Sir, – My late husband Sam Stephenson rescued Ballynoe House in Carlow and put considerable effort into restoring the house which he loved. It is the reason it stands as a fine house today. I was amazed to read Michael Parsons’s comments referring to Sam’s time at the house (Residential Property, April 18th). To refer to the installation of a swimming pool in the walled garden, which Sam restored, as “most unexpected and jaw-dropping” and the modernist pavilion with sauna and changing room as “shocking and unexpected” is surely sensationalist journalism.
I have visited the garden and the said pool and pavilion sit very comfortably in it and make a lovely use of the space. As somebody who loves old houses and deplores the desecration of them, I would be the first to shout if Ballynoe had had the soul ripped out of it. It did not. I have witnessed houses that have had the soul ripped out of them, particularly in more recent Celtic tiger times. Ballynoe is not one of them. To ask why did Sam bother to install a pool when there was the river bordering the house is just having a go. – Yours, etc,
CAROLINE STEPHENSON,
Leixlip,
Co Kildare.