The White House

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Terraced symmetrical Art Deco multi-bay three-storey rendered department store, remodelled c.1930 from an earlier mid nineteenth-century terrace. Rectangular on plan facing northeast with full-span shopfront to the ground floor having a full-span canopy and a three-storey extension to rear. Forming part of a terrace of various building types lining the east side of Main Street and interconnected to No.43 (Trocadero HB03/10/018B).

Flat roof hidden behind oversized rendered parapet wall having a deep coping and stepped base framing a fascia with applied lettering; THE WHITE HOUSE’. Two pairs of tapered mouldings adorn the parapet fascia to either side. Rendered chimneystack with clay pots rising from both side elevations. Painted rendered walling. Square-headed window openings with chamfered surrounds, masonry sills and replacement 6/6 timber sash windows with ogee horns.

Symmetrical front elevation is eleven windows wide with a centrally placed lean-to timber glazed conservatory to the first floor supported on the shopfront canopy. Symmetrical glazed shopfront, c.1950 over polished granite plinth course; slender steel-framed display windows. Overhanging canopy has a timber panelled soffit and a pair of continuous mouldings forming a fascia with applied lettering; ‘THE WHITE HOUSE PORTRUSH LTD’, railed to either side of conservatory with decorative steel railing (possibly replacement). Recessed central door opening with double-leaf hardwood glazed doors and overlight with Art Deco brass handles.

East side elevation abutted by adjoining building No.43 (HB03/10/018B).

Rear elevation abutted by three-storey flat-roofed extension, built c.1960, extending to Mark Street Lane to the rear.

West side elevation abutted by adjoining building No.47.

Setting
Forming part of a terrace of commercial and former residential buildings lining the southwest side of Main Street in the commercial centre of Portrush.

Roof Not seen
RWG Not visible
Walling Render
Windows 6/6 timber sash

Historical information

The numbering of commercial properties on Main Street, Portrush, appears to have changed three times during their existence. For example, The White House was initially four terrace-houses (nos. 99, 100, 101, and 102), but by the early 1890s they were known as nos. 33, 35, 37, and 39: currently they have been amalgamated to form no. 45.

In 1891 Henry Hamilton, from Portglenone, Co. Antrim, founded the drapery business called ‘The White House’, which remained in the family until very recently. It took its name from that well-known other ‘White House’ in Washington D.C. to reflect Hamilton’s previous American experience (www.bbc.co.uk/northernireland/yourplaceormine/antrim/white_house.shtml Accessed 08.04.13). Across the road was originally a three-storey hotel of the same name (The White House), alongside two others that the Hamiltons acquired (Byrne).

The original footprint of The White House, Portrush, was an established row of four three-storey terraced houses built between 1849 and 1857. A map of 1849 (PRONI D2977/36/6/12) shows that no. 99 had been built, whilst nos. 100-102 remained unassigned building-ground. Dan Hanna’s “Isometric Perspective of the Town of Portrush in the County of Antrim, Ireland, the Property of The Earl of Antrim Shewing the Building Lots to be Let and the Description of Buildings proposed to be Erected” of 1857 (PRONI D2977/36/6/13) shows some buildings on this part of Main Street that were leased and this information correlates with the facts identified on the 1844 and 1849 maps.

In the early 1890s two of them (nos. 33 and 35, replacing nos. 99 and 100) were occupied by Hamilton and his wife, Margaret Jane (PRONI VAL/12/B/6/2E). The rateable value of no. 33 in 1892 was £20, much in keeping with the other terrace-houses on the street which included offices and gardens. In 1895 the rateable value of no. 33 was raised to £27 (presumably taking into account that it had, in part, become a shop [PRONI VAL/12/B/6/2E]). No. 35 at this time remained a house, with offices and gardens, similar to those at nos. 37 and 39, all later to be incorporated into the store’s footprint, no. 45.

Hanna’s drawing (1857) (PRONI D2977/36/6/13) shows that no. 33 (24ft. wide by 121ft. long) had originally maintained the same roof-line as nos. 27, 29, and 31 Main Street, and like its neighbour (no. 31—HB03/10/018B) had a front door-opening to the right of its façade (as it faced Main Street) with two rectangular lights to its left; three other lights manifest on each of its first and second floors, which completed the symmetry of the front elevation. It had a gently pitched roof, a front garden (10ft. deep with a gate), and a rear yard/garden where a building had been erected facing Mark Street. No. 35 (then no.100), occupied by Hamilton in or before 1889 and leased from Angus Cameron, presented a taller elevation to the street compared with the attached terrace-houses of nos. 27, 29, 31, and 33 (then nos. 96, 97, 98, and 99). Nos. 37 and 39 (then nos. 100 and 101) continued with this elevated eaves-line and maintained similar characteristics (front door-openings to the right on the ground floor with two rectangular lights to the left, three lights a piece on the first and second floors, with garden buildings to the rear backing on to Mark Street). There were no front gardens marked on the perspective (1857) as the houses appear to open straight on to the pavement. No. 41 (then no.102) had a smaller footprint, though the same elevated eaves-line with its front door-opening to the right and one rectangular window to the left, and on the first and second floors two rectangular window-lights pierced the front façade.

