THE MIX OF Australian and Irish design in this Co Mayo house – near Swinford – perfectly mirrors its owners: Annette Gallogly who is from the local area and Bryck Robin from the Blue Mountains just outside Sydney. The couple promised to bring a lot to this rural area where they dreamed of bringing up their young family, writes EMMA CULLINAN

Annette is a theatre nurse and Bryck runs Rockingham Construction with Aidan Minnock. The couple have built a beautifully designed house – by Paul Keogh Architects (PKA) – which is very well constructed, with high insulation, a low-energy use heat-recovery system, wood-burning stoves and solar panels.

Yet, now the couple are planning to go to Australia because of the recession and the house is on the market through Matt Duggan Auctioneers for €495,000 with 9.5 acres of land.

The couple took a few years to find a site but eventually found this enchanting spot on a wooded hill overlooking Callow Lake. There was outline planning permission for a bungalow: “I’d always wanted a bungalow,” says Robin. “Being from Oz I wanted the kind of old tin-roof Colonial-feel version.”

His company had worked with PKA, a practice which has a track record in contemporary versions of traditional Irish buildings, and Robin turned to them. “Paul and Rachael Chidlow kindly came up to see the site and took the brief.”

Work began in 2005, with the blasting of rock that was so hard local students came to the site to study the phenomenon. Some of the stone was used to create the foundations while – after a long search for a stone mason who would reuse the stone – the rest was used to make stone walls beside the drive. “A couple of stone masons had a look but they tried to sell me their own stone and then I found a great local guy, James Devers, who did the front wall over six weeks in the pouring rain.”

Paul Keogh Architects opted for a design of twin pitched-roof structures that slide past each other and are divided by a long corridor with 14 skylights in it – natural light is an important feature in this house.

It was built using the Kingspan TEK system employing structural insulated panels to create a warm, air-tight building.

The house looks south over the lake. The living areas are to the front – to make the most of passive solar gain – and the four bedrooms are at the back and are relatively modest in size to make them easy to heat with the heat exchanger – although the bathrooms (one on its own and the other sitting between two bedrooms) have underfloor heating.

All of the bedrooms have large glass doors onto the countryside to make them feel bigger. The main bedroom has views of the lake and comes complete with a walk-in wardrobe. Because builders can do what they wish, an LCD television screen has been built into the angle of the ceiling to allow TV viewing from the bed (there is another one built-in over the fire in the livingroom). Such is Robin’s technical know-how and contempt for trailing wires, the house is wired for new technology – and you can make iPods, CDs, DVDs, PCs or TVs do whizzy things from remote controls or panels in each room (including the bathroom, should you be after water music).

The large – 9m by 5m – kitchen/dining/living area has a vaulted ceiling dotted with rooflights. The kitchen is from In House and was installed by Robin who used a green speckled Corian-like worktop. There is also an island unit and swish appliances including a De Dietrich induction hob and oven and De Dietrich extractor “which is like a work of art”. Those not being warmed in the kitchen can take to a couch in the same room, before a large wood-pellet stove. Beside this is another sittingroom, also with a vaulted ceiling and wood-pellet fire.

The exterior is in a mix of coloured cement board and western red cedar, from Wicklow, to fit in with the wooden surroundings (the garage is also cedar clad). Robin had wanted a corrugated iron roof that spoke of traditional Australian architecture and Irish farm buildings but eventually went with aluminium: “Because the weather might have made the iron rusty – and the aluminium is contemporary; very trendy.” Robin built the house himself, with his team at Rockingham, in between other jobs and it took just over a year. Bryck, Annette and their two children moved in for Christmas 2006, but then Annette lost her hospital job in Castlebar and the downturn meant that work Robin had lined up in Mayo was cancelled – so the couple moved to Wicklow where they both found work. Now they use the house at weekends but plan to move to Australia.

“The nail in the coffin was Annette losing her job as a theatre nurse in Castlebar. We will be very sad to leave this house and the only reason is that we are going back to Oz. We don’t want to live in Dublin or Wicklow, we wanted to live in Mayo. I’ve been here for 11 years but it was my wife who said ‘let’s give Oz a go’.”

That leaves an extremely well-built, warm house for someone else who also appreciates this beautiful spot. “It’s a lovely house,” says Robin. “Everyone who comes here loves it. It is just great sitting out on the front deck looking out over the lake.”