CO WICKLOW: €1.1M:An 1830s stone schoolhouse, run as a restaurant, then a popular Wicklow tea room, is also a family home – now it's for sale for €1.1 million
RUMOUR has it that Daniel Day-Lewis was a regular at the tea room and restaurant that operated from the conservatory at the side of the Old School House in Laragh, Co Wicklow.
The current owner is too discreet to confirm or deny this but if it’s true the actor may be hoping that, if it sells, the new owner will revive The Conservatory tea house, which was known for its homemade breads and scones and delicious fruit tarts until it closed a few months ago.
Sherry FitzGerald O’Gorman O’Reilly is asking €1.1 million for the five-bedroom house, which is on an acre and a half, and has had several incarnations.
On the road to the Sally Gap, and close to Laragh village, it was built in 1830 as a school house. It was Mitchell’s Restaurant until the late 1990s.
The current owner, Lisa de la Haye, bought it 10 years ago and spent three years turning the former school house into a very pretty family home. The tea room opened in 2009 and before that she ran a gift and homewares shop from the conservatory.
Now that her sons have left home, de la Haye says the place – at 353sq m (3,800sq ft) – is too big for her and the business became too much to run on her own.
They didn’t build very many school houses as pretty as this one, which is enhanced by its Wicklow granite exterior and the restored leaded windows .
A porch hall with tumbled marble tiles leads straight into the drawingroom which has biscuit walls, a beamed ceiling and a cream cast-iron stove set into a marble fireplace. On one side of this room, through a pair of custom-made half-doors, is an intimate diningroom, and on the other is a family kitchen.
Granite walls were knocked to make the French country style kitchen bigger and the stone was used elsewhere in the house. The kitchen has fitted and freestanding units, and is made even cosier by the muted cream and green decor, an Aga and a big wooden table for family meals.
The conservatory, where the tea room is located, is a lovely room with an exposed granite wall on one side, and mountain views on the other. At the back there’s a cloakroom and two separate toilets with marble-top sinks.
A back hallway with pantry shelving in the house leads to a more industrial kitchen with a six- ring gas stove – useful for large- scale cooking and entertaining .
Upstairs, there are five good- size double bedrooms, three of which are en suite. The main bedroom is big with a deep window seat overlooking the front garden, and a walk-in dressingroom.
The house is two storeys to the front and one to the back. The second bedroom has French doors out to a courtyard, and is en suite.
The main bathroom is a big room with a raspberry coloured cast-iron claw foot bath, a shower and two sinks.
There’s also a family room at this level – an atmospheric space with an exposed granite wall and an antique half door out to a courtyard. And there’s a boot room, used as laundry. The gardens are on half an acre and the paddock is one acre.
The Old School House, Laragh, Co Wicklow
Stone house dating from 1830 with five bedrooms and a conservatory tea room
Agent: Sherry FitzGerald O'Gorman O'Reilly
