Summer Grove (or Garoon), Mountmellick, Co Laois
Bence-Jones, Mark. A Guide to Irish Country Houses (originally published as Burke’s Guide to Country Houses volume 1 Ireland by Burke’s Peerage Ltd. 1978); Revised edition 1988 Constable and Company Ltd, London.
p. 267. “A very distinguished medium-sized house of ca 1760, built for a family of Huguenot origin named Sabatier, who were still living in the house 1837. The front of the house is of two storeys on a high plinth; but at the back three storeys have been fitted into the same height. The entrance front, of small squared stones which look like bricks, is of five bays, with a one bay pedimented breakfront. Diocletian window in pediment, above Venetian window, above pedimented and rusticated tripartite doorway; elaborate wrought-iron lamp bracket over door such as found frequently in Dublin houses, but which is rare, if not unique, in the country. High and slightly suspended roof. Small square entrance hall with rococo decoration in ceiling and in an arch incorporating three smaller arches over doors on the inner wall. Drawing room with coved ceiling or rococo plasterwork in the manner of Robert West, though a little provincial. Shouldered and pedimented doorcases. Summer grove has been unusually fortunate among smaller Irish houses in having been consistently well-maintained by successive owners. It is now the home of Mr and Mrs Barrie Whelan.”
Summergrove House, Garroon, or Summergrove, Co Laois
Detached five-bay two-storey over part-basement house, built c.1760, with pedimented central breakfront. Interior retains early carved timber fittings and Rococo plasterwork. Double-pitched and hipped slate roof, sprocketed to eaves with clay ridge tiles, nap rendered chimneystacks and profiled cast-iron rainwater goods. Sandstone ashlar walls with nap rendered plinth and limestone stringcourses and cornice. Roughcast rendered walls to side and rear elevations. Square-headed window openings and Venetian-style window opening to centre first floor with limestone sills, sandstone dressings and four-over-four, six-over-three and six-over-six timber sash windows. Cut-stone pedimented block-and-start doorcase to door opening with timber panelled door. Interior undergoing renovation, 1997. Entrance hall with fluted Corinthian pilasters; decorative plasterwork to rear wall including pilastered triple doorcase having garlands, urn and plume to overpanel; Rococo plasterwork to ceiling. Stair Hall with timber staircase having turned balusters, carved treads and swan-necked handrail; carved timber architraves and timber panelled internal shutters to window openings to room to front; carved timber architraves to internal door openings; fireplace with cast-iron grate, c.1800; Rococo plasterwork. House is set back from road in own grounds; gravel forecourt to approach; flight of sandstone steps to entrance with wrought iron railings; sandstone ashlar flanking piers to site; wrought iron railings to front. Group of detached outbuildings to site, one dated 1718.
Restoring Country Houses: There weren’t enough old houses in New Zealand to restore – so the Speedys came to Co Laois to save a house built in 1736, writes Robert O’Byrne
From a farm in New Zealand to a rundown Georgian house in Co Laois is quite a journey. But it was one made without trepidation by James and Pauline Speedy. Together with their two children, the couple moved to this country in 1992 when they decided to buy a mid-18th century property called Summergrove.
The choice of Ireland was fortuitous. “We wanted to come somewhere in Europe,” says Pauline, “and take on the project of restoring an old house. There aren’t many of them in New Zealand.” Summergrove’s restoration has been an ongoing process.
Fourteen years since it began, there’s abundant evidence of what the Speedys have achieved, as well as signs that their job is by no means finished. But it’s easy to see why they took on the task because Summergrove has a special charm.
While large when compared with the average 21st century house, it doesn’t give an impression of being dauntingly big or grand. Nevertheless, both externally and internally Summergrove is a place with serious aspirations to grandeur, its broad flight of stone steps leading to an entrance hall decorated with fine wood carving and plasterwork.
This introduction to the house closes with a superlative example of 18th century craftsmanship, a tripartite screen, believed to have been carved by John Kelly. The first-floor drawingroom (now used by the Speedys as their own bedroom) used to hold an equally magnificent chimney piece but it was removed long before the present owners’ time.
