Experience Home of the Year judge Suzie McAdam’s real-life design with a stay at Armada House in Co. Clare.
Pics: Ruth Maria
As a judge on RTE's Home of the Year, interior designer Suzie McAdam looked inside many of the nation's best-dressed homes.
Now the public can take an equally close look at her work.
She spent a season on the long-running TV show, while her studio went from strength to strength.
Clients love her work for its sense of strong colour, her ability to mix antiques with contemporary pieces and the need for functionality to sit at the core of every decorative decision.
Her success is illustrated by the fact that her work has graced glossy magazines from Architectural Digest to Vogue, Elle Décor, and Homes & Gardens.
Her combined talents are on show at Armada House, a brand-new country house that has just opened in Spanish Point, Co Clare.
The public can now try her designs in real life, sit on her well-upholstered armchairs, banquettes and sofas, touch the fabrics, sleep under her canopy beds, and see the juxtapositions of her wallpaper prints and rich paintscapes with no filters at play.
The look is “vibrant and fun,” McAdam said at the launch, but it is also rooted in this part of Ireland, which overlooks the Wild Atlantic Way’s coastline, a stretch that brings in big rollers beloved by surfers.
It’s a project funded by the Burke family, who have been in hospitality for decades and run the Armada Hotel, which is situated only 70 metres away.
The family and Suzie McAdam Design have spent three years reimagining the property.
With an investment of €2.5 million, the four-star establishment’s mission is to operate at five-star stay standards.
McAdam, who is originally from Limerick, knows this corner of West Clare well, for she holidayed along this coastline as a child. Set on the edge of the karst landscape of The Burren, she has taken inspiration from what is perceived to be a harsh vista, but “in late spring, early summer transforms with flowers and fauna".
It is that vibrancy that she and her team have mined, also looking at the homes in nearby villages and townlands "whitewashed with features picked out in yellow, green or red, even the flowerpots”.
Floral patterns and aquatic motifs abound at Armada House.
She excels at reimagining period properties for modern life. Armada House showcases what the designer describes as “bold luxury”.
The project was an opportunity to influence the narrative within a space, she explains.
“We like to think of ourselves as being very storied. A lot of the individual pieces of furniture has its own place and heritage.”
One such item is the baby grand in the piano room, an instrument that reputedly once belonged to Hollywood hoofer Fred Astaire.
The piano was auctioned as part of the contents of Lismore Castle in 1957 and then purchased by a Clare family in Ballyvaughan. It has been restored by the Burkes.
It looks right at home here.
Elegantly appointed, the room has been designed to have a calm atmosphere through the use of soft lavenders to tone with the original stone of the fireplace, McAdam explains, adding that the team used about 30 different fabrics in the space.
John O’Connell Furniture made many of the pieces.
These are interspersed with antiques. Art works on the walls include those by Co Clare artist Mick O’Dea.
The parlour has a totally contrasting mood, she says.
An ochre colour on the walls was designed to convey the ways such a space might age over years of being infused with cigar smoke.
In the Ocean bar, muralist Michael Dillon has decorated it with aquatic themes that adorn the joinery.
More decorative flourishes adorn the ceiling in Mabel's, the breakfast room.
Pierre Frey papers line the walls, and underfoot are bespoke carpets, a design by Suzie that includes coral and sea creatures.
The coastal residence dates back to about 1807, having been owned by a local landlord family until they sold it in 1929 to the nuns.
The Sisters of Mercy ran it as a convent and boarding school until it was acquired by the Armada group in July 2022.
It’s a boutique property with 13 rooms across the main house and its courtyard.
Different rooms have different atmospheres. At the top end of the scale is a sea view suite, complete with a four-poster bed, which will cost €490 B&B on a Saturday night in February.
For the same night, classic sea-view rooms cost €385, while rooms in the house without sea views will cost €345.
Courtyard rooms will cost €320 for the same night, while mid-week rates will cost less.
You can also book out the complete property, something that will suit special occasion events from boutique weddings to family gatherings and milestone birthdays.
One of Suzie’s own first cousins is getting married there next year.
To find out more or book accommodation, visit Armada House
