Rossenarra House is a large country house built in Rossenarra Demesne

Demesne

In the feudal system the demesne was all the land, not necessarily all contiguous to the manor house, which was retained by a lord of the manor for his own use and support, under his own management, as distinguished from land sub-enfeoffed by him to others as sub-tenants...

 (formerly Castlehale) near the village of Kilmoganny

Kilmoganny

Kilmoganny is a small village in the County Kilkenny in the south-east of Ireland. The name of the village is often misspelled as Kilmaganny, even on official documents and signs.It is located in the Parish of Dunnamaggin.- See also :...

 in County Kilkenny

County Kilkenny

County Kilkenny is a county in Ireland. It is part of the South-East Region and is also located in the province of Leinster. It is named after the city of Kilkenny. The territory of the county was the core part of the ancient Irish Kingdom of Osraige which in turn was the core of the Diocese of...

, Ireland

Ireland

Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...

. It is thought to have been designed by the architect James Hoban

James Hoban

James Hoban was an Irish architect, best known for designing The White House in Washington, D.C.-Life:James Hoban was born and raised in a thatched cottage on the Earl of Desart's estate in Cuffesgrange, near Callan in Co. Kilkenny...

, who was also responsible for designing the White House

White House

The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., the house was designed by Irish-born James Hoban, and built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the Neoclassical...

 in Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....

 The house was built around 1824-25 in a Palladian style

Palladian architecture

Palladian architecture is a European style of architecture derived from the designs of the Venetian architect Andrea Palladio . The term "Palladian" normally refers to buildings in a style inspired by Palladio's own work; that which is recognised as Palladian architecture today is an evolution of...

, having been commissioned by Maurice Reade, the owner of a large estate in the Kilmoganny area. It passed through several generations of the Reade family until the 1880s when it came into the possession of the McEnery family. Sir John Lavery

John Lavery

Sir John Lavery was an Irish painter best known for his portraits.Belfast-born John Lavery attended the Haldane Academy, in Glasgow, in the 1870s and the Académie Julian in Paris in the early 1880s. He returned to Glasgow and was associated with the Glasgow School...

, an Irish artist celebrated for his portraits and related to the MacEnernys through marriage, spent the last few years of his life and died there on 10 January 1941. The house was also for a time the home of the American author Richard Condon

Richard Condon

Richard Thomas Condon was a prolific and popular American political novelist whose satiric works were generally presented in the form of thrillers or semi-thrillers...

, famous for such works as The Manchurian Candidate

The Manchurian Candidate

The Manchurian Candidate , by Richard Condon, is a political thriller novel about the son of a prominent US political family who is brainwashed into being an unwitting assassin for the Communist Party....

and Prizzi's Honor

Prizzi's Honor

Prizzi's Honor is a 1985 American black comedy film directed by John Huston. It stars Jack Nicholson, Kathleen Turner, Robert Loggia and Anjelica Huston.The film was adapted by Richard Condon and Janet Roach from Condon's novel of the same name...

. Condon lived in Rossenarra from 1971 until he returned to the US in 1980. During this time, famous guests to the house included Mick Jagger

Mick Jagger

Sir Michael Philip "Mick" Jagger is an English musician, singer and songwriter, best known as the lead vocalist and a founding member of The Rolling Stones....

 and Frank Sinatra

Frank Sinatra

Francis Albert "Frank" Sinatra was an American singer and actor.Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became an unprecedentedly successful solo artist in the early to mid-1940s, after being signed to Columbia Records in 1943. Being the idol of the...

. Condon's memoir, And Then We Moved to Rossenarra; Or The Art of Emigrating (1973), was named in honour of his time there. The most recent residents of the house were American tycoon Walter Griffith, and his Irish-born wife Christine.