Sammy (Samantha) Leslie is the latest Leslie to take up the reins at Castle Leslie. She wanted to see three things: great food, great horses and grand craic.
'When friends came, we unearthed the good wines, picked the freshest foods from the walled garden and larder, caught the good horses and entertained in style despite the buckets catching the leaks on the top floor.'
With the transformation of the Estate, Sammy can safely claim to have attained that her three ambitions. Only the buckets are gone. But who is the innovator, visionary and stubborn businesswoman who's made it all happen?
Early years
Sammy is the fifth of Desmond Leslie's six children. Desmond, a dashing former Spitfire pilot, and his sister Anita took on the responsibility of the Castle when their uncle the Fourth Baronet Sir John (known as Jack) Leslie moved to Italy in 1964.
Academia was not a success for Sammy as she was an undiagnosed dyslexic. Undaunted, she qualified as an intermediate instructor (BHS AI) at 18. Ironically, just after qualifying, Desmond announced the sale of the Hunting Lodge and Equestrian Centre. Sammy vowed to buy back them back one day (something she achieved in 2004) and promptly set up a yard in the old estate farm buildings, buying, selling and breaking horses.
The proceeds of one particular horse sale allowed Sammy to travel and gain work experience around the world. She taught in Vancouver, groomed for the Master of the Blue Ridge Hunt in Virginia and instructed in San Francisco. She travelled on to Tahiti, and took jobs in New Zealand and Australia before moving on through South East Asia and India.
Returning home, the family sold some furniture to send Sammy to Crans Manatan in Switzerland to study hotel management. Typically, she completed the three-year course in just 18 months but came home aged 24 to find her father contemplating selling the Estate to a Japanese consortium. He wanted to move to France as he couldn't cope with the cold wet Irish winters. Sammy managed to dissuade him from selling and when he moved abroad, she set up the Tea Rooms in a leaky conservatory. Baking and serving herself through that summer of 1991, she managed to make enough profit to live on.
The Tea Rooms prospered and in the fourth year, she opened the dining room at weekends and took dinner guests on ghost tours by candlelight around the Castle. The same year, Jack returned from Italy to help her run the Castle.
Regeneration
A disaster in England created opportunity for Castle Leslie. After fire ripped through Windsor Castle, Sammy selected green oak for the restoration from the Estate. She put the 110,000 Irish pounds she made on the timber sale together with a grant from Failte Ireland and Ireland Heritage to repair Castle Leslie's roof, rewire the Castle, upgrade the Victorian central heating and plumb bathrooms into the dressing rooms of each main bedroom. She sourced re-claimed original Victorian fittings from all over to maintain the Castle's style.
This allowed the Castle to offer bed and breakfast in the six restored bedrooms, and soon the dining room was open seven nights a week. Sammy was determined to do things differently and was rewarded when the Castle receive The Good Hotel Guide Caesar Award for being 'utterly enjoyable and mildly eccentric'.
When peace came to Northern Ireland with the Good Friday Agreement, the Leslies could restore the fortunes of the estate to its former glory slowly and surely. Sammy believes she is a guardian of the land and has sought to protect it for future generations by putting the Estate into a trust.
The Big Step
With 78,000 square feet of historic buildings, miles of famine wall (built during the Potato Famine by a benevolent Leslie) and the Hunting Lodge back in the family, it was time to raise some serious funds for the Estate. Sammy decided to extend the village of Glaslough. But she also wanted to create a balance that capitalised on the property boom while remaining sensitive to the Estate's historic style.
Inspired by Price Charles' town of Poundbury, she worked with a team of architects to create the Village Cottages. They are the first of their kind in Ireland with all proceeds from the sales re-invested in the Estate to fund future regeneration.
The Club
The final piece has been the development of the Castle Leslie Club. Opening in 2007, Sammy has returned the Castle to its original style of entertaining. Staying at the castle is once again as it was at the turn of the 20th Century.
The Groundbreaker
Sammy's stubborn streak has proved that it can be done. No other Irish estate, still held by the original family, have done it all for themselves. Others have tried but their efforts have forced the sale of land or the entire estate to developers who then miss the sensitivity of an organic, living, breathing Irish estate.
Sammy is also active in a number of cross-border projects such as Blackwater Regional Partnership and Caledon Regeneration Project. But she was particularly delighted to be invited to sit on the steering group for the recently-created Irish Heritage Trust chaired by Sir David Davies of Abbyleix and Environment Minister Dick Roche. Similar in style to the British National Trust, the I.H.T. aims to acquire 'properties of significant heritage value where there is a risk to such value, so as to provide for their proper conservation, maintenance and presentation, their public enjoyment and appreciation, and public access to them in perpetuity'.