Hugh Wallace was one of the key talents in designing contemporary Ireland
Hugh Wallace was a maverick. For many, he has been the face of design TV in Ireland, entertaining and informing the nation in equal parts by bringing us into the homes of the houseproud for more than a decade.
He was the fulcrum of the TV show Home of the Year, a programme that raised the profile of many of the nation’s other top design talent, including Amanda Bone and Declan O’Donnell.
On the Great House Revival, he came into his own, demonstrating a love for the process, the fabric of the buildings and being able to see the spaces differently.
Wallace had the ability to see changes that needed to be made to make the building work for modern life.
He was always amenable and would pick up the phone; he never failed to provide good and colourful copy.
He had a love for life that was evident in all of his broadcasting.
But more than that, he was a marvellous architect with the right mix of verve and vision, not just to design projects but execute and deliver them.
Through his firm Douglas Wallace, he soared through the boom of the 1990s and the early 2000s.
It was his firm that was behind much of the reimaging of Dublin from the Morrisson Hotel, whose interior was designed by John Rocha and was the first minimalistic hotel in the country.
He collaborated with another fashion designer, Philip Treacy, on The G, in Galway, creating world-class talking point interiors that got international coverage for the property.
You can see his Impaimateur at The Cliff House in Waterford and Galgorm Hotel and Spa.
He always namechecked his husband, Martin Corbett, in stories and credited him with helping him recover from alcoholism.
He and his husband have been renovating a house in Dublin’s south inner city that was built in 1890 and had fallen into dereliction.
His design talent speaks for itself.
