Magheramorne House, 59 Shore Road, Magheramorne, Larne, Co Antrim, BT40 3HW

Magheramorne House is a substantial country house designed around 1878 by the leading Irish architect Samuel P. Close and built in 1880 for Sir James McGarel Hogg, the first Lord Magheramorne. The builder was James Henry. Close exhibited his drawings for the house at the Royal Hibernian Academy in Dublin in both 1878 and 1880. The house replaced an earlier Magheramorne House situated further east on the estate near the present outbuildings, which was itself a successor to Ballylig House, built in 1817 and replaced by 1857. The current building served as an old people's home in the 1960s and was later converted to a hotel. Following a fire in the late 1970s, the staircase and roof of the main block were replaced; a modern porch was added around 1987, and the building was restored in 1981.

The house is a large two-storey stone building with gabled attics, laid out on an asymmetrical plan, with the main entrance facing south-west. The walls are of snecked rough-faced greystone with red ashlar sandstone quoins, red sandstone block surrounds to windows, and chamfered string courses throughout. The roofs of the main block are covered in Bangor Blue slates in regular courses — a later replacement material — with red terracotta ridge tiles. Moulded cast iron gutters sit on chamfered red sandstone eaves courses, with rectangular cast iron downpipes fitted with moulded and coved hoppers. Gables have red sandstone copings and stone ball finials, with modern metal floodlighting lamps fixed to the apex of the main gables on the entrance front. Chimneys are built in matching rubble walling with tall caps of battered profile and three or four plain pots to each stack. All windows on the original building are rectangular timber sliding sash, vertically hung, one-over-one with horns, set within chamfered reveals beneath Gothic relieving arches in greystone.

The entrance elevation of the main block reads, from right to left, as follows. A tall projecting gable contains two windows to both the ground and first floors and one window to the attic, surmounted by a circular red sandstone panel bearing a blank shield, with a tall chimney crossing the ridge behind it. Next comes a projecting flat-roofed entrance bay with three windows to the first floor in the wall beyond, these without relieving arches, and above it a gabled dormer with a red sandstone surround to the window, a greystone gable, and slate-hung cheeks. Then follow two gables, the right-hand one being broader and taller, each containing one window to the first floor and one to the attic. The main entrance sits within a flat-roofed porch formed by unfluted Doric columns and pilasters of red sandstone, projecting from the front face of the main left-hand gable with a short bay one window wide between porch and gable. Above the short bay and porch is a red sandstone parapet ornamented with repeated shield panels; at the centre of the porch parapet is a large shield carved with a heraldic design. Large moulded ball finials mark each corner of the porch. The window immediately to the left of the porch is sashed as elsewhere, but its lower sash contains leaded glazing with a heraldic panel.

Projecting between the columns of the original porch is a later modern glazed porch of octagonal plan, timber-framed on low walls of reconstituted stone that repeat the cill and plinth mouldings of the original building. This modern porch has double doors to two faces, reached by flights of concrete steps, and glazed panels with segmental heads — a design considered inappropriate in character. Stepping back to the right of the original porch is a modern conservatory of reconstituted stone that continues the line of the string courses of the original porch. Its front is of lean-to form, timber-framed and glazed with segmental heads, arranged in two main runs between projecting piers, with moulded PVC gutters and a mixture of circular PVC and rectangular metal downpipes with hoppers of varying designs. To the right of the conservatory are the twin gables of a modern late-20th-century wing constructed in concrete brick, which imitates some features of the original building. Each gable contains one window and one door to the ground floor: rectangular six-panel timber doors with fanlights above and rectangular top-hung-over-fixed-light timber windows with chamfered surrounds and a projecting concrete string course as sills. Rectangular metal downpipes with moulded hoppers differ in design from those on the main house; circular surrounds frame vent grilles in each gable.

