By George, this house has got it. Once a derelict house, now a completely renovated period property in the centre of the heritage town of Boyle that comes with an income-generating gate lodge.
Address: Frybrook House, Bridge Street, Boyle, Co. Roscommon, F52AP66
Asking price: €850,000
Agent: Savills
If you’ve ever undertaken a renovation, then you know just how difficult, time-consuming and expensive it is, even if it’s just a small kitchen or bathroom project.
The adverb just doesn’t begin to put into real terms the stress levels, runaway budgets and the amount of time needed to get the project done.
The owners of Frybrook House, a stately Georgian property in the heart of the heritage town of Boyle, Co. Roscommon, were looking for a project when they purchased the 690 square metre property in 2018.
And boy did they get one.
According to the property price register, they paid €340,000 for the detached, five bay, three-storey, seven-bedroom house with a tooled limestone Palladian window to the central bay and an oculus window to the second floor.
Set on three acres including frontage onto the river Boyle, it included a gate lodge.
Which, when you see the asking price today, may sound like they got a bargain.
That is, until you consider the sheer scale of the undertaking.
Set on three acres of grounds, with a driveway sweeping past its gate lodge, it was “a dreadful state”, the owners recall, with a hint of the everyday dramas that befell them.
“It had been derelict for a decade. The front and back doors had been kicked in. It was full of rubbish.”
The place was strewn with glass and dog waste.
And the garage, which they hadn’t inspected, was also rubbish-filled.
It took ten 12-yard commercial-sized skips to divest the site, four of which it took to just remove the rubbish.
“When we first crossed the threshold, the beauty of the Georgian interior struck us.
"The coving was intact, as were many of the fireplaces."
Alas, according to local lore, an Adams design had been removed, sold, it was said, to someone in the house of Guinness.
During the restoration of the grounds, they discovered a secret garden and lost a 300-year-old beech tree to one of the storms.
Several 250-year-old specimens remain.
They renovated the gate lodge first and have leased it out as a café.
The rental income from it now covers the big house’s electricity bill.
They also installed an 18-panel array on the roof of the garage that helps with hot water.
The house extends to 690 square metres.
The cost implications of a property of this size are enormous.
Everything also had to be done to conservation standards, for the house is on the Buildings of Ireland register.
They hired the services of Tom McGimsey of Mesh Architects, a grade one conservation architect, to write a report.
“He gave us a map of what to do, what needed to be done.”
The report also flagged which parts of the property were genuinely Georgian.
All 33 windows had to be restored or replaced.
“We could not have done this without the expertise of John Kenny, Breffni Ireland, of Carraigallen, Co Leitrim,” they explain.
There was no mains sewage connection. The place had to be replumbed. They used Patrick Morahan Plumbing and Heating, who installed two boilers.
One heats the part of the property that they use for their B&B business.
It features all four bedrooms on the second floor and one on the first floor, where the function room is also.
The couple use the two bedrooms at the back of the first floor as part of their quarters, which also comprises the interconnecting kitchen, lounge and living room to the right of the entrance hall on the ground floor.
All of the bedrooms are en suite.
The bathrooms were in situ when they bought the house.
All have been upgraded to hotel levels.
The place also had to be rewired. Paul Keane from Boyle was the electrician in charge of the project.
The cement render on the three-storey had to be removed and redone using a breathable lime alternative, building up its depth over five applications.
“The house wasn’t breathing,” they explain.
This took 12 weeks and required scaffolding. The one saving grace was that the roof was solid.
They used whiteboards to account for all outlays in a bid to maintain control of the budget.
“We did a lot of cutting and slashing,” they say.
They also repurposed what they could. Marble from the kitchen, for example, became nightstand tops and wash basin bases.
Letterkenny-based R&B Carpets & Flooring lifted and refitted the floorboards to fireproof each level and supply the necessary fire certs.
This work was only recently completed, and it revealed that costs have gone about 40 per cent since they started the project.
Now in walk-in condition, all the next owner has to do is change the paint scheme – if they wish, using breathable heritage paints.
The completely rehabilitated property is now seeking €850,000 through agents Savills.
This amounts to just over €1,231 per square metre, which is very low for a building in first-class condition.
Would they do it again? It’s a yes, sort of.
“Now that we’ve done it we are looking for something smaller and easier.”