Likewise, that originally in the room directly below was also taken out but what has survived throughout the house is flamboyant rococo ceiling stuccowork, by an unknown hand but very much in the manner of Robert West. It’s as though an architect’s designs for some major country residence had been shrunken to fit this one.
Who that architect might have been is unknown, along with much else about Summergrove’s early history. Just a couple of kilometres outside Mountmellick, the house was built for a Huguenot family called Sabatier who acquired the surrounding lands in 1736 and presumably started work on the site not too long afterwards. When clearing land to the front, James Speedy came across a piece of cut stone carved with the date 1766.
Stylistically this seems a little late for completion, although during the 18th century provincial taste frequently lapsed behind that of metropolitan Dublin. In any case, the Sabatiers remained resident at Summergrove until 1865 when it was bought by their agents, a family called Pim who, in turn, lived there for the next 100 years.
Thereafter it passed through different owners, not all of whom occupied Summergrove, before being bought by the Speedys.
“It was very dilapidated,” says James. “This was the first house electrified in Laois and nothing had been done since. When we came to see it, we were warned not to switch on the lights, otherwise we could have burned the place down. Equally, we ought to be grateful because it hadn’t been ‘renovated’, adds his wife. “There was nothing to undo, but an awful lot to do up. For example, all the gutters had gone so they needed to be replaced.”
To give one example of just how much had to be done, Maurice Craig’s seminal – and still invaluable – book Classic Irish Houses of the Middle Size published in 1976 devotes several pages to Summergrove, in which the author remarks that the house “does not, for once, contain a basement”. In fact, there is a basement, rediscovered by the Speedys. “When we moved in,” says James, “the forecourt was at least two feet higher than today and the bottom steps were lost.” Now they’ve been uncovered once more and a fine new lantern suspended from the elaborate wrought-iron lamp holder over the front door. From the top step, the eye travels the length of a garden of trees, grass and water devised by the Speedys to serve a dual purpose: create a sense of vista over what is a relatively short distance and screen off the sight and sound of traffic using the adjacent road.
The rectangular pond at the centre of this garden is not just decorative but also functional: “the insurance company made us install it so we’d a ready supply of water in the event of a fire,” James explains.
The house itself looks sturdy enough to survive such a catastrophe. Below a steeply-pitched roof, the cut-stone façade runs to five bays, the central pedimented elevation containing a doorcase below a Venetian window and then a Diocletian window at attic level.
Surprisingly, there are another two fine Venetian windows to the rear; like the handsome entrance door flanked by sash windows, these seem to indicate the Sabatiers wanted their home to create an impression.
So too do the Speedys, for whom rescuing Summergrove has been an all-absorbing interest. “I often say this house is the mistress in our marriage,” jokes Pauline.
It’s clearly an arrangement that suits her. She and James have taken almost a forensic approach to Summergrove, painstakingly subjecting every detail of the structure to analysis and investigation before it’s brought back to the original condition.
As much as possible, they’ve preserved the house’s fabric. All the front windows are those first installed as are the internal shutters, and most of the broad staircase has been saved with only a few banisters requiring replacement. Not so much as a hinge or nail has been thrown away.
“Right from the start, we’ve tried to be totally authentic,” says Pauline. “One of the reasons the whole thing’s taken so long is that we’ve had to source the right materials and then train people how to use them.” Another reason for the project’s relatively slow pace, as the Speedys readily admit, are the limited funds available to them.
Financial support has been given to them by the Irish Georgian Society “and we’re very grateful for it,” says Pauline. But they’ve only 30 acres of land around the house, two-thirds of it given over to pasture, the rest being gardens and wood. Sheep graze in the fields, chickens wander about the rear courtyard beyond which lies a walled garden where vegetables are grown.
James’s principal income comes from the equestrian business; this year’s winner of the Irish Grand National, Point Barrow, passed through the stables at Summergrove. Pauline’s culinary skills mean she’s in demand for catering.
