'San Michele', 15 Layde Road, Cushendall, BT44 0NQ

San Michele is a detached two-storey flat-roofed Modernist house built around 1933, designed and constructed by the local contracting firm John Carey for James Finnegan, who established an electricity works in Cushendall. The house is now known as one of the few surviving examples of interwar Modernist domestic architecture in Northern Ireland.

The building sits on a steeply sloping coastal site in the townland of Faughil, overlooking the sea, with the main elevation facing northwest and set back slightly from the east side of Layde Road. The house is built over a basement and comprises an irregular plan of interconnecting two and three-storey forms that respond to the topography. The exterior is rendered in painted stipple-textured finish with a flat roof set behind a rendered parapet wall. Painted metal hoppers discharge to circular section downpipes, and two rendered chimney stacks with terracotta pots rise from the roof. The composition employs dynamic asymmetry with strong geometric lines, smooth curves, and restrained Art Deco motifs characteristic of the International Style.

The asymmetrical northwest front elevation consists of a two-storey, two-bay block with a single-storey projection to the northeast forming a raised terrace. The elevation curves at the southwest corner to house the staircase, lit by a full-height slender stairlight set in an Art Deco rendered frame. The ground floor is recessed to the centre and southwest bays and comprises a pair of square-headed arches with curved ends forming an open porch, each with a single window. A square-headed door with replacement uPVC glazed door opens onto a tiled recessed area. The raised parapet wall to the first-floor terrace has infill painted metal railings. Original window openings are square-headed but have been fitted with replacement uPVC windows. The northeast side elevation is largely obscured by the projecting single-storey section with curved ends and a single door at ground-floor level flanked by square-headed window openings; a raised parapet with infill railings runs along this elevation. The door opens onto a concrete platform with original steel railings and steps.

The three-storey southeast garden elevation is the most elaborate, featuring a large terrace at ground-floor level with steel railings and curved concrete steps down to basement level at either end. At basement level is a further terrace with a boarded-over swimming pool and concrete paved area. The main body of this elevation is three-bay with decorative Art Deco rendered parapet and a projecting single-storey block to the southwest with a large single-pane picture window, raised parapet, and curved ends. The southwest side elevation is largely blank, with a central projecting chimney stack and corner window openings to ground floor.

Historically, James Finnegan initially leased the site from the Turnly estate, the principal property owners in Cushendall, and valued at £41 in 1936–57. He continued to reside at San Michele until his death around 1949, when the building passed to his widow. The Finnegan family occupied the house until around 1956, when it was acquired by Francis Hanna, a Belfast-based solicitor who used it as a summer house. Hanna purchased San Michele outright from the Turnly estate in 1967 and occupied it until at least the 1970s. By 1956–72 the rateable value had increased to £68. The building was included in the Cushendall Conservation Area in 1975, when the village was designated as one of only the second conservation areas in the province and chosen as one of Northern Ireland's four pilot schemes for conservation during European Architectural Heritage Year.

The property is set within a mature sloping site with a bitmac front parking area accessed via a pair of rendered pillars opening onto Layde Road. The listing extends to the house, steps, railings, gate piers, and garden features. The building remains in use as a private dwelling.