Driving up high-hedged roads, and turning off into an unmade lane, I’m not quite prepared for what I’m about to discover at the end.
What I find is Deerpark, a sprawling, recently built extravaganza, with wings, overhangs, balconies, terraces and reflecting pools, giving just under 1,000sq m (10,764sq ft) of living space. It truly is something to behold.
So where to start with this stone and timber faced house in Kilkerly , Dundalk?
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Probably the same place owners Peter and Tia McCaughey did, when they began to build in 2010: with a strong sense of fun.
Deerpark is in 33 acres (13.62 hectares) of pastures, bounded at one side by Castletown River, so space was never an issue. Neither were expertise and experience, as Peter McCaughey is a director of both McCaughey Developments, and of IJM Timber Engineering. The design ideas came from him though Tia says she had to tell him to stop them coming: "I just wanted the house finished."
And it is finished – to the degree that all the rooms, including six bedrooms (all en suite), family room, living room, games room, den, gym, sauna, home cinema, office and dining room are done with an eye for high-spec fittings.
There are solar panels, it’s set up for wireless internet, there’s LED lighting everywhere, and a fully integrated sound system throughout.
Outside, though, you see traces and places, where Peter couldn’t quite stop thinking: there’s a door from one of the bedrooms that was to have led to a walkway, bringing you to where the outdoor hot tub would have been.
And just beside the entrance patio, inset with pools that reflect light up onto the ceiling of the breakfast nook in the kitchen, the listed ruins of Taffy Jenny’s Court (basement walls of a 17th century house) were to have been incorporated in some way.
You can also see the Taffy Jennys ice house from the main bedroom window, and there is a further two-storey, non-listed, house on the property, which would need restoration before use.
Tia’s passion is horses, so there are 12 stables, with tackroom, as well as paddocks for her horse and the children’s ponies.
She says that the nicest thing about living here is the hacking out.
"You can ride down, through the river, and up to an old mill, without ever having to go on the roads. We're only 10 minutes from Dundalk and yet we're cocooned here".
From the outside, the house appears to be all angles and, inside, this works to give day-long light and open up every aspect of the lovely country views. Extra landscaping has been done to give almost total privacy.
"You can enjoy the seasons here," says Tia. "In the winter, when there's snow on the mountains, you feel like you're in Austria. "
Deerpark, for sale through Sherry FitzGerald asking €1.65 million, is a family home, but for one with deep pockets and lively imaginations in order to make full use of all the spaces, inside and out.
Laid out over four floors, four of the bedrooms are on the ground floor, with an almost separate guest flat on the lower ground floor, which has a kitchen-living area to itself.
Upstairs in the main bedroom suite, with its dressing room, balconies, corner gas fire (a glass box with log-effect) and double Jacuzzi included, I start to think it could also suit one of those inscrutable villains from a James Bond film, one who has hung up his plans for world domination, and retired to the country with his white cat.
In the kitchen (complete with steam oven, teppanyaki plate, pizza oven, hot plate and dumb waiters) I picture a celebrity chef, home from screaming invective at sous chefs for the benefit of cameras, perhaps eyeing up the deer, who do still graze the park, with a hungry eye.
Deerpark’s that kind of house, it really gets you thinking, imagining – and dreaming.
