What began as an 18th-century five-bay, three-storey structure overlooking Bantry Bay was later drawn into the architectural fashions of the early 19th century, when the exterior was reworked with balustrading, pilasters, and brick detailing. The result is a house that reads like a palimpsest, its original proportions still legible beneath the later embellishments.

The early 19th-century remodelling added something rather particular: glazed Corinthian entrances on both the garden and entrance fronts. A Corinthian entrance of this kind, with its elaborate columnar detailing and glazed canopy, was a way of signalling refinement without rebuilding entirely. Having one on each front is less common and suggests either considerable ambition or a desire for symmetry of impression regardless of which approach a visitor might use. The wider ensemble includes a pedimented stable block to the south-east, finished with a cupola, the small domed or lantern-topped feature that was as much a mark of estate status as a practical aid to ventilation. To the north, a lodge with a central archway marks the formal entrance to the property. Mark Bence-Jones, whose 1978 survey of Irish country houses remains a standard reference, recorded the house and its details, and the picture that emerges is of a modest but carefully composed estate, positioned to make the most of its prospect over the bay.