24 Hour Room Service: Carton House, Ireland

As you drive towards Carton House, past the swanky sponsor's flags that pepper the world championship golf course, the hotel appears every inch the Palladian fantasy. The Hugo Boss logos beside the caddies appear to be the only sign of modernity. And yet... it's all smoke and mirrors, or rather ingenious use of architectural perspective. Carton House is both the most contemporary and historic hotel in Ireland.

Built in 1739 by Richard Cassells for Robert Fitzgerald, the 19th Earl of Kildare, an €80m (£57m) renovation was completed last year, which added 147 hotel rooms, in an entirely new annexe, to the 18 suites in the original house. From the imposing driveway, the add-ons are invisible. It's only when you pull up outside the minimalist glass jewel-box of a lobby doorway that you get any hint of what's going on inside. The makeover, by Murray O'Laoire Architects, is certainly dramatic, but it's also both sensitive and discreet.

An old courtyard is now a boutique-hotel-buff-coloured lobby and lounge, which leads on to the Kitchen Bar and the Night Bar – quite the weekend cocktail-shaking locale of choice for savvy Dubliners. In the adjoining original Cassells building are some spectacular interiors, particularly the palatial old dining and music rooms, which are a Baroque flight of fantasy with stucