Royal North of Ireland Yacht Club, 7 Sea Front Road, Holywood, Co Down, BT18 0BB

The Royal North of Ireland Yacht Club occupies a former house built around 1880 in the Arts and Crafts style, subsequently converted to a clubhouse around 1900. It stands at the corner of Cultra Avenue and Seafront Road on the south shores of Belfast Lough, facing north over the water with uninterrupted views. It forms part of a row of houses similar in style and date.

The building's plan comprises three gabled blocks with inter-linking bays. The left gable is extended to the rear and is abutted by a single-storey flat-roofed section and a pitched-roof return, which in turn adjoins a gabled two-storey modern block. The roof is pitched and covered in Rosemary tiles, with bargeboards and decorative half-timbered gables — characteristic Arts and Crafts features. Red-brick chimneystacks have corbelling. Rainwater goods are plastic, fitted to exposed rafter ends. The walls are painted roughcast render on a red-brick plinth.

Windows are varied and irregularly arranged, as is typical of the Arts and Crafts style. Most are timber-framed sashes, tripartite and bipartite, with multi-paned upper sashes and single-pane lower sashes at first-floor level, all with cambered heads. An oriel window sits above the secondary entrance porch. Ground-floor bay windows are timber-framed casements.

The principal (north) elevation is asymmetrical. The left gable has a projecting integral porch — the ridge projects from the verge at mid-level — with the upper storey jettied out on corbels and an oriel window above. To the left of this is a bow window with diamond lattice glazing to the top sections and a tripartite timber-mullioned window at first-floor level. The central and right gables each have bay windows to the ground floor; the central gable has a bipartite window at first-floor level, and the wider right gable has a four-paned window at first-floor level. The linking wing to the left has a plate glass window at ground floor and a tripartite dormer window; the right wing has a projecting gabled porch with a balcony at first-floor level. This porch has a battered plinth and is reached by a single stone step. It contains a six-panelled double-leaf timber door with decorative panels to the top sections, brass door knobs and keyhole, and a decorative transom light above. To either side of the porch is a small sash window. A verandah has a full-length dormer window with a double-leaf timber door and paired windows to each side.

The east elevation has a boiler house and entrance porch under a flat roof. To the right is a projecting single-storey bay with a hipped Rosemary tile roof, a small sash window to the left and to the exposed section, a tripartite dormer above, and a rooflight to the left. To the far right is a nine-over-one sash window.

The rear (south) elevation is almost entirely concealed by modern extensions of no architectural interest. What remains visible includes a paired one-over-one window at first-floor level to the central gable and a tripartite dormer window to the left linking wing.

The west elevation has three twelve-over-one sash windows at ground-floor level, the central one paired. There is a replacement window under the gable at first-floor centre. A two-storey modern block with a timber fire escape abuts the elevation to the right.

The building sits on a moderately sized site in a residential area. The road boundary is formed by a roughcast wall with piers topped with pointed caps, connected by rope chains. At the centre is a replacement metal latch gate with attached lettering reading "RNITC". There is a lawned and planted garden to the front and rear, an enclosed boatyard to the west incorporating a shed, and paved car parking to the east.

The club has its origins in the Ulster Canoe Club, founded in 1889. That body changed its name to the Ulster Sailing Club and then amalgamated with the Cultra Yacht Club in 1899 to become the North of Ireland Yacht Club. In September 1902, King Edward VII granted the club its royal designation.

A building is shown on the site on the first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1834, and this appears still to be present on the third edition of 1900–02, which also shows an additional building to the east captioned "North of Ireland Yacht Club Ho." It is not clear whether any of this earlier structure was incorporated into the present building, but it appears to have largely disappeared by the fourth edition of 1919–31.

Contemporary newspaper accounts shed light on the conversion and extension of the building. In 1897 and 1898, the vice-commodore and local landlord R. J. Kennedy placed two houses at the club's disposal. The Belfast Newsletter of 1898 noted that, owing to the large number of members taking part in racing, the club had found it necessary to take an additional house at Cultra alongside the one already provided by Kennedy, and that the new house would have sleeping accommodation for four or five persons. This suggests the present clubhouse was adapted from an earlier domestic dwelling. In March 1899, the Belfast Newsletter reported that the Rear-Commodore J. H. Burke Murphy had signed a contract for the addition of a billiard room, four bedrooms, a dressing room and a bicycle shed, and that work would commence at once. The work was completed by July 1899, at which point the Newsletter described the clubhouse as "one of the most commodious buildings of its kind to be seen anywhere." Map evidence suggests the clubhouse was further extended to the west between the third edition (1900–02) and the fourth edition (1919–31). It is possible that before 1900 the clubhouse consisted of only the two western gabled blocks, with the third gabled block added slightly later in a matching idiom.

A note in the listing query file attributes the design to architect Vincent Craig, with a construction date of between 1898 and 1904. However, this is not supported by the primary evidence and appears to result from confusion with the Royal Ulster Yacht Club, also designed by Vincent Craig and built around the same period.