An ageless elegance

Former gentlemen's club on St Stephen's Green becomes smart but cosy townhouse hotel. The progression seems so logical, with new hotels in prime locations on the rise and the arcane retreats of gentlemen in marked decline, that it is surprising it hasn't happened long ago.

But now we have Brownes, in the premises which the Ancient and Most Benevolent Order of the Friendly Brothers of St Patrick occupied for over a century at 22 St Stephen's Green.

"I've travelled a lot, and I felt Dublin was ready for a fine townhouse hotel," says Barry Canny, the proprietor. `We've plenty of big five-star and four-star hotels, we've new minimalist hotels and everything else . . . but I saw that nobody had done a spectacular townhouse hotel. I felt that if we could get it right, it would be a great success."

Mr Canny, who was involved with various hotel and restaurant projects during a 12-year period with a property company, describes Brownes as "a country house in the middle of the city". And there is no doubt that the decor pole-vaults visitors back 20 years - if not 200 - from the starkness of contemporary design to an era of chintz and tasselled tie-backs, printed wallpapers and monumental four-poster beds.

Built by Thomas Lighton in 1790, Numbers 22 and 23 stand out on the north side of St Stephen's Green as a remnant of Georgian Dublin. Vacated by its benevolent owners, Number 22 was sold three years ago, then purchased towards the end of 1997 by Trinity Real Estates, Barry Canny's employers at the time. When he was asked to oversee its transformation into a hotel, he felt the project was too big. Little by little, however, he became involved to such an extent that he is now the leaseholder, running the whole show.

From an early stage, he knew what he wanted. Small, classy London hotels, such as Blakes, and The Leonard, in Seymour Street, had the sort of feel he was after. What he did not want was another identikit neo-Georgian interior. "The big question was: would a hotel with just 12 bedrooms work?" Barry Canny admits. He believed the answer lay in the restaurant. With an attractive brasserie, Brownes would be a restaurant with rooms - a formula that works well for small hotels on the continent.

You step through carved mahogany doors into the front hall with its fine plasterwork. You proceed into the drawing room, with its majestic Adam fireplace transplanted from the original drawing room a floor above, its mirror-backed Adam-style sconces and terracotta taffeta drapes. And immediately your eye is drawn towards a restaurant that's straight out of fin-desiecle Paris.

"The word that sums it up for me is theatre," says Barry Canny, citing great brasseries such as Flo and Le Grand Colbert, with their amalgam of red velvet, gleaming brass, potted palms and bevelled glass, as inspiration. A spectacular chandelier with melon-sized crystal teardrops was sourced in Paris.

Elsewhere in Brownes, it is the country-house-meets-Georgian-townhouse style which predominates. Mulberry, Colefax & Fowler, Sanderson, Zoffany . . . the names behind the fabrics and wall-coverings chosen to make each room different speak eloquently of a lavish approach. Plain wool carpets in a warm, sandy shade are an effective foil for the abundance of pattern and texture elsewhere. Mr Canny worked with two interior designers, Eleanor Nolan for curtains and fine art advice, and Suzanne Gauruda for paint effects - the most striking of which is the use of gold leaf to highlight small areas of the richly ornate ceilings. His wife, Dee, also took a keen interest in the decor.

The furnishing details were straightforward compared with the conundrum of providing the services expected of a modern hotel while meeting the planning requirements of a listed building.

On the first floor, for instance, ways had to be found to house the hotel's two grandest suites and their bathrooms in the former drawing room and dining room, without interfering with the original dividing doors and their superb architrave. The front suite has three tall windows overlooking the Green and a large bed, apparently once occupied by Marilyn Monroe. This folds away into a "library unit" - custom built cherry shelving for old books, with wardrobes behind - so that the room can also be used for meetings.

It is to Brownes' credit that it feels more like a house than a hotel. The lift is tucked away to the rear of the building, so as not to interfere with the graciousness of the Portland stone staircase. The original panelled mahogany door into the downstairs drawing room has been carefully copied for all the bedrooms. Although some of the rooms are relatively small, none feels unduly cramped. "We've thought about how to use every inch of space," Barry Canny says. The bathrooms throughout the hotel are all similar, and solidly crafted: cream marble floors, pink Alicante marble counter tops, white porcelain, chrome. But the individual approach to each bedroom's decoration - warm tartan curtains here, toile de Jouy there, a bold flower print somewhere else - reinforces the pleasant illusion that this is a house, rather than a bed-night production line.

"Maybe we'll franchise the idea, and have a Brownes townhouse hotel in Galway, Limerick, Cork, Athlone," muses Mr Canny. A small hotel pioneer, thinking big.

Brownes, 22 St Stephen's Green, Dublin 2. Room rate average: £150 per night. Tel: 01 638 3939. Fax: 638 3900. Email: info@brownesdublin.ie