Marino Villa, 5 Marino Park, Marino, Holywood, BT18 0AN

Marino Villa is a semi-detached two-storey Tudor-Gothic style house, built around 1820–1830 to designs by the architect John Millar for Thomas Ward. It forms the right-hand half of a pair of villas, the other being The Cloisters next door, and together they make up a notable element within a wider group of similarly styled villa-style buildings along Marino Park in Holywood. The group was developed for the growing merchant classes of Belfast as bathing houses — seasonal retreats from the city — and the houses share several distinguishing characteristics including lozenge-shaped chimney stacks, raised fractables to the gables, and Gothic detailing, while retaining considerable variety in individual design. Most original fabric at Marino Villa remains intact and its character is well preserved.

The house faces nominally north (north-west) and is arranged on a distinctive U-shaped plan around a rectangular courtyard. The courtyard is fronted to the street by a cloistered arrangement of six four-centred Tudor arches, with a dividing wall at the centre separating the two properties. The roof is pitched natural slate with blue-black angled ridge tiles and saddleback fractables to the gables. The principal chimney stack sits at the centre of the main ridge and comprises a group of five tall, unrendered flues with moulded caps on a rectangular base — all lozenge-shaped except for the central flue. Two further slender lozenge-shaped stacks rise from around eaves level, flanking a stepped gabled projection to the east. Rainwater goods are half-round cast iron. The walls are rendered over a bevelled plinth and painted white. Windows throughout are timber multi-paned double side-hung casements with chamfered reveals and cills; the first-floor window to the north elevation has a label moulding.

The entrance elevation faces north and contains a vertically panelled, pointed-arched entrance door with a sandstone flagged threshold and brass door furniture, set within the rightmost of three arched recesses that correspond with the cloister — the central recess is blind, and the left recess has a plain timber door with a cast-iron ring-pull handle. To the right, the north gable has a timber canted bay at ground floor level and a single window above at first floor.

The courtyard elevations could not be inspected at the time of survey. From external inspection it is evident that the east courtyard elevation has two blind rectangular recesses and a window set into a gable. There is also a gable at the centre of the north elevation, which is presumably shared between the two houses.

The rear (south) elevation rises to a wide gable at the left and a narrower gable at the right; the fenestration is irregular and includes an enlarged multi-pane kitchen window at the left. A narrow projecting full-height chimney stack stands at the extreme right, against which abuts a monopitched outbuilding.

The west elevation has a projecting gabled bay at the centre, fronted by a later castellated full-height canted bay. The ground-floor windows here are plain-glazed with three-light top-hung casements, all with continuous cills, and the cheeks are blank. To the right of the projecting bay, a window is set into a projecting gable, and the ground floor is abutted by a lean-to conservatory.

The setting comprises a cobbled parking area to the front, with a tree and hedge-bounded garden to the east. The rear garden is enclosed by a tall boundary wall to the west, which also forms the rear wall of the conservatory, and by a pair of castellated outbuildings with monopitched roofs, arched panelled timber doors, and multi-pane windows.

The house is shown on the first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1834 as one of a number of villas within a single plot. The Townland Valuation of 1828–40 describes it as "two houses and offices," the property of Mr Thomas Ward, and valued at £34 9s. The architectural historian C.E.B. Brett suggests that Millar may have based the design of the pair on a design published in J.C. Loudon's Cottage, Farm and Villa Architecture. Writing in 1837, Samuel Lewis described the broader development in glowing terms: "There are several good lodging-houses in the village and its environs; and from the increasing number of visiters [sic], several houses in detached situations and chiefly in the Elizabethan style of architecture are now in progress on the Cultra estate, by Thomas Ward Esq, after designs by Millar. These houses are sheltered with thriving plantations and beautifully situated on a gentle eminence commanding a richly diversified and extensive prospect of Carrickfergus bay, the Black mountain, Cave hill, the Carnmoney mountains and the town and castle of Carrickfergus, the view terminating with the basaltic columns of Black Head." However, the Ordnance Survey Memoirs record the houses as already complete in 1834 — some years before Lewis's publication — and note that they "have been built for the bathing season, when they are generally filled from Belfast." The second edition Ordnance Survey map of 1858 shows the villas captioned "Marino," and Griffith's Valuation of 1856–64 records the occupier as Captain George Frazer, late of the Coast Survey, with both dwellings valued at £39.

By 1887 the house had passed to Maria Pirrie and by 1900 to Agnes Pirrie. In 1886 the combined value of both houses was reduced to £30, and in 1902 the value of this house alone was reduced to £27. Valuer's notes from this period include a plan showing a glasshouse abutting the rear. The accommodation at that time comprised four bedrooms, two sitting rooms, and a bathroom described as "not in use." The valuer noted that the house was much dilapidated and had been vacant for some years.

By 1908 the occupier was James Connolly, formerly of the neighbouring Marino House, and by 1909 the valuation had been reduced further to £20, with the valuer noting the house to be in "very bad repair." By 1917 the occupier was Elizabeth Baird. In the early 1930s the house was occupied by Elizabeth Ellis and leased from Henry J. Harris. The valuation fluctuated, eventually settling at £32, and the accommodation is recorded as comprising two reception rooms, a kitchen, scullery, wash house, three pantries, four bedrooms, a bathroom, and a WC. The house was supplied with gas and water from a well with a pump, and had a tennis lawn. Following a valuation appeal in 1935, the valuer commented: "A very charming old style place in rural surroundings all effects of which are spoilt by shocking bad repair internally...The water supply is joint and soon fails. The offices are quite large for size of house." Brett records that all the houses in this group were bought in the post-war years and narrowly escaped destruction, and that they have since been sympathetically restored.