Home of the Year may only be back on our screens three weeks, but the RTÉ series has already caused quite a commotion online… and not for the right reasons.
Episode three of the series featured some of the most design-savvy homes, from characterful properties to stand-out interior details, but an eagled-eyed viewer noticed something about home no.1 that didn’t sit right with them.
Taking to social media, the HOTY fan condemned the show for the use of a property which is often rented out on AirBnB- an online marketplace for short-and-long-term homestays for €209 anight.
The viewer wrote: ‘In the midst of a generational housing crisis, #HomeOfTheYear platform a house which is immediately recognisable as an AirBnB property. To make things worse, it looks like the Junior Suite of a Dean Hotel.’
Short-term letting on Airbnb and other platforms has become increasingly attractive to landlords who can earn more by renting out their property for one week on AirBnB as they could letting it out to one tenant for a month.
The AirBnB home, which featured on HOTY, is in Co. Wicklow and belongs to Clive Restan. The home is a former fisherman and docker cottage that was little more than a wreck of a building when he bought it in 2021. His goal was to create a New York-style loft but with the charm of an Irish cottage – no easy task!
Clive meticulously set about restoring the stone and brick walls to their original glory. Turning back the clock was the major theme of the restoration project so much so that he designed it to run as an analogue home.
He wanted the building to look seamlessly put together as if it hadn’t been designed at all while incorporating as many era-specific details as possible, including the rowing oars that date from the 1850s.
However, Clive’s house did not win the episode to get through to the finale, instead losing out to Jenny Anne Corkery’s South Dublin home.
Jenny’s new-build home, which was formerly a derelict garage structure, and has since been subdivided into two plots, is the epitome of modernity and space-maximising design.
She lives in her home with her husband and two children and has ensured the use of every inch of her two-bed infill home which she has designed around family life and with a real focus on being A-rated.
Jenny won the episode after the judges felt that every corner of the house had been carefully considered to be used efficiently given the limited space.
However, one must see the irony that not even Home of the Year could find enough homes where the owners can actually afford to live in them for the series.
The AirBnB home showcased on the series is quite symbolic of the overwhelming housing crisis facing Ireland today.
