Stately home
Farmleigh House, in the Irish Republic, is both a tourist attraction and a guesthouse for visiting heads of state. Brendan Nolan reports on the transformation of this former home of the Guinness family.
If the Irish government had bought Farmleigh House when it was first offered three years ago, it could have saved itself a fortune.
At the time, the asking price for the 19th-century estate, set in 78 acres in Castleknock, Dublin, was IR£15m (about £12.4m). A year later, when the government finally purchased it to turn it into high-class accommodation for visiting heads of state, the price had risen to IR£23m (£19m). However, it was still considered a bargain, according to MP Martin Cullen, the junior minister who was tasked with having Ireland's state guesthouse ready for its first guest, Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji, who arrived at the beginning of this month.
Right price
"We paid an honest amount. All prices were negotiated," says Cullen, whose department includes the Office of Public Works (OPW) responsible for Farmleigh's refurbishment and management.
The house and gardens were officially opened at the end of July this year after IR£18m (£15m) was spent on turning this former residence of a branch of the Guinness family into suitable accommodation for VIPs. At the official opening, Ireland's prime minister, Bertie Ahern, said: "It was very unsatisfactory that we could not offer world-class accommodation to heads of state. Farmleigh will reflect our reputation for hospitality."
Given the type of guests staying at Farmleigh, security is a priority. However, Ahern regaled the 8,000 guests at the opening ceremony with how he told Tony Blair: "This is not Chequers. There will be no dogs, no machine guns to meet you here. The Irish people will welcome you at the door."
Having said that, more than IR£2m has been spent to close down the walled estate, and banks of monitors relay images to an underground security centre. Outside, out of view, is a satellite farm with relay connections to any place on the planet.
The amount of security depends on the guest in question. The US president needs more security than a visitor from a minor African state. Where Farmleigh's first visitor, Mr Zhu Rongji, came in the pecking order is anybody's guess but one observer close to the arrangements says: "With the new security control room in Farmleigh, any visiting dignitary should be happy, no matter how paranoid they may be."
Farmleigh can accommodate up to 40 guests with its three self-contained presidential suites and eight en suite bedrooms.
"Once our guests enter the gates, everything is solely for them," says Mary Heffernan, Farmleigh's general manager, who has worked at the house since the OPW took possession on 15 December 1999. "We offer complete privacy from the limelight of a state visit; and we hope that attention to detail will make a good impression on anyone who comes to our country," she says.
Trained in fine art, Heffernan was a project manager with the OPW before taking up this post and has had a large input into the selection of furnishing, fabrics and finishes.
"Running a five-star guesthouse is going to be a new challenge," she says. "I have been a manager for six years and it is just managing a property now as distinct from managing a number of projects."
Modern materials Built in the 1880s, Farmleigh House covers 3,716sq m on four floors. The top floor houses two suites and three bedrooms, all finished with modern Irish materials. Free-standing circular glass showers are complemented by centrally located bathtubs in the suites.
The first floor has eight bedrooms and one suite furnished in an Edwardian/Victorian style.
The ground floor, with walls covered in original tapestries and linen, contains the dining room, library, and drawing rooms. Up to 40 people can be seated in the dining room, which is lined with 17th-century Italian embroidered silk panels and dressed with new drapes, hand-stitched by a 72-year-old seamstress from Dublin. The ballroom, which has yet to be used for functions, is decorated in the style of Louis XVI with swirling leafy arabesques, and opens out on to a conservatory.
At basement level, Farmleigh plays its part in affairs of state. A ground-floor study hides a false door in a bookcase. An escape route leads down to a vault where steel doors seal in the occupants until rescue arrives. A former owner, Benjamin Guinness, the third Earl of Iveagh, built it in the 1970s, when terrorist ransom kidnapping was at its height.
Re-designed staff quarters serve as conference rooms for Northern Irish peace talks, and delegates meet in the high-ceilinged former kitchen of Farmleigh. "I have insisted that the room retains the name of The Kitchen so that a lot of work will be done in it by delegates," Cullen says.
Elsewhere, a modern kitchen has been built, and the suites contain domestic-sized kitchens for self-contained catering. Outside, there is a lake, walled gardens, parkland, and donkeys, whose pasture doubles as a helicopter landing pad.
Only key people will occupy Farmleigh bedrooms, with other delegates staying in city hotels in Dublin, just two miles to the east. There is no operational budget for Farmleigh. Instead, its running costs are included in the annual OPW budget. Other costs, including security - handled by the Garda, who are responsible for state security - are spread across other budgets.
Because the house is not in continuous use, it is not fully staffed on a permanent basis. There is a housekeeper, who was appointed from a hotel background, and household assistants - the OPW will not give details, but employees at the house are classed as civil servants and must observe confidentiality rules.
"It doesn't make sense to employ people to be here outside a state visit," says Heffernan. "If we need to, we will hire people part-time."
The recent visit of the Chinese prime minister and other heads of state in ensuing months will help Heffernan to assess requirements. "We may need to contact particular hotels to supplement the arrangement, just to make sure we have enough people," she adds.
Catering is also supplied on an ad hoc basis. Outside caterers were used for the Chinese visit, but the OPW is discussing the issue of catering and has not finalised its plans for the future. Whatever happens, menus will be discussed in advance between caterers and the delegation in the run-up to a visit.
Rather than being left idle between state visits, Farmleigh will be open to the public at weekends. Guided tours will give access to the house, and next summer the public will be able to visit tearooms which will be opened in an old boathouse beside the lake.
But when a state visit looms, the public is barred, and, as Heffernan says, Farmleigh will once again become "a five-star establishment in food, beds, and service".
Farmleigh
Phoenix Park, Castleknock, Dublin 15, Ireland
Tel: 00 353 1 821 36 63
Office of Public Works (OPW)
51 St Stephen's Green, Dublin 1
Tel: 00 353 1 647 60 00
Opened: July 28, 2001
General manager: Mary Heffernan
Rooms: Three self-contained presidential suites, 11 double en suite bedrooms
Admission: Saturdays/Sundays 10am to 4pm. Free guided tours from Phoenix Park. Visitors centre, tel: 00 353 1 677 00 95. Groups by arrangement at other times
Usage: State visits and public access. No commercial use allowed. Planning permission has been approved for public events with up to 8,000 guests on days between June and September. Events for up to 1,000 people may be held between April and October; and recreational activities on any day between June and September for no more than 500 people are permitted.
