door, glazed on top) to the outside where there’s a managed wildness to some of the gardens; they’re not over-done, and have exposed rocky stone areas, graveled seating areas and shelter belts, lawns, recent tree planting, careful tree husbandry, a fruit and vegetable garden, plus 25’ by 18’ polytunnel, sheds, log and garden shed.