Quay Cottage, Westport, Co Mayo

Cottage restaurant by harbour in Westport now for sale for €1.2m.
Agent:Tuohy O'Toole

WHEN Kirstin MacDonagh found Quay Cottage over 22 years ago her idea was to live upstairs and pay off the mortgage by running paper making workshops downstairs, with a small café in the front room.

But the superb location of the house, just by the gates of historic Westport House, overlooking the harbour, ensured a steady stream of visitors looking for food rather than hand-made paper and so the café business grew, and eventually took over the workshop side of the house. Teas and coffees turned into chowders and desserts, and before long Quay Cottage was a fully fledged fish restaurant, winning glowing reviews and awards.

Kirstin ran the business single-handedly for many years - in the early days if she needed help she would bang the end of a sweeping brush on the ceiling to summon her husband.

Later the couple moved out in order to grow the business and, 10 years ago, the premises was totally refurbished into a 70-seater restaurant with offices upstairs, a small courtyard, and potential to extend to the rear.

Now Kirstin has decided to sell and the property has been put on the market by private treaty through Westport agent Peter Tuohy of Tuohy O'Toole. The asking price is €1.2 million.

It's sure to attract a good deal of interest, both from established restaurateurs, and from people who want to change direction. It's also likely to be viewed as a holiday home, given its scenic and central location on the shores of Lough Clew Bay.

New owners might decide, as Kirstin did back in the 1980s, to live and work on the premises, or simply to open it again for business. The tables are laid, and menus standing by, with chowder still on the menu. "I'd love it if someone else would simply walk in and open it as a restaurant again," says Kirstin who is slowly building up a stud farm business just outside Westport.

The cottage, which will be sold with most of its contents intact, is full of atmosphere. Tiny on the outside, the porch opens through double doors into a double height space with fireplaces on either side. Nets and buoys, anchors and chains dangle from the solid timber beams above, while every bit of wall space, and every ledge and shelf, is packed with interesting shells and driftwood, ships in glass cases, starfish and lobsters, old ship timbers, lobster pots and porthole windows, all lit by lamps with shades made from beaten metal in the shape of galleons in full sail.

Twenty years of collecting have gone into the interior and, as on a ship, everything is neat and in its place. There is a bar area, a large rear diningroom, full commercial kitchen, an outhouse for the lobster tanks. The ground floor has around 194sq m (2,087sq ft) while upstairs has a number of store rooms and an office. There are three parking spaces to the rear.