The side wall of the projecting front return of the main block has Bangor Blue slates, one sash window to the first floor, and matching cast iron guttering and downpipes. To the left of the return gable, a low lateral link block connects with the gabled wing. This link block has walls matching those of the main house, roofs of Westmorland green slates in diminishing courses with red terracotta ridge tiles, and moulded PVC gutters and downpipes. A doorway at ground level to the link block was originally a window; its right-hand jamb retains a red sandstone block surround with a stop-chamfered detail, while the left-hand jamb has been given a new smooth cement-rendered reveal. To the right of this new doorway is a blocked-up window. At basement level there is a sash window and a doorway enlarged from an original window; to each side wall of the basement court is an original window with a Gothic relieving arch, the right-hand one sashed two-over-two. The basement court is crossed by a modern steel fire escape stairway and balcony. The gable to the left contains two sash windows with Gothic relieving arches, surmounted at the apex by a red sandstone shield in a circular surround; the lower sashes of each window contain leaded glazing with heraldic patterns matching those elsewhere, and to the right of the windows a circular cast iron soil pipe with trefoil-shaped brackets. The large chimney crossing the ridge of the wing matches the others but has a battered profile to its right-hand side. Projecting from the left-hand extremity of the wing is a low wall of arcaded red sandstone balustrading surmounting a retaining wall that accommodates a steep slope down to the west elevation.

The north-west elevation of the main block is two-storey with a symmetrically designed roof of Bangor Blue slates, four gabled stone dormers detailed as elsewhere, and two chimneys. A moulded gutter is served by two rectangular metal downpipes with moulded cast iron hoppers. Four windows to the first floor beyond the link block are rectangular timber sash without relieving arches; the first and third from the front contain recessed red sandstone panels to the head. To the right of these first-floor windows, in front of the link block, is a red sandstone roundel with a plain shield; below, at ground floor level, is a rectangular window with a relieving arch. The north-west elevation of the wing is two-storey, with the lower storey forming the basement. Walling matches the entrance front. The roof is of Westmorland green slates in diminishing courses between gable upstands, with red terracotta ridge tiles and a central chimney with battered front and rear faces. To the left of the chimney is a gabled wooden dormer containing a rectangular timber sash window, with projecting bargeboards, a wooden collar supported on shaped brackets, a wooden finial with turned ends, tongued-and-grooved boarding to the apex of the gable, a Westmorland green slated roof on projecting rafters, and matching slates to the cheeks. A moulded cast iron gutter (broken near the left-hand end) and a square cast iron downpipe with a moulded hopper sit in the angle with the projecting gable to the right. Reading from left to right, the north-west elevation comprises: small rectangular timber louvres in an undressed opening at the extreme left of the lower storey; two rectangular windows to each floor with Gothic relieving arches and splayed cills to the lower storey; a slightly projecting gable containing a triplet of rectangular sash windows, each with its own relieving arch, to the upper floor, surmounted by a shield in a roundel, and a narrow rectangular sash window with a splayed cill to the lower storey grouped with a rectangular doorway under a wide relieving arch fitted with a timber ledged door and rectangular fanlight; a narrow rectangular opening with splayed cill containing wooden louvres to the right-hand side of the gable; and a low single-storey bay at the right-hand extremity containing a rectangular doorway with a timber louvred door, a relieving arch over, surmounted by arcaded balustrading.

The north-east elevation, facing the garden, presents two gables breaking forward from the main face, each containing two-storey splayed bays with steep roofs and dressed in buff sandstone. The recessed main face is symmetrical with four first-floor windows — rectangular timber sash without relieving arches — and three windows and a doorway to the right below, all with relieving arches. The main face and the quoins to the flanking gables are dressed in red sandstone matching the entrance front. The roof is of Bangor Blue slates in regular courses, with two stone dormers and two chimneys as elsewhere. A moulded gutter with a square cast iron downpipe and moulded cast iron hopper sits in the angle with the left-hand gable; a circular PVC soil pipe added later to the centre has caused the red sandstone string course to be crudely broken through. The canted bays are dressed in buff sandstone ashlar with relieving arches over the ground-floor windows; window chamfers are moulded, with rectangular top corners to the ground floor but rounded top corners to the first floor. The door in the main face is rectangular, varnished oak, panelled and glazed, with an original ornamented bronze doorknob, a rectangular fanlight, and recessed red sandstone reveals, reached by two flights of buff sandstone steps with a short sandstone plinth wall leading up from a terrace and grassy slope. Set back to the right-hand side of the north-east elevation, by the depth of one window, is a two-storey link and gabled wing with roofs of Westmorland green slates, moulded cast iron gutters, and rectangular cast iron downpipes. Two sash windows to the upper floor of the link are accompanied by a door and window below, all without relieving arches. To the right, a taller gable contains two sash windows to each floor with relieving arches to the upper floor, surmounted by a smaller sash window with a relieving arch at the apex. Set back slightly to the left-hand side of the north-east elevation is a single-storey link block ending in a taller twin-gabled wing, all in concrete brickwork, with four rectangular windows to the link block and two windows and doorways to the upper floor of each gable of the wing, all detailed similarly to the entrance front. A large steel fire escape stairway on large steel supports dog-legs up to the south-east face of the main block. The link block roof has Bangor Blue slates to its front sloping face, with a flat lead roof and a flat roof covered in stone pebbles beyond; the wing roof has Bangor Blue slates and red terracotta ridge tiles.

The south-east elevation of the original building has its ground floor largely obscured by the lower link block. The first floor has three windows and a doorway enlarged from a window; the windows are sashed as elsewhere and without relieving arches, while the door is flush wooden ply with a top-hung fanlight. A moulded gutter, rectangular cast iron downpipe and hopper, and circular PVC soil pipes serve this elevation. The roof carries Bangor Blue slates and three gabled sandstone dormers detailed as elsewhere, with one chimney. The south-east elevation of the wing is of similar character to its other faces.

Internally, the building retains a range of original ornamental features of considerable quality.

The house stands on an elevated site within extensive grounds, set well back from the main road and largely hidden by trees, with only the roofline and upper areas visible above them. To the front is a tarmac car parking area fringed by grassed areas. The lawn to the south contains a circular pool with carved stone wellheads in Renaissance style, of European origin, standing close by. To the rear of the house is a terraced garden of lawns and modern paving bordered by trimmed hedges. Within this garden stands an ornamental fountain in a revived Renaissance style of late 19th century date but in very damaged condition, along with various stone plant pots on pedestals of classical style. A small pedestrian gateway with a pair of ornamental wrought iron gates leads down steps to a terrace garden with distant views over Larne Lough. The main feature of the lower garden is a stone statue on a pedestal in classical style. The grounds beyond the terraced gardens and forecourt are picturesque, with meandering paths, ponds, and a flowing stream close to the house.

Hidden among trees to the west of the main driveway is a small single-storey garden store, presumably contemporary with the main house, built of basalt rubble with red brick quoins and dressings to the doorway and window, a red brick eaves course, and a hipped roof of Bangor Blue slates. Its timber windows are now derelict, it has a timber ledged door, and its interior has a concrete floor and whitened rubble walls. It is semi-derelict and of no special interest.

In the most northerly corner of the grounds stands the original main entrance gateway with the contemporary gate lodge adjacent, the gate lodge being in separate ownership. The original gateway comprises a pair of square piers, now without gates, with short basalt rubble walls to each end ramped up to the piers and breaking forward at the extremities into curved screen walls terminating in smaller piers. The main piers are of red sandstone with a basalt rubble plinth and a swept pyramidal sandstone cap surmounted by a ball finial; the end piers are of similar character but plainer treatment, with dressed sandstone copings and weatherings to the plinth. Low basalt boundary walls with basalt rock copings return forward from the end piers, extending along the front boundary to the left; rougher quality boundary walling of basalt and limestone rubble continues to the right.

To the south-east of the original gateway is a new entrance driveway with a wide splayed basalt rubble entrance comprising two sets of circular piers with shallow conical caps — considered not a very appropriate design — and no gates. Polished marble name plaques set into each splayed wall of the entrance are inscribed "Historic Building 1880. Restored 1981". Boundary walling continues to the left of the new gateway, and the new driveway is lined with modern lamp standards in an antique style.

To the south-east of the main house stand the contemporary outbuildings, and in the north-east corner of the grounds is an ice house, both listed separately.