A well-used holiday home in Ireland is rejuvenated to provide three generations of one family a year-round sanctuary …
London-based interior designer Ciara Ephson of Fentiman Design has spent every summer since birth in her family’s 1960s summer home in Co Cork. Her grandparents moved there fulltime from Cork City when her grandfather, a local GP, retired. Later, Ciara’s parents, Farrow & Ball co-creator Martin Ephson and contemporary art dealer and collector Eugenia, took over the main house and built a comfortable annexe for her grandparents to live in fulltime. “The original house has no foundations and no insulation so was not suitable for them to occupy year-round”, says Ciara. In 2017, the house was extended with Ciara designing a new master suite as well as creating more practical utility and storage space to accommodate her and her two siblings’ growing families.
Ciara in the new annexe. The wallpaper is Fermoie Carskiey Single Stripe.
Having sold his stake in Farrow & Ball in 2006, in 2012 Ciara’s father decided to reinvest some of the proceeds from the sale into launching the fabric maker Fermoie, offering a range of colours and patterns designed to appeal to Farrow & Ball customers. When sadly, due to deteriorating health, Ciara’s grandparents recently had to move out of the annexe, the family realised it badly needed to be renovated.
“As this house means so much to our family, this was an opportunity to create enough space for us all to comfortable spend time here together.”
The headboard was made locally and upholstered in Fermoie Chiltern.
Helpfully, the renovation coincided with Fermoie’s launch of a range of wallpapers which became the starting point for Ciara’s redesign. “Obviously, with access to everything at Fermoie, the temptation was to go wild! But I decided to exercise restraint and run with the concept of using one pattern for all the window treatments throughout, using a different colour in each room. It then felt natural to choose the bedroom wallpapers to match the curtains; firstly, to show how incredible the match is from paper to fabric, you literally cannot see the difference, and secondly – helped also by wallpapering the ceilings – to make you feel as though you are totally enveloped in fabric. The resulting feeling is really quite special.”
The curtains match the wallpaper of the same pattern on walls and ceiling.
Stripes are always a great choice by the sea: “I think Fermoie’s Carskiey Stripe, which we used everywhere, is different enough that stops it feeling too typically ‘seaside’.”
Ciara designed a glass partition to separate the kitchen from the entrance hall, with its Betty Bench from &Tradition.
The sofa is covered in Fermoie Strie Sweat Pea; the ottoman in Fermoie Whittle.
The annexe’s living room with mid-century armchairs from Beyond Retro in Dublin and games table and chairs from Pamono. The rug is from Kasthall.
Ciara made some small tweaks to the layout which transformed how the main living space is used: “The removal of a pillar has meant that what was a small dining area is now the TV room/library (housing my grandfather’s collection of historical Irish literature) and the introduction of a glazed partition has created a comfortable dining space in the kitchen as well as an entrance hall on the other side. The main living room now has a comfy area for reading/socialising as well as a games table, for puzzles and backgammon, and of course, a bar, which actually came from my grandparents’ house in Cork City.”
I wanted the house to feel like a beach house, but also to reflect the mid-century vibe of its ‘big sister’ – the main house next door.
An artwork by Eugenia’s friend, Dorothy Cross, hangs above the bar.
The sitting room with original cedar panelling, corner sofa from Kingcome Sofas, cushions made from linen fabrics from Fermoie and a bespoke rug by Luke Irwin.
A trio of artworks by Heinz-Dieter Pietsch hangs on the wall.
The new master bedroom with blinds in Fermoie Plain Linen in Euphorbia frame the picture windows. The vintage Knoll armchair is one of a pair. A photograph by Dorothy Cross hangs on the wall.
In the children’s room, colourful bedcovers made from Ghanaian Kente cloths stand out against walls in Farrow & Ball’s Lime White.
In the dressing area, a Sigmar stool is paired with a 1950s Italian dressing table by Guglielmo Ulrich from L&V Art and Design.
A freestanding resin bath rests on Montauk Marble tiles from Fired Earth.
Tiles in two different colours were used to create a stripy bathroom.
The view over the shingle roof of the annexe.
SEE MORE: Inside Interior Designer Suzie McAdam’s Georgian Townhouse
