CastleFreke owner launches luxury gin as €20m restoration project continues in West Cork
New dawn horizons for West Cork's CastleFreke Castle Picture; David Creedon / Anzenberger
Doing up a house over months, a year, or even several years could drive a person to drink.
What drives you on, and to where, when you have spent more than a quarter of a century restoring a castle — and, some €20m later, it is still only partially complete?
You do not just turn to drink; you embrace it, distil it, bottle it and sell it for $240 (€190) a bottle.
That is the pressure-release valve for Stephen Evans-Freke, a connoisseur of sipping gins and dry martinis, and the owner and restorer of West Cork’s CastleFreke, his ancestral home with roots stretching back to the 1780s.
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The once-formidable coastal castle, which evolved over centuries before declining dramatically during the 20th century, left the Freke — later Lords Carbery — family’s ownership in 1921, following a devastating fire in 1910.
The multi-faceted Evans-Freke — investment banker, pharmaceutical investor and mining prospector, among other pursuits — bought it back shortly before the millennium, with no clear long-term plan in place.
Now in his 70s, there is still only an outline of an end goal for what has become a 25-year labour of love.
“West Cork needs a five-star hotel,” he muses, suggesting one possible future for the property — a vision that could eventually bring new life and activity back to the estate after years of tough graft.
The work completed so far includes extensive stonework restoration to battlements, repairs to the roof and 40 chimneys, the creation of a lake, and perhaps most dramatically, the installation of elaborate stuccowork ceilings. These free-form plaster creations are on a scale rarely seen in Ireland for more than a century.
Other standout features include 40 scagliola columns and a striking flying staircase.
The work undertaken by a small, loyal and largely local specialist team since the early 2000s combines the practical with the artistic and, Evans-Freke believes, still has several years to run at a minimum.
At this stage, he concedes CastleFreke’s full renaissance may outlive him. However, he takes pride in having restored his family’s connection to the property after a century-long absence.
This writer has watched progress unfold over much of the same period. In the 1980s and 1990s, it was possible to wander freely through the castle’s atmospheric ruins, with little more than ivy adorning the walls. I first wrote about the family's repurchase of CastleFreke in these property pages in 2001, as part of a feature on nearby Rathbarry village.
As security and health-and-safety requirements increased and the former 50,000sq ft ruin became an active construction site, opportunities to visit became more limited.
One such visit was with the Cork chapter of the Irish Georgian Society. Others included a launch for the West Cork Food Festival and, more recently, an invitation to sample my first-ever dry martini in the company of the castle’s owner.
Meath-born Stephen Evans-Freke developed a taste for the spirit-based cocktail during his student days at Cambridge. Last weekend, he launched his premium CastleFreke Gin in New York, targeting the US market.
An Irish and European launch is scheduled for next month.
After several years of refinement, the gin is now distilled in nearby Lisavaird through a meticulous 50-step process carried out by a small team.
Among a carefully selected list of botanicals sourced from Tuscany and Macedonia, CastleFreke’s unique selling point includes myrtle leaves gathered from trees lining the castle avenue. Visitors to the adjacent Coillte woodlands may even recognise the distinctive plant.
Not surprisingly, promotion of the premium spirit trades heavily on the castle’s history. The CastleFreke Distillery website draws extensively on that heritage.
Rather than featuring a castle silhouette, the bottle’s logo depicts an ancient tree growing almost sideways under the force of Atlantic winds sweeping in from the nearby coastline.
The packaging is equally distinctive, featuring weighty copper stoppers modelled on the 30ft-high Carbery Celtic Cross, a memorial to the Ninth Baron of Carbery erected in 1901 and regarded as Ireland’s tallest memorial cross.
For those less familiar with premium gin, the New York launch was accompanied by tasting notes from respected distilling authority Julia Nourney.
She described it as “a pleasing sipping gin with a harmonious character. But make no mistake, this gin has a strong personality, no matter if enjoyed at room temperature or chilled with an ice cube. The producer’s ambition to make the perfect gin for a Martini is excellently achieved, as long as the Martini is strong and the Vermouth is dry.”
Closer to home, Breda Hodnett, Rathbarry’s postmistress for the past 56 years, remains a frequent visitor to CastleFreke for community events.
Operating her shop from what was once part of the CastleFreke estate, Ms Hodnett is a local historian and has observed the castle’s gradual transformation over many years.
She points out that I share at least one thing with the castle’s owner.
Each Saturday, she sets aside two copies of the — one for each of us — although I suspect the owner of CastleFreke worries considerably less than I do about the newspaper’s €5.40 cover price.
The paper’s House & Home section routinely features properties valued in the multi-million euro and dollar bracket.
Last weekend’s headline listing was Whitney Park in New York’s Adirondacks — a 36,000-acre private estate with an asking price of €125m. Closer to home, Co Kildare’s Village at Lyons was advertised through Lisney Sotheby’s International Realty with a guide price of €12m.
Keeping spirits high in both the literal and metaphorical sense, Stephen Evans-Freke now estimates that his “pay-as-you-go” investment in CastleFreke may have absorbed as much as €20m to date — a figure that underlines the extraordinary scale of the restoration project.
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