Athlone couple’s refurbished gate lodge nominated for prestigious award

The refurbishment of a gate lodge of one of Westmeath’s best known Big Houses has been shortlisted for a prestigious international architectural award.

Middleton Park Lodge in Castletown Geoghegan, owned by Athlone natives Robbie Nixon and Catriona Hatton, is one of 15 projects from across the world shortlisted for the Architectural Review’s AR House Awards 2021.

Architect Cian Deegan from the award-winning Dublin firm Taka Architects had to marry the requirements of his clients, Robbie Nixon and Catriona Hatton, with the challenges associated with renovating old buildings whose structures are protected by law.

"The clients wanted to extend and refurbish the gate lodge and to turn the [adjoining] hunting kennel into a small guest house for family, and to add a garage with some stables for donkeys.

"The main challenge was that the buildings were so small and protected, and we didn’t want to overwhelm those small structures with the new additions, which were bigger than them.

"From the road, where you see what we call the formal front of the gate lodge, it’s a classical building, and we wanted to hide the extension as much as possible behind that."

To do so, they sunk the extensions half a metre into the ground, which Deegan says achieved two things.

"It lessened their impact visually on the protected structures, but it also allowed them to feel like what we term embedded in the landscape from inside.

"The original house was quite closed off from the outside. It had very small windows and doors and there was no connection between the inside and outside.

"They [the owners] really enjoy the landscape around there, which is beautiful. You get the bird song and it’s really peaceful."

One of the most eye catching features of the main room in the extension to the gate lodge is an eight-metre sliding window that stretches the entire length of the room and creates a unique connection with the wild flower garden outside.

"There is a big overhang roof, which has no gutter and which feeds water to the wildflowers. Even when it is raining outside, once it’s not really windy or cold, you can just leave the whole room open to the outside, which is kind of amazing," Deegan says.

"You can do that in Ireland because it is not often so cold that you can’t [leave it open]. Even in spring and autumn, you can still have it open, even if it is raining outside. It is almost like a veranda room.

"Most people would have a patio outside and then have planting beyond that, while we like to bring planting right up to the house."

While working on listed structures is challenging, Deegan says it is also "enjoyable".

"The way we live now and how we want to live is totally different to how people lived back then. They wanted to be protected from the outside. They probably spent their whole day outside in the fields, so when they came home, they didn’t want anything to do with the outside. Whereas now people enjoy the connection with the outside. Also, now kitchens are social spaces. It is just such a different way of living.

"We tried to find sympathetic uses for the existing rooms in the historic fabric. In the lodge, one of the rooms is the snug living room. It’s a small living room, and the other one holds the kitchen, but not the dining room, it’s not big enough.

"You just find suitable uses for the historic fabric and then in the new buildings, I guess you have more freedom to tailor them for what people want now."

When it comes to projects like Middleton Park Lodge, Deegan says it is important that the new and old parts of the building are easy to spot.

"The historic stuff stands alone as a formal set-piece and the new stuff is a bit looser. You can still read what is historic and what wasn’t."

Completed in the summer of last year, the success of the project has a lot to do with its Longford builders, Thomas and Shane McKeon (T&S McKeon Homes Ltd), and how the met the challenges that presented to them, Deegan says.

"They were excellent. They were really, really good. It was a challenging build. Just the level of detail in it. It looks slightly easy going, but the level of detail and accuracy required was really tough. They did an amazing job," he said.

The winner of the award will be announced at the end of the month, but Deegan says that being shortlisted is no small feat in itself for his firm.

"The Architectural Review is probably the most popular and most widely read architectural magazine in the world and the AR House Awards series they do attract most of the best people who are building houses in the world. For us it is a big achievement to get on the shortlist, and the only Irish one to make it on."

In addition to impressing the judges in the competition, which includes former winners, more importantly the owners of the house are thrilled with the final job, its designer says.

"They were amazing clients. They were really enthusiastic about the project. They did have a brief and requirements but they let us free on how it should be done, while being conscious of budget and other things. They were open and enthusiastic clients and were very supportive.

"They seem to really enjoy it. It is totally different to how it was before and they love the place and the area. They have a family connection to the area and get to enjoy now a lot more."