‘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.”

For Jack Freeman, a compelling interior should not look as though it was completed in a single shopping trip.

The founder and designer behind FREEMAN & CO prefers rooms that develop through art, travel, commissioned furniture and objects collected over time. It is an approach that treats the home less as a decorative project and more as an evolving portrait of its owner.

“I am a true believer in collecting versus decorating,” Freeman says.

That distinction underpins the international practice he has built across private residences, hotels, property developments, yachts and private aviation. Its projects stretch from Point Piper, Vaucluse, Circular Quay and Toorak to Mayfair, Bel Air and the Caribbean.

Although the locations and architecture vary considerably, the work is connected by a restrained design language. Natural stone, warm timbers and sculptural furniture establish the foundation, while art, bespoke lighting and individual objects give each interior its identity.

The objective is not to overwhelm a room with obvious symbols of expense. It is to create an environment that feels calm, layered and particular to the people living within it.

“The greatest luxury isn’t about excess,” Freeman says. “It’s about creating an oasis where you come home and feel immediately grounded — effortlessly chic and deeply personal.”

Collecting instead of decorating

Decorating can imply the completion of a room: selecting the required furniture, filling the available walls and producing a coherent finished image.

Collecting is less conclusive.

A collected interior has room to change as its owners travel, discover artists, inherit pieces or reassess how they use their home. Its character comes from the relationship between objects rather than adherence to a single brand or season.

That does not mean placing unrelated pieces together without discipline. The designer must understand scale, proportion, material and provenance well enough to create a dialogue between them.

A contemporary artwork might sit beside a historic piece of furniture. A precisely detailed new interior may be interrupted by an irregular object made by hand. Smooth stone can be balanced by timber, textiles or a patinated metal surface that becomes richer with age.

The tension between those elements is part of the appeal.

For Freeman, art is not an accessory to be added once the furniture plan is complete. It forms part of the architecture and atmosphere of the room from the beginning.

Lighting is considered in the same way. Beyond its practical purpose, a bespoke fitting can operate as a suspended sculpture, changing both the room’s composition and the way its materials are experienced after dark.

A design perspective shaped by travel

International travel plays a significant role in Freeman’s creative process.

Design fairs such as PAD Paris and Salone del Mobile in Milan provide opportunities to encounter emerging designers, established galleries, new materials and collectible furniture away from the filter of social media.

More spontaneous discoveries can prove equally important.

“Sometimes it’s the simple things,” Freeman says. “That piece found on a shopping trip with a client in Paris, stumbling across an artisan’s workshop, or a special memory that forms the narrative of the story.”

Objects selected during travel bring more than visual interest into a home. They carry an association with a place, maker or experience, giving the client a connection that cannot be reproduced by ordering an entire interior from a catalogue.

Freeman’s influences are international, but his projects are not conceived as replicas of Parisian, Milanese or Californian style. Each commission responds to its architecture, setting, natural light and the daily lives of its occupants.

A waterfront Sydney residence demands a different treatment from a Mayfair townhouse. A Caribbean estate shaped by brutalist architecture and reflecting pools calls for another response again.

The designer’s role is to absorb those references without allowing them to overwhelm the individual qualities of the property.

Designing the complete experience

FREEMAN & CO extends beyond conventional interior decoration.

The practice’s stated services include interior design and architecture, project management, property acquisition, development advice, concept design, documentation, furniture and lighting design, procurement and art curation.

That breadth allows the team to become involved before a room’s dimensions and finishes are fixed.

Early participation can be important at the top end of the residential market, where architecture, landscape, interiors, technology and art must operate as one environment. Decisions about ceiling heights, wall dimensions, sightlines and lighting can directly affect where art is installed or how custom furniture is proportioned.

The practice can then carry those decisions through to procurement and final installation, maintaining the design narrative as a project moves between architects, builders, specialist craftspeople, dealers and suppliers.

Its residential portfolio includes a South Coast retreat conceived as an escape from urban life, a Caribbean estate with reflecting pools, an East Coast-inspired Palm Beach residence and a Mayfair townhouse organised around an expressive drawing room.

The studio also says it has worked on highly tailored Sydney residences with values exceeding $100 million, although the private nature of such commissions means individual addresses and clients are not always disclosed.

A home that can keep changing

The risk in creating a perfectly resolved interior is that it can become too static — a composition that looks exceptional in photographs but leaves little room for life.

Freeman sees the home as something that should evolve with its owners.

“I love the evolution of design,” he says. “We are talking about people’s lives, and as they evolve, so too should their private sanctuaries.”

That evolution might involve adding art, reupholstering a significant piece, adapting rooms as a family changes or making space for objects gathered through future travels.

The original design needs to be strong enough to accommodate those layers.

This may be the clearest expression of Freeman’s approach to luxury. It is not simply access to rare stone, collectible furniture or commissioned craftsmanship. It is the creation of a personal environment whose meaning deepens rather than diminishes with time.

Fact box

Designer: Jack Freeman

Role: Founder and managing director

Practice: FREEMAN & CO

Base: Australia, with international projects

Project locations named by the practice: Point Piper, Vaucluse, Circular Quay, Toorak, Palm Beach, the NSW South Coast, Mayfair, Bel Air and the Caribbean

Sectors: Private residences, hotels, residential developments, private aviation and superyachts

Services: Interior design and architecture, property development, project management, property acquisition, documentation, furniture and lighting design, FF&E procurement, interior dressing and art curation

Design philosophy: Collected, personal interiors shaped by art, craftsmanship, travel and enduring materials

Website: free-man.co

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

Though open-minded, the new owner of the magisterial 18th-century house needed to be convinced of some of her interior designer’s boundary-pushing ideas.

Jack Freeman believes the most compelling interiors are not decorated, but collected. The FREEMAN & CO founder creates layered, personal spaces shaped by art, travel and craftsmanship.