1806 – Killakee House, Rathfarnham, Co. Dublin

A 36-room, two-storey, symmetrical, stucco-faced house of with several curved bows. It had a balustraded parapet to the roof, a veranda with slender iron uprights and a balcony above along the centre of the front. Constructe for Luke White, an Irish politician and bookseller, it was the centerpiece of the 3,400-acre estate. In 1838, Sir Ninian Niven, former director of the Botanic Gardens in Dublin, was hired to design the gardens. He laid out two Victorian formal gardens of gravel walks, terraces and exotic trees decorated with statues of Greek and Roman gods. Adjacent to the house was a terraced rose garden with a statue of Neptune. A second walled garden in a vale in the woods below the house contained more fountains and a range of glasshouses from 1843 designed by Richard Turner.

The family ran into financial difficulties in the early 20th century. The end of Killakee House came in 1941 when a bank, which had maintained a caretaker on the premises since 1924, and unable to find a purchaser, sold the house to a builder for salvage. Having removed the slates, roof timbers, floors and other saleable items, the builder demolished the house. Nothing now remains of Killakee House, and the gardens are now in a state of total dereliction.