But with both their children now away at college, as of this summer the couple have decided to open the house to paying guests, initially on a small scale. “Whatever we make will be to pay for further restoration,” they stress, as though there could be any doubt of their complete devotion to the house. That much was made plain when they uprooted themselves from New Zealand for the sake of Summergrove.
https://theirishaesthete.com/2022/12/19/summergrove/
A Gem
Writing about Summergrove, County Laois almost half a century ago (Irish Georgian Society Bulletin XVI, October 1973), the late Maurice Craig declared, ‘Of all the houses which are neither ‘big houses’ nor farmhouses, Summer Grove has always seemed to me one of the most attractive, nor has a wider acquaintance with its rivals caused me to modify that opinion.’ While he admitted that ‘the elements of the facade: gibbsian doorway with side lights, venetian window, diocletian window, platband, stone cornice, hipped roof and symmetrical chimneys, are common to a great many mid-eighteenth century houses of about this size, as is the pediment over the breakfront in the centre,’ nevertheless, Maurice was seduced by the building’s irresistible charm. In part, he explained, this derives from ‘the mildly archaic flavour of its rather steep roof with its barely perceptible sprocketing, the interior decoration suggests a date some time around 1760 or even a little later. The Venetian and Diocletian windows go on so long in the provinces that they provide no reliable indication of dates. From the massive triple keystone of the front door projects an elaborate and splendid wrought-iron lamp-bracket, such as would be noteworthy even in Dublin, but in the country is of the very highest rarity. Before leaving the facade we should note the unusually small stones of which it is built, which from a distance seem hardly larger than bricks, and very nearly as regular.’ Thereafter, Maurice noted in his Classic Irish Houses of the Middle Size (1976), ‘the main interest in Summer Grove lies in the ingenuity of the planning. In the back half of the house three storeys are fitted into the same height as two on the entrance-front. It is surprising that this method of ‘mezzanine’ planning was not more widely used in country houses, since it results in a small number of high-ceilinged rooms and a rather larger number of low-ceilinged ones, a most desirable result not so easily achieved by conventional planning.’ Among the rere elevation’s most distinctive features are the pair of Venetian windows, one at either end of the top floor. …
[see website]…..The interiors of Summergrove are quite as engaging as the house’s external appearance. To cite Maurice Craig again, ‘The small square entrance-hall has a Doric entablature over the door and window cases, a flowing rococo centrepiece to the ceiling and, on the inner wall, three elegant arches under a single wide arch, the three doors separated by fluted corinthian pilasters. The right-hand door gives directly on to the staircase, while the middle one is dummy, a device which recalls the entrance to the centre of the Long Gallery at Castletown. On the staircase side the same three doors are under a pediment with ornament a good deal less fruity than that on the hall side, but in the same free-flowing rococo vein. The right-hand room on the ground floor has a coved cornice and ceiling decorated in the Robert West manner with sprays, roses, bunches of grapes and pheasants.’ (Loath as one is to correct Maurice, the inner wall’s middle door is not a dummy, but now serves to provide access to the staircase beyond. Furthermore, the ground floor room with ceiling decorated in the style of Robert West is to the left – not the right – of the entrance.) The rococo plasterwork in Summergrove’s reception rooms varies in quality, that in the entrance hall being charming but somewhat perfunctory, while that in the dining room is of altogether finer quality and clearly by a superior hand. On the other side of the entrance hall, what is now a drawing room has a plain ceiling. The original drawing room – now a bedroom – can be found on the first floor, directly above the dining room has another fine rococo ceiling although this one lacks the latter’s coved frame. And, as the advertisement of 1774 noted, there are some fine chimneypieces, although a couple of these were taken out of the house prior to it being acquired by the present owner, who deserves credit for having found satisfactory replacements. Indeed, he merits praise for having undertaken such a meticulous restoration of Summergrove over the past three decades, so that today this glorious building glows, a burnished gem in Ireland’s Midlands and an example of what can be achieved with sufficient dedication and patience.
See Robert O’Byrne, The Irish Country House, A New Vision. With photographs by Luke White. Rizzoli, New York, Paris, London, Milan, 2024.
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