Major restoration work is now well advanced on Carton House, original home of the Dukes of Leinster in Maynooth, Co Kildare, as part of the conversion of the 1,100 acre estate and country house to a luxury golf leisure resort.
Owners of Carton House since 1977, the Mallaghan family, Starwood Hotels, Resorts Worldwide and a group of private investors are behind the £50 million project.
"This will be the largest single tourism project in the history of the state," says Conor Mallaghan. "If there was to be a mission statement, it would be to bring Carton back to life again and this is the only way to do so," says Mallaghan, who is well used to flak from various conservation bodies regarding what they consider to be the correct future for Carton.
Plans for Carton Demense include a 140-bedroom five-star hotel, set away from the main house, a conference and leisure centre, two golf courses (designed by Colin Montgomery and Mark O'Meara) and a golf academy. Thirteen lodges will also be built in the woods near the hotel block and these along with other accommodation will bring the total bedroom count to 228.
Starwood is one of the largest resort operators in the world with 650 hotels in 70 countries. It is also the largest real estate investment trust in the United States. In addition to the Westin chain of hotels (to which Carton will belong), it also controls the Sheraton and Caesar subsidiaries. Starwood will also lease and operate the five-star hotel, nearing completion on the triangular site bounded by College St, Westmoreland St and Fleet St, Dublin.
The Kildare project includes the restoration of Carton House at a cost of £10 million. This involves extensive restoration to the stonework, windows, roof and chimney stacks. The first and second floors of Carton House are due to be converted to 12 luxury suites. The ground floor will contain the hotel lobby, lounge rooms, a diningroom, a theme bar (in the original kitchen), a museum and a paintings gallery. There will be a 70-acre protected vista to the front of Carton and a 20-acre protected vista to the rear.
The Mallaghan family plans to re-open the Lime Walk from Maynooth to Carton and the historic reception rooms will be open to hotel visitors. Carton Demense has a rich history which dates back to the Fitzgerald family, who became Earls of Kildare in 1315. A 17th century house predates the existing house which was built by Richard Castle in 1739. Castle was also responsible for Leinster House, then the House of Kildare, which was the Fitzgeralds' city home.
Some of Carton's most famous dwellers included the first Duke of Leinster and his wife, Emily, who was responsible for much of the landscaping, the Chinese Room (which will become a museum) and the Shell Cottage. One of Emily's 23 children was Lord Edward Fitzgerald, a leader of the 1798 rebellion.
The Palladian house remained unaltered until 1815 when the third Duke of Leinster sold Leinster House to the Royal Dublin Society and made Carton his principal residence. In 1815, Richard Morrison enlarged and remodelled the house to include a large Regency-style diningroom and moved the entrance to the north side.
Carton House remained in the Fitzgerald family until the 1920s, when the seventh Duke of Leinster sold his birthright to a money lender in order to pay off gambling debts. Lord Brockett from Hertfordshire bought the house in 1949 and in 1977 sold it to the present owners, Lee and Mary Mallaghan.
The Mallaghan family, who come from Dungannon, Co Tyrone, were the owners of Powerscreen sand and gravel company until Lee Mallaghan sold the company in 1986. The family never lived in Carton although they have farmed the 1,100 acres and have let various wings of the house as well as lodges. In 1992, An Bord Pleanala granted the owners 10-year planning permission to convert Carton Demesne to a golf and country club with the Guinness-owned Gleneagles group. "When Guinness changed its chief executive officer, it pulled the plug on the Gleneagles project which was to include nine hotels around the world," says Conor Mallaghan.
The current project is advancing under the same planning permission that was granted for this original Gleneagles project.
The Mallaghans set about finding a replacement for the Gleneagles venture. "We were always conscious that we didn't want to do a piecemeal development. Carton is too important to do by half measures or to get it wrong," says Conor Mallaghan. "The State had a look at the house on two occasions, but they realised it needed a commercial plan," he adds.
The current project was initiated in 1997 and when it opens in 2002, it is envisaged that it will be the first international resort hotel in Ireland. Phase one of the development, which includes restoration of Carton House and building the two golf courses, is currently underway. Phase two, the building of the hotel block, will begin next year and phase three, which will include large demesne houses, similar to those built on the Mount Juliet estate, will begin later.
"I think we will become a flagship for Irish tourism. We are delighted that the K Club will bring the Ryder Cup to Ireland in 2005, which will focus world attention on Kildare. I think golf will become one of the biggest industries in this country and we'd like to be to the forefront of this," says Conor Mallaghan.
As for Carton House, Mallaghan puts it this way. "If you consider the dates 1601, 1739, 1815 - all significant dates in its history - 2000 will become another. And Carton will still be intact in another couple of hundred years."
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