‘What’s Going On in That Room?’ A Dublin Townhouse Gets a Mystical, Leap-of-Faith Reimagining

Sometimes sad things happen to good houses. Take the proud former home of the family that founded Jameson Irish Whiskey, perched on a historic square in the Irish capital. More recently a law office, the circa 18th-century townhouse had been mired in drudgery.

“Businesses take on these prestigious old buildings and chuck in a lot of furniture,” said designer Suzie McAdam of the throng of mahogany desks, wall-to-wall carpet and fluorescent lights she found in the property. “Everything was grim and a bit tired.”

The new owner, an Irish businesswoman who would live there solo, hired Mc Adam, a local pro, to restore and decorate the four-story Georgian home. Put off by the dark, masculine energy of the panelling in the entrance and reception room, the client at first wanted to paint all of it white. “I think her sense was to make it feel fresher, more lightened,” said Mc Adam.

To convince the owner to rehab the wood instead, the designer proposed a brash, whimsical plan.

Where the client saw oppressive beams and coffers, Mc Adam saw…a forest. She would enlist Irish muralist Michael Dillon to hand paint the white plaster gaps between the woodwork with local flora and fauna, like mythical creatures from Irish folklore growing out from between the timbers.

“It almost has a sense of decay, something that had been creeping through an old wall,” said McAdam of the final mural. “It’s very fantastical,” she said.

The designer won the client’s buy-in, and the mahogany was refurbished. The woodwork-as-woods concept intrigued the owner, Mc Adam believes, in part because she spends her days in the black-and-grey world of business and finance. She also craved uniqueness.

“Having seen a lot of other buildings in Dublin, none of which energized or excited her, I think she wanted to be taken on a journey with the design,” said McAdam.

That might explain why the owner welcomed the curious light fixture—the Halti pendant by Cameron Design House —that loops from the reception room’s ceiling like pearls sized for the Statue of Liberty. During Paris Design Week, McAdam was captivated by a lavender version she saw draped inside an installation of ornate boiserie panelling.

She says she has a tendency to embrace this kind of forward-leaning design: “A guiding principle I return to is this: Would I see this piece at an auction in 20 years? If the answer is yes, then I know I am on to something.”

She texted a photo to her client, who asked if it came in other colours. “The lavender was quite strong, maybe a little too far for her,” said Mc Adam. They eventually landed on an opaque white version, a nervy update of the drippy crystal chandeliers common to homes of this vintage.

The room’s expansive windows make the necklace-like fixture visible from the street below. “Even taxi drivers are, like, ‘What’s going on in that room?’ ” said Mc Adam. One, while driving her past the property, remarked, “Sure you wouldn’t know what they’ll hang off a ceiling these days!”

She didn’t let on, and says today, “If something causes debate and conflict, I think that’s where it gets interesting.”

The chandelier in the library upstairs initially raised even her client’s eyebrows. McAdam recalls that, as an electrician was installing the Italian glass chandelier from Giopato & Coombes, the client commented that it “looked like bowling pins that had been smashed over.”

McAdam dug in her heels. “Hold firm is my approach sometimes. When people see something in isolation, it’s hard to get a full sense of how the room is going to turn out.” Today, the space is adorned with pastoral Schumacher wallpaper, its barrel-vaulted ceiling painted a sky blue. “She wasn’t enamoured initially with that fixture, but the room came together.”

McAdam’s aesthetic bravery respects and suits the historic home. Centuries ago, the Jameson family had their motto carved into the reception-room mantel alongside the three-masted sailing ship that serves as a logo on each whiskey label. It reads Sine Metu , Latin for “Without Fear.”