137 Whiterock Bay

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Much altered two storey house built in 1936, originally in the International Style, Philip Bell. The property is set on a slight rise on the S side of Whiterock Bay (road) overlooking Strangford Lough, roughly a mile W of Killinchy.

This house is roughly square in plan and was originally ‘cubist’ in form with a full height projecting bay to front and lower projecting section at the rear. However, in recent times it has been greatly extended at front and rear with an unsuitable hipped roof section stretching from the front to the W facade, whilst at the rear a large two storey extension has been added with extremely large (almost storey height) windows with timber panels below glazing. There are still some original window openings to the right hand side of the E facade as well as the corner window windows to the front, but all have modern frames made of a variety of materials. The house is now entered via a door at the very left hand edge of the E facade as there is no longer an entrance at what was the front.

The original flat roof has been retrained over the main body of the house, as has the rough cast to the facade, however the house is now painted a cream colour more suited to a more traditional dwelling and not one of this kind which would have originally been white.
Rendered chimney stack to E. Metal and PVC rw goods.

This house was originally one of four built to compliment the adjacent Strangford Lough Yacht Club. However, it and one of its companions (No.141) have been unsympathetically altered and the centrepiece of the yacht club is soon to be demolished.

Historical information

This house and its three neighbours to the east were built in c.1936 to designs by Philip Bell, who was at that time in the midst of the construction of the adjacent club house for Strangford Yacht Club. The modernist styling of the house matched that of the yacht club and the properties are said to have been constructed when the high tide prohibited work on the club house itself. The properties were intended by Bell as weekend accommodation for those visiting the area for sailing and were originally without running water or any kind of power.

This property has been extended at the front and rear in fairly recent times, however the changes to the interior were apparently carried out under the direction of Philip Bell in the early 1960s.

References- Primary sources
1 'Irish Builder and Engineer' 6 August 1938, p.647.
2 'The Builder' 14 February 1941, pp.180-181.

Secondary sources
1 'RSUA Yearbook 1983', pp.20-23. [Obituary of Philip Bell.]

The above primary source
references refer mainly to the Yacht Club.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

Two storey house originally built in 1936 in the International Style by Philip Bell, but which has had a large, unsympathetic hipped roof extension added to the front and a two storey section to the rear. Many window openings have been altered and all have had replacement frames which lack consistency in terms of styling or material. Some alterations to the interior were apparently supervised by Bell in the early 1960s, however the external changes have considerably diluted the design intention, obliterating its overtly modernist origins.