Magheraboy House, 41 Magheraboy Road, Coleraine, Co. Londonderry, BT56 8NX

Magheraboy House is a symmetrical, two-storey-with-attic, three-bay detached Victorian villa, built around 1860 to designs by the prominent Ulster architect Charles Lanyon (1813–1889). It stands on the north side of Magheraboy Road, south of Portrush town centre, in the townland of Magheraboy, and is now in use as a hotel. The building is an important example of Lanyon's work and, despite alterations associated with its hotel use that have been detrimental to its proportions and character, the quality and survival of its architectural detailing still attest to a formerly elegant gentleman's villa and one of the more prominent houses in the area.

The house has a rectangular plan with single-storey canted bay windows to the north. Modern single-storey extensions have been added to three sides, and large two-storey modern wings have been added to the south and east, all of little architectural interest. The roof is hipped and covered in artificial slate with sandstone ridges and hips. The rendered and panelled chimneystacks have bracketed corniced caps and three decorative terracotta pots each. Cast-iron ogee rainwater goods are carried on projecting bracketed eaves.

The external walls are finished in painted smooth render, with channelled rustication to the ground floor set on a contrasting plinth. A bead-moulded string course runs below the bracketed eaves, with a moulded impost course and sill course to the first floor. The windows are replacement timber casements set in round-headed moulded surrounds with keyblocks to the first floor; these are surmounted by pediments — segmental pediments to the left and right bays — carried on scrolled and embellished consoles with decorative carved mouldings to the spandrels. The ground-floor canted bay windows are tripartite and wider to the main face, divided by pilasters with moulded frieze and cornice surmounted by a parapet. Two segmental-headed dormer windows light the attic storey.

The principal elevation faces north and is arranged in the classical manner with three openings to each floor. At the centre of the ground floor is a semi-circular headed doorway fronted by a distyle Ionic portico with entablature, segmental pediment, and pilaster responds. The door itself is a bolection-moulded two-panelled double-leaf timber door with brass knobs and number, surmounted by a fanlight with leaded and bevelled glass panels.

The east elevation has a projecting chimney breast to the right, abutted at ground floor by a modern extension. The south (rear) elevation features a round-headed stairwell window with leaded and stained glass, and a replacement timber sheeted door accessed by a modern metal staircase to roof level, both at first-floor level left of centre. To the right at first floor is a round-headed 3/6 timber sash window with spoked head, horns, and a projecting painted sill. The ground floor here is abutted by a modern extension. The west elevation has a projecting chimney breast flanked on either side at first floor by a round-headed multi-paned uPVC window, with the modern single-storey extension abutting at ground floor.

The building was described by architectural historian W. D. Girvan as "an excellent stucco villa" and a typical county villa "in the Lanyon manner," noting specifically the Ionic portico with segmental pediment, the flanking canted bay windows, the banded rustication to the walls, and the eaves cornice supported by heavy consoles. The dwelling was likely constructed after Lanyon took his assistant William Henry Lynn into partnership, forming the firm Lanyon and Lynn in 1854–55.

An earlier property on the site appears on the first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1830, at which time it was known as Seaview House. The current mid-Victorian dwelling, shown as an L-shaped building on the second edition Ordnance Survey map of around 1860, replaced this earlier structure. Griffith's Valuation of 1857 records the site as occupied by Dr. Robert Hamilton, who owned the property outright; Seaview House and its associated outbuildings were valued at a total of £30. Hamilton was a Liverpool-based, non-practising English surgeon who had retired to the Causeway coast around 1855. The 1901 Census records him as aged 73, Church of Ireland, residing at Magheraboy House with his wife Jane (aged 68) and three adult children. The house was then described as a first-class dwelling of 16 rooms with a stable, three cow houses, a dairy, piggery, boiling house, and barn among its outbuildings. The third edition Ordnance Survey map of 1904 records a large outbuilding to the south-east of the dwelling, likely housing the majority of these farm offices, which has since been demolished. By the 1911 Census, Hamilton was aged 83, a widower, and cared for by servants. He continued to reside at Magheraboy House until at least 1917, when he was last recorded as occupant in the Annual Revisions and is presumed to have died.

From 1919 the site was reoccupied by a Mr. Robert Lee Hogg, who made various additions to the house, resulting in an increase in its rateable value to £65. Hogg remained until 1927, when the property passed to the Whitely family, who were the last occupants recorded in the Annual Revisions, which ended in 1929.

Between 1934 and 1947 Magheraboy House was occupied by Sir Richard Dawson Bates (1876–1949), the first Minister for Home Affairs for Northern Ireland. Bates moved to Magheraboy House in 1934 and was created Baronet of Magheraboy on 7 June 1937. During his retirement after 1943, financial difficulties and sectarian targeting forced him to abandon the house and move to England, where he died in 1949; he was later buried in Ballywillin Parish Church near his former home.

The house was listed in 1977. It has since been converted into a hotel and all of the original outbuildings visible on early Ordnance Survey maps have been demolished to make way for a three-storey hotel accommodation block to the east of the former dwelling. Since 2006 the hotel has undergone renovation and extension work totalling over £3 million.

The conversion for hotel use has brought large-scale re-landscaping of the site, which has degraded much of its original character. The view from the road is now dominated by the rear extensions, and a modern entrance has been inserted to the south-west. The original balustrade and steps to the former gardens at the front have been replaced by a gravelled car park. The house overlooks a modern housing estate to the north and is bounded by a mature hedgerow.