Between 1895 and 1906 Margaret Hamilton set up workrooms (in addition to the existing shop) at no. 33 Main Street, its rateable value more than doubling (PRONI VAL/12/B/4/22B). Documentary evidence suggests that Henry Hamilton began trading with ‘peasant crafts’, the products of a cottage-industry in Donegal, identifying a market in North America for Irish textiles which he serviced by mail-order. He stocked home-spun linen and other materials attracting both local, distant, and royal custom, the most noted being Queen Victoria in the late 1890s and the Prince of Wales in 1903.
(http://www.bbc.co.uk/northernireland/yourplaceandmine/antrim/white_house.shtml. Accessed 08.04.13). An official document from the Store in 1936 defined part of The White House as a drapers, outfitters, and dressmakers occupying nos. 33 to 39 Main Street (PRONI COM/96/42/244). The store employed 21 operatives (10 men, 10 women, and 1 female under the age of 18), and a further 3 employees for administrative, technical, and clerical support. All work was in-house, and included men’s, boys’, ladies’, and girls’ wear, an alteration service, and cloth sold by the yard.

On the 1897 to 1916 valuation map a shaded area across the front of nos. 35, 37, and 39, manifest as a single-storey partly-open colonnade above which were two upper floors, is shown (PRONI VAL/12/E/46/2/2). The building continued to display its period rectangular lights under a pitched roof, and at eaves-level was a modillioned cornice, all confirmed in a photograph of the period (Byrne).

The White House was first introduced as a building name at no. 33 Main Street between 1914 and 1925, occupied by Margaret Jane who was then leasing it from The Earl of Antrim (PRONI VAL/12/B/4/22C). Nos. 35, 37, and 39 were brought together under the same lease (owned by The Earl of Antrim) occupied by Henry Hamilton who was trading in part as an hotel, shop, workshops, and a yard. These buildings also acquired the name ‘The White House’ by the following valuation records of 1925-1930 (PRONI VAL/12/B/4/22D). Between 1936 and 1957 the 1st and 2nd floors of nos. 35, 37, and 39 Main Street were trading as an hotel (PRONI VAL/3C/1/30).

Some time between 1956 and 1972 a major shift occurred in both valuation and street numbering, and what had been nos. 33, 35, 37 & 39 had become fused into one and renumbered ‘45’ (PRONI VAL/4B/1/64) defined as a ‘shop, workrooms, stores, and offices’, attracting a rateable value of £1,160, having previously commanded a total of £185 for the initial four buildings. This suggests a major development—possibly an extension to create a parapet and the flattening of the roof-line to create a more Modernist elevation, albeit a late development of this style. The White House became a limited company between 1956 and 1972 (PRONI VAL/4B/1/64) with 66% of its trade gleaned from the tourist industry, employing permanent and seasonal workers (PRONI D2950/1). Within the last two decades the terrazzo-floored arcade on the front elevation has been replaced with a glazed shop extension on the ground floor above which is a glazed panelled tearoom in a 1930s style.

Primary Sources
Maps
PRONI D2977/36/6/13, ‘Isometric Perspective of the Town of Portrush in the County of Antrim, Ireland, the Property of The Earl of Antrim Shewing the Building Lots to be Let and the Description of Buildings proposed to be Erected by Dan Hanna' (1857)
PRONI D2977/36/6/10 map of Portrush (1844)
PRONI D2977/36/6/12 map of Portrush (1849)
PRONI VAL/12/E/46/2/2 Map (1897-1916)

PRONI VAL/12/B/6/2E Electoral Division of Portrush Urban (1889-1895)
PRONI VAL/12/B/4/22B Electoral Division of Portrush Urban (1906-1913)
PRONI VAL/12/B/4/22C Electoral Division of Portrush Urban (1914-1925).
PRONI VAL/12/B/4/22D Electoral Division of Portrush Urban (1925-1930).
PRONI VAL/3C/1/30 Urban District of Portrush, Electoral Division (1936-1957)
PRONI VAL/4B/1/64 2nd General Revaluation of Northern Ireland (1956-1972)

PRONI COM/96/42/244 The White House, Portrush Ltd. (1936).
PRONI D2950/1. ‘The New University of Ulster, School of Biological and Environmental Studies. `Portrush Tourist Survey (1972)

Secondary Sources
Byrne, D.R, “Vintage Post”, Coleraine: The Ballywillin Drama Group, 2005
www.bbc.co.uk/northernireland/yourplaceormine/antrim/white_house.shtml Accessed 08.04.13

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

Terraced symmetrical Art Deco multi-bay three-storey rendered department store, built c.1930. A former roofline to the southwest gable and the vertical emphasis in the fenestration may indicate a extensive remodelling of an earlier terrace with the current appearance expressing an early twentieth-century character. Lillte original detailing remains to the interior, and although the distinctive façade and larger scale make this a landmark in the streetscape of this coastal town, it has been too altered to be of special architectural or historic interest.