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Torched mansion to be a hotel
 A
?60MILLION restoration project on a former stately home burned by the
IRA is set to transform it into a luxury five-star hotel.
The old Puxley mansion in Castletownbere which was burned in 1921 will
open next spring as the Capella Dunboy Castle hotel.
Millions have been spent on restoring the building to its former glory.
Such was the dilapidated state of the Victorian Gothic structure that
it had no roof and trees were growing out of the tops of some of its walls.
The project’s conservation engineer Chris Southgate said the restoration
work had been very demanding.
He said: “To restore a building of this size which had Scots pine
trees growing-out of the tops of the walls while honouring the exacting
standards required by the local authorities and the Department of the
Environment was an extremely ambitious project.
“It required an enormous amount of courage from the developer and
skill from the contractor and conservation specialists working on the
project.
The current use of the site as a luxury hotel is probably the only solution
to coming up with the enormous resources required to save the building.”
It will be Capella’s second Irish hotel after Castlemartyr opened
its doors in east Cork last August.
When completed the hotel will have 84 suites, a large gourmet restaurant,
cellar bar with casual dining and a spa and leisure centre with indoor
swimming pool and gymnasium.
It is set in a magnificent location just three miles from Castletownbere
and surrounded by 40-acres of wooded parkland.
It also has panoramic views overlooking Bantry Bay and Bere Island. |
