Carey House, 142 Cushendall Road, Ballyvoy, Ballycastle, Co Antrim, BT54 6RN

Carey House is a detached, two-storey Edwardian-style house built in 1908, sitting prominently in its rural landscape on flat ground set back from the Cushendall Road, with land falling steeply northwards to the Carey River valley and open countryside beyond. It was built by Thomas J. O'Neill (c.1867–1936), who, given his professional background as assistant county surveyor, was likely also responsible for its design. The house takes its name from the Barony of Carey (or Cary) within which it stands, and the listing extends to the house, its gates, and gateposts.

The house is approached via a compacted hardcore drive, with a range of outbuildings to the north and west. It has an asymmetrical composition with a two-storey rear return to the north and a single-storey access porch to the west side. Throughout, the exterior walls are roughcast render above an ogee-topped base plinth, with smooth render plasterwork, detailed window surrounds, and rusticated quoins. Heavily rusticated corbelling appears at the external corners. A flat render stringcourse runs at first-floor window-cill level, and additional moulded bands appear at eaves level on the bay windows. The main roofs are natural slate with looped terracotta ridge tiles and end finials; the minor roofs — covering the freestanding entrance porch and the canted bay windows — are terracotta tiles with looped terracotta ridges. Rainwater goods are cast iron with half-round gutters and round-profile downpipes, and bargeboards are painted timber. To the east, the main roof carries a stepped and corbelled brick chimney stack with four circular clay pots; to the west, a smaller straight chimney stack has two pots.

Windows are predominantly timber sliding sash. Some have finely detailed margin-pane windows — a distinctive decorative feature running throughout the design — while others are plain one-over-one sashes. Some windows have been replaced with timber replicas that match the appearance of the originals.

Principal (South) Elevation

The principal elevation is asymmetrically arranged around a central square-headed doorway with a freestanding timber porch above. The doorway is set within a fluted architrave on square concrete base stones and contains a painted eight-panel timber door with a multi-pane transom window above. The freestanding porch has terracotta tiles, a terracotta ridge, and an ornate finial.

To the right of the entrance the composition is dominated by a raised gable, a tripartite window arrangement at first-floor level, and a canted bay window at ground floor. The canted bay has one-over-one timber sash windows to either side, with margin-pane windows in the upper half of the top sash — a detail replicated and expanded upon in the upper section of the central fixed-light window. At first-floor level, above the terracotta tile roof of the canted bay, a tripartite arrangement contains a two-over-two timber sash window flanked by one-over-one timber sash windows on either side, with raised plasterwork panel detailing ornamenting the upper portion of the gable.

To the left of the entrance at ground floor level is a pair of one-over-one timber sash windows with margin-pane windows in the upper sash. At first-floor level, a pair of windows — without margin-pane glazing, and replaced at the time of survey — are set within a raised parapet dormer with ornate plaster detailing.

West (Side) Elevation

The west elevation has an irregular gable roof, shallower-pitched and longer to the north, continuing as a flush rear return. Slightly off-centre sits a single-storey porch with a slate gable roof, terracotta loophole ridge tiles, and an ornate end finial. It has a single-pane window to the south and a square-headed doorway with a six-panel timber door to the north. To the north of the porch at ground level is a one-over-one timber sash window with margin-pane windows in both the top and bottom sashes. To the immediate south of the porch is a second one-over-one plain timber sash window. Above the first-floor cill band are two differently sized one-over-one timber sash windows, both without margin-pane glazing. A large six-panel stained-glass window illuminates the staircase; each panel has a rectilinear sub-division pattern that mirrors the margin-pane window detailing used elsewhere throughout the building.

North (Rear) Elevation

The rear elevation has two gables. The western gable steps out in plan as the two-storey rear return and has a shallower roof pitch than the other gable. This return has two one-over-one timber sliding sash windows at ground level and a further two at first-floor level, all differently sized and asymmetrically placed. The eastern gable has two one-over-one timber sliding sash windows at first-floor level and is blank at ground floor, though it bears evidence of a slate-hipped-roof single-storey structure — now demolished — that formerly occupied the re-entrant corner. All three external corners have heavily rusticated corbelling.

East (Side) Elevation

The principal features of the east elevation are a single-storey canted bay entrance porch at the northern end and a broad, centrally positioned, stepping-in brick chimney stack that dominates the slate roof. At first-floor level there are two one-over-one timber sliding sash windows. At the southern end of the ground floor is a single one-over-one timber sliding sash window. At the northern end, a canted bay entrance porch has a hipped terracotta tile roof. The bay has one-over-one timber sash windows on either side, with margin-pane windows in the upper portion of the top sashes, and centrally a two-leaf glazed timber door above which a transom window is subdivided to match the margin-pane detailing. On the east-facing elevation of the rear return, the first floor has a two-pane timber casement window and, placed slightly lower, a one-over-one timber sash window. At ground floor level are replacement timber double doors, each leaf with a solid lower panel and a glazed upper panel subdivided to mirror the margin-pane window detailing found elsewhere.

Historical Context

Carey House stands on farmland that Thomas O'Neill inherited from his father, John O'Neill (c.1836–c.1907), which the family had leased from the Antrim estate since at least the later 1850s. The house replaced a single-storey thatched dwelling which, from map evidence, appears to date from before 1832, and which in a much-altered form may now form part of the long northern range of outbuildings.

John O'Neill had been assistant surveyor for County Antrim, and Thomas studied under him before going on to work with various engineers and architects, most notably Luke Livingston Macassey, whom he assisted on the Silent Valley water supply scheme. Like his father, Thomas became an assistant county surveyor, and also served as engineer to the Ballyclare and Ballycastle Urban District Councils and to the Ballycastle Board of Guardians. In private practice he supplied designs for the chapel at the Convent of Mercy on the Crumlin Road, Belfast (1909), the Roman Catholic church at Hannahstown near Belfast (1911), and in Ballycastle, the Ulster Bank (1918) and the Convent of the Cross and Passion (1923).

In the 1911 census, Thomas J. O'Neill — recorded as 43 years old and described as a civil engineer — is listed as living at Carey House with his wife J.E. O'Neill, whom he had married just several months prior, and two domestic servants, Mary Black and John Humphreys. The house is noted as a first-class dwelling, slated or tiled, with nine windows to the front and containing eleven rooms. Thomas O'Neill died in October 1936, and Carey House has remained with his descendants.

The older house that Carey House replaced was the birthplace of Canon James Kearney O'Neill (1857–1922), who in 1915 founded the Catholic fraternal organisation the Order of the Knights of Columbanus.

Much of the original fabric and detailing survives, including the roofs, finials, chimney stacks, and external plasterwork, as well as internally the doors, stairs, plasterwork, and timber moulding details.