From 'overgrown site' to Home of the Year: Winners share design secrets 

Eve Kelliher talks to Rob McConnell to discover how the family created the forest house he describes as 'a dream place'

The McConnells' favourite or 'red dot' spot in their Co Antrim newbuild, the 2023 RTÉ Home of the Year. Pictures: Joe McCallion

You're sipping a coffee on the patio of the dream house you’ve built yourself, in the middle of a forest, with views of the sea.

You’re figuring out whether it’s worth sliding into your kayak for a bit of me-time in the river outside in the garden before heading for the office. 

Janice and Rob McConnell.

Next thing you know, your daughter is texting you to say she’s spotted dolphins on her commute to school.

Is it any wonder this County Antrim newbuild has just been chosen as the 2023 RTÉ Home of the Year? “It’s definitely something special,” agrees owner Rob McConnell.

But hard graft went into carving out this slice of paradise.

Rob and his wife Janice bought the site five-and-a-half years ago and have been living in their self-build now for the past two years.

They created their home on the site of an 18th-century mill. “It had been left overgrown for around 30 years in parts,” adds Rob. 

“There were maybe 30-plus people looking to buy the site. I was away in India when I pulled the trigger and purchased it, so there was a bit of ‘poker’ involved — the local rumour mill said an Indian businessman had bought it …. yes, Raj McConnell!” jokes Rob, who works in the tech industry.

He and Janice, who works in retail, used all of their skillsets in shaping their dwelling, near Ballygally village. 

Rob project-managed the build himself and he and Janice devised the interiors look.

They engaged award-winning architect Siobhan McGarry of 2020 Architects to design their home, while Kevin McRandall, a local man, was the foreman.

Project-managing your own build is “definitely not for the fainthearted”, Rob adds, but the resulting residence on the north Antrim coast far exceeded their expectations, he said, and was well worth it.

The home office in the County Antrim residence.

With rising fuel prices and record-breaking low temperatures over the past winter, “there is no better time to be living in an A-rated, high-performing energy efficient home”, according to Rob.

The McConnells’ vision was to develop “a strategy of sustainability”. “Renewables formed the basis for the ethos of the build — for instance, air-source heat pump over fossil fuels,” he adds.

Ballygally village “really is the gateway to the north Antrim coast, the Glens of Antrim”, Rob adds. As we talk over the phone, he describes the scene: “We’re here looking over to Scotland and Mull of Kintyre.”

Rob is from Co Antrim and he and Co Tyrone native Janice met at university in England. They share their newbuild with their daughter Evie, 13, and son Tristan, who will be 16 in May.

As a spot for their children to grow up, it’s idyllic, he says. “They go to school just on up the coast — their school is like Hogwarts by the sea, St Killian’s College. The other morning Evie texted her mum to say she saw dolphins.”

The McConnells started the build in January 2020.

“And obviously covid hit in March [of that year]. The build took me 15 months even with the pandemic,” he says.

“It’s timber-framed so the frame was built in a factory. There were many delays, factories were shut, so there were delays with windows and glazing and a lot of supply issues — and Brexit in the middle of it. It was a really tortuous process.”

But what Rob, head of Expleo NI, describes as “agile” ways of working did the trick. “I come from a background in IT and entrepreneurialism, and I would have different management and leadership skills, but I’ve never built a house before.”

Family pooch Daisy, seven, liked to keep an eye on proceedings also: "During the build we nicknamed her Scaffold Dog as she used to climb the scaffold planks and would sit watching everyone," adds Rob.

And Daisy and her fellow family members are all reaping the rewards of a living space that feels as if it is "steeped in woodland", as Rob says. 

Their interiors developed organically. "We got inspiration from international travel,” says Rob. “We’re not trained in interior design, but Janice has a great eye.”

The look is continuing to evolve in tandem with the family’s interests — for instance, all family members are keen oarspeople, and members of the local Castle Rowing Club. “We’d been on the search for lamps, and the last lamps we saw were while we were taking part in the all-Ireland Coastal Rowing Championships, in Wexford, with the club,” says Rob.

Did they bring back silverware from that competition also, I ask. “Janice and I did win silver medals and my son won a bronze,” says Rob. “But we also spotted a lovely little furniture store in the middle of Wexford town where we saw a beautiful lamp and mirrors.

“We bought them and put them into someone’s van to make sure we brought them back home — that’s the nature of how we shop! We wait till we see what we like.”

The nautical and natural feature throughout the interiors, including a driftwood sculpture in the bedroom.

Travels in Australia, as well as Africa, the US and India, inform their design style.

Rob has also developed a passion for stone masonry. “And I’ve been building some of the stone walls around the gardens,” he adds.

“I had been following Conor Scullion, a master stonemason, on Instagram. Stonemasons are as rare as hen’s teeth and I was lucky enough that he had a gap in his diary, and I was able to book him.”

What impressed the Home of the Year judges, architects Hugh Wallace and Amanda Bone and interior designer Sara Cosgrove, was how the single-storey, low-impact home blends into its surroundings.

The couple were also keen to maximise the relationship between the interior and exterior, so they created a patio area with an overhang. “We spend a lot of our time outside now — I would say we’re outside as much as we are inside,” says Rob.

“We consider ourselves hugely lucky; we’re both from working-class backgrounds. We’ve both worked hard in our careers to be in a position where we could build something like this.”

Architect Amanda Bone referred to the residence as a retreat and the owners agree. “We can sit outside, have a coffee and look out to sea. Janice does yoga, or we can use the rowing machine,” says Rob. “It can be blowing a gale in Ballygally and it can be cold — but we can be sitting there and getting sunburnt!

“And then at the bottom of our road, the coast road, across from it is a little private cove, a little type of lagoon, where Evie can kayak. We are so lucky. It’s a dream place.”

• Instagram: @coastalbuildni
• RTÉ Home of the Year is on the RTÉ Player