| Tranarossan House | |
|---|---|
 "A witty holiday home" | |
| Type | House |
| Location | Carrigart,County Donegal, Ireland |
| Coordinates | 55°13′45″N7°48′13″W / 55.2292°N 7.8037°W /55.2292; -7.8037 |
| Built | c.1907 |
| Architect | Edwin Lutyens |
| Architectural style(s) | Vernacular |
| Governing body | An Óige (Irish Youth Hostel Association) |
  Location of Tranarossan House in Ireland | |
Tranarossan House is an early 20th century building inCarrigart,County Donegal, Ireland. It was designed byEdwin Lutyens for Lucy Phillimore, wife ofRobert Charles Phillimore. The Phillimores had bought the land on the Donegal coast in the 1890s and commissioned Lutyens to build a holiday home. The house is little documented and is not recorded in most studies of Lutyens. After her husband's death, Lucy Phillimore handed the house over toAn Óige, the Irish Youth Hostel Association, in 1937. It still operates as An Óige's most northerly hostel and is aprotected structure.
Robert Charles Phillimore came from a family of successful and prosperous lawyers and politicians. He and his wife Lucy bought land atCarrigart in the 1890s and later commissionedEdwin Lutyens to design them a holiday home.[1][2] By 1907, the year Tranarossan was completed,[a][7] Lutyens had established himself as one of England's leading architects ofcountry houses. In his study of English domestic buildings,Das englische Haus, published in 1904,Hermann Muthesius had written of him, "He is a young man who has come increasingly to the forefront of domestic architects and who may soon become the accepted leader among English builders of houses".[8]
Robert Phillimore died in 1919. After retaining the house for nearly 20 years, his widow donated it to An Óige in 1937. The house remains a youth hostel, the most northerly in Ireland.[9] The house is little documented and is not referenced in most of the major studies of Lutyens and his work.[b]
In hisNorth West Ulster volume of theBuildings of Ireland series, Alistair Rowan describes Tranarossan as “twogabledgranite blocks…the roofs huge unbroken slopes of heavy localslate”.[12] The building is of one main storey, with attic bedrooms in the gables.[13] Rowan, noting a “typical Lutyens joke” - apier rising from theveranda stops just short of theroof beam it purports to support - calls the house a “witty holiday home”.[12] Tranarossan is listed byDonegal County Council on itsRecord of Protected Structures.[13]