Catherine McElwain and architect Dermot Ryan celebrate their midcentury’s gridded tile, glass bricks, and ironwork as they inject it with industrial materials and vibrant color.
When Catherine McElwain received a photo of a run-down house from her husband, architect Dermot Ryan, she thought its flat-roofed architecture was unusual—but that was about it. A few weeks later, however, the couple decided to attend a viewing—and they were the only ones there. “We fell in love with it,” recalls Catherine. “It’s like a series of stacked boxes, with very large windows and beautiful tiling. The top floor has wraparound windows with a 360-degree view—it blew me away.”
Dermot felt the same way. “We don’t have many modernist homes in Ireland,” he says. “It’s very interesting in an Irish context.”
The living area is surrounded by windows on two sides. While the interior is fairly neutral, the couple’s furnishings and artwork introduce bright pops of color.
Photo by Shauna Lally
The couple purchased the property, they moved in just a week before their second child was born, and they spent two years living in the home and getting a sense for how the spaces work, what they wanted to keep, and what needed to be changed. When the time came to begin an ambitious renovation—which was led by Dermot and took place in several stages over seven years—they decided to celebrate the home’s style and draw design inspiration from the Bauhaus.
Before: Exterior
The home had not been renovated for many years, and it was in a state of disrepair. Many of the services, as well as the bathrooms and kitchen, were outdated.
Photo by Catherine McElwain
The house had originally been built in 1948 as a family residence, but it was converted into a commercial architecture practice in the early 2000s with the addition of the top floor. When Catherine and Dermot purchased it, it was in a state of disrepair—the garden was overgrown, and the formerly white exterior was painted orange and covered in ivy.
After: Exterior
The couple restored the home’s exterior to its original white color, based on photographs they found during research. Despite this research, they have been unable to determine who the original architect was. “We wanted to bring it back to how it was originally conceived,” says Catherine. “One of the things that we we absolutely loved in the old photos was the white, flat-roofed structure set amongst the greenery.”
Photo by Catherine McElwain
See the full story on Dwell.com: Before & After: In Ireland, an Unusual, Boxy Home Gets a Bold Bauhaus Retrofit
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