Another home owned by the Guinness brewing family has come on the market. Furness House, near Naas, Co Kildare, the home of Patrick Guinness and his wife Louise, is expected to make in excess of £4 million when it is auctioned on July 11th by Hamilton Osborne King.
Mr Guinness, a banker, is the only son of the Hon Desmond Guinness of Leixlip Castle and the late Mariga Guinness.
Furness stands on over 34 acres of magnificent open parkland and is by far the most interesting country house to go for sale this year within easy commuting distance of Dublin. It is only 18 miles from the capital and will be remembered by television viewers as the backdrop to the Somerville and Ross Irish RM series.
The house has been extensively refurbished since it was bought in 1994 from businessman Oliver Caffrey. Apart from a new roof, it has been rewired, a new security system and a mains water supply have been installed and virtually all the rooms have been redecorated.
The main house has nine bedrooms and four stunning reception rooms. The two wings, each with two reception rooms and two bedrooms, can function as part of the main house or as self-contained units. Furness is likely to be bought as a family home, although, with over 15,000 sq ft in the main house and the wings, it could also be run as a small country house-style hotel.
The three-storey house, dating from 1730, was originally joined by single-storey links to the two-storey wings. Around 1780, Richard Nevill MP, carried out various structural changes, including the raising of the lefthand link so that it became a two-storey wing with a curved bow on the garden front. The central block has a classical cut-stone facade and two stone lions guarding the front door.
Inside, the entire front of the centre block is taken up with a hall divided in two by an arch. The original parquet floor is still in place along with an 18th-century grate with carved pearwood mantelpiece. Most impressive of all is the staircase of Spanish chestnut which rises on one side of the arch to the first floor. The three main reception rooms are all to the rear looking out over mature parkland to the ruins of a 12th-century church.
There is a particularly handsome drawingroom with delicate ceiling plasterwork by Michael Stapleton showing a medallion of Minerva attended by a kneeling hero. The ante-room off the hall has Persian-style wallpaper put up only two years ago but very much in keeping with the Georgian ancestry of the house. The diningroom, in the wing, is large and bright with a bow end which gives it architectural distinction. A stuffed alligator sits under a side table keeping a watchful eye on the diners.
The kitchen, conveniently located off the diningroom, has enormous charm with a large pine table, a four-oven oil-fired Aga and three-ft-long Belfast sink supported by the original stand. Another large room off the hall is used as an office.
Upstairs there is a huge landing with an old rickshaw in one corner guaranteed to generate curiosity. There are six bedrooms and three bathrooms on the first floor and, interestingly, all the bedrooms have period fireplaces.
The main bedroom has a bow end like the diningroom below and a beautiful Adam-style fireplace. There are three further bedrooms and two bathrooms on the top floor.
Outside the stable yard has a range of stone buildings which could easily be converted into residential use if Furness ends up as a country house-style hotel.
The house is set among wonderful parkland studded with mature beech. There is a beech avenue running from the front door to a column topped by a bronze statue of Mercury. This was put up in 1962 to mark the 21st birthday of David Synott. It originally stood at Dangan, near Summerhill, Co Meath, the boyhood home of the Duke of Wellington.
