Rather than presenting one formal face to the world and a plainer service side to the other, both principal elevations were conceived with equal care, in crisp grey ashlar stonework that still reads as deliberate and composed. The ground floor is rusticated, meaning the stonework is cut or finished to give a bold, blocky texture that was a common way of lending solidity and gravitas to the lower storey of a Georgian building. Above that, the southern entrance front runs to five bays, with a central three-bay pedimented breakfront projecting slightly forward, and a central doorway framed by a concave limestone surround and engaged Ionic columns carrying a fanlight. The east and west sides, meanwhile, are built in random rubble sandstone with brick-dressed window openings, a quiet contrast to the ashlar faces. The roof is hipped, with a central valley hidden behind a parapet and cornice.

Exactly when William Hayes built the house is a matter of mild disagreement between sources: one authority gives 1769, another gives 1759. Either way, the design belongs firmly to the mid-to-late eighteenth century and to a Cork gentry class that was investing seriously in architecture at the time. The free-standing two-storey wings that flank the house are particularly well composed, with pedimented garden fronts that combine Diocletian windows, a type of semicircular window divided into three lights by two uprights, above Venetian doorways, and circular oculi set into the pediments themselves. It is a layering of classical motifs that would not have looked out of place in a Dublin townhouse of the same period. To the south-east, the remains of farm buildings survive, including a dovecote, a tower or structure built to house doves or pigeons, which were kept as a source of food and fertiliser on prosperous estates.

The house is now used as a community centre, which means the building has an active life rather than sitting idle, and the farm remains to the south-east are worth a look for anyone passing through the area.