Once an endangered historic estate, Ballyfin was painstakingly restored over nine years from a declining 20th-century boarding school back into its original 19th-century grand neoclassical glory.
Ballyfin’s story is woven into the fabric of Irish history. The estate was once owned by the O’More clan, powerful Gaelic lords who resisted English expansion before their lands were confiscated during the Tudor conquest of Ireland. The Neoclassical mansion standing today was later purchased in 1813 by Sir Charles Coote at just 19 years old. Following a Grand Tour of Italy with his wife, Lady Caroline, in 1822, Coote returned with a mosaic from Pompeii that still forms the floor of Ballyfin’s entrance hall nearly two centuries later.
The upheavals of the early 20th century brought an end to the world of many of Ireland’s great country houses. In 1926, the Coote family sold Ballyfin for £10,000, and the estate became Ballyfin College under the Patrician Brothers. The Dining Room was transformed into a chapel, bedrooms became dormitories, and generations of schoolboys passed through its halls - some of whom have since returned to work at Ballyfin today. By the late 20th century, however, the house had fallen into severe decline and was listed among Ireland’s most endangered historic buildings.Ballyfin’s revival began in 2002, when Chicago couple Fred and Kay Krehbiel purchased the estate and embarked on an ambitious restoration that would take nine years - longer than the house originally took to build.
The sandstone façade was painstakingly rebuilt stone by stone, the conservatory dismantled and restored in England, and even a hidden 500-foot underground service tunnel was constructed, preserving the illusion that guests have stepped back into the grandeur of Ireland’s aristocratic past.