From derelict hotel to dream home
Having lived abroad for more than two decades, Rita-Marie Harvey and Jason McDermott returned to their Donegal roots and built a spectacular family home and four luxury holiday rentals, discovers Marie Kelly.
After 25 years travelling the world and working in countries as far flung as Asia and Australia, Rita-Marie Harvey and her husband Jason McDermott were ready to call their native county of Donegal home again. So when they returned to Dublin during the pandemic with their three children, they felt the time was right to develop the site of a derelict hotel in Ballyliffin, which they’d bought several years earlier.
Situated on an elevated site with spectacular views out to the Atlantic Ocean, the old hotel had been left vacant since the end of the Celtic Tiger days. The couple’s plan was to clear the site completely and build a dramatic but comfortable family home, where they could entertain friends they’d met on their travels and extended family, as well as four premium holiday lets, which would allow visitors to come and enjoy what Harvey describes as “this special part of the world”. “Donegal has so much to offer,” she explains. “The beach is on your doorstep, there’s a golf course, hiking trails and the people here are lovely. It’s still the same Donegal I grew up in, but now it has amazing restaurants and cafés, and it’s only three and a half hours from Dublin,” she adds.
The couple worked closely with Birney Architects in Derry to make the most of the incredible views and create what Harvey describes as “buildings for the future”. A practice that specialises in sustainable and passive architecture, Birney’s ethos aligned with Harvey’s and McDermott’s, so their own home as well as the two four-bedroom and two two-bedroom beach houses are fully A-rated with solar panels and heat pumps, as well as EV charging points. Positioned beside the main house, the holiday lets are clustered around one central terraced area that allows holidaymakers to gather outside and socialise if they like, creating a kind of village feel and making it ideal for group or corporate bookings. “We’ve seen many guests who didn’t book in groups start chatting and strike up friendships during their stay,” says Harvey, “so it offers the best of both worlds – privacy and community.”
The couple’s own home is a striking 450 sq m contemporary structure designed around a first-floor living space with feature glazing that captures the breathtaking beauty of Ballyliffin Golf Course, Pollan Bay and the Atlantic Ocean beyond. There is no artwork needed in this home. Each and every window beautifully frames this Wild Atlantic Way landscape of heaths and heather, bogs and beaches, cliffs and coastline. Unsurprisingly, Harvey and McDermott didn’t want any aspect of the interior design to distract from, or compete with, the views. Instead, they wanted an aesthetic that reflected the house’s coastal environment and embodied both the tranquillity and energy of this unique location.
They worked closely with Shauna Stewart of Coleraine-based interior design studio Velvet Interiors to achieve a soft, tactile look using a variety of elemental materials and muted seaside shades. Harvey describes the end result as “breathtaking”. “We pulled the palette directly from the surrounding landscape,” explains Stewart, “and while the exterior of the building makes a super-modern statement, we wanted the interior to be the antithesis of this austere aesthetic.” Limewashed wood, glazed tiles, concrete finishes and wool, linen and bouclé fabrics in unassuming earthy tones lend the space a warmth and tactility that feels instantly inviting and homely. It also has a refined sophistication that acts as a subtle counterpoint to the wildness of the weather-beaten landscape outside.
It would have been easy for the main 250 sq m living and entertaining space with 6m vaulted ceiling to feel cold and cavernous, but Stewart anchored the space with an oversized bespoke wool rug from British lifestyle brand Alternative Flooring and a sculptural central light fitting from furniture and homewares store Maven in Belfast. “The rug helped to manage the acoustics of the room,” explains Stewart, “and the pendant light filled the overhead space beautifully, while providing a soft, atmospheric light,” she says. The three generous sofas packed with plump cushions are from Swedish furniture brand Sits. With their softly squared-off edges, they frame the conversational space without looking too angular, creating just the right balance between structure and softness.
“The whole room is geared towards the owners having the people they love about them,” explains Stewart. So a custom-built drinks cabinet was positioned on the right of the wall-mounted TV, making it convenient to serve pre- or post-dinner drinks. Built bespoke and finished with rubio oil to enhance the natural grain of the wood, it captures beautifully the tone and texture of bric-a-brac you’d find on a beach, from honey-coloured seashells to sun-bleached sticks. An extended island was built to run the full length of the kitchen so that whoever is cooking can face forward into the space and stay connected with the group gathered there, and an oval, 12-seater dining table with a concrete plaster finish from Belgian furniture brand Vincent Sheppard allows the couple to cater formal meals for large parties. The elegant dining chairs were custom-made from a whitewashed ash and finished with seat cushions made from a fabric by wallcoverings and fabric designer Mark Alexander.
There is no artwork needed in this home. Each and every window beautifully frames this Wild Atlantic Way landscape of heaths and heather, bogs and beaches, cliffs and coastline.
With its north-east and east aspect, this room is sunniest in the mornings, making it an ideal space to enjoy family breakfasts and brunches, while its cooler evening conditions cater to movie nights without any need to draw across the linen sheer curtains. But even on overcast days, there’s enough light coming through the enormous floor-to-ceiling windows to play off the TV’s attractive tile backdrop. “We thought its reflective nature would work really well in this room,” explains Stewart. “Some of the tiles are matte and some are glazed. When the light hits that wall, it creates a lovely focal point. It’s also a super hard-wearing material.” Given the bedrooms are all on the ground floor and the couple enjoy al fresco eating, balconies were built off both the kitchen and living areas and are kitted out with oak and rattan furniture from Belgian brand Flamont. Both owners are keen cooks and having lived in Asia and Australia for so long, they also love to barbecue.
On the ground floor, the master bedroom with its glazed walls feels cocooned by the highlands of the North West coast. Decorative features are unobtrusive but beautifully observed: a striped headboard with spotted detail and textured linen lampshade in shoreline-inspired shades, a tactile bouclé armchair and sage green curtains reminiscent of the dune grasses on their doorstep. The beach houses have been given the same considered coastal treatment, with tongue-and-groove paneling adding a further nod to the environment outside and paint shades such as Ashes of Roses by Little Greene and Portland Stone, also by Little Greene, reinforcing that sense of cosy and understated luxury living.
Harvey says she and her family feel completely at peace in their Donegal home. “It’s a very calming place, with rabbits and sheeps in the fields, and we just don’t want to leave.” With plenty of repeat bookings and some holidaymakers booked in for the third time since the couple opened Ballyliffin Beach Houses last summer, visitors obviously agree with Harvey that Ballyliffin is indeed a very special part of the world.
This article was originally published in The Sunday Times Ireland, June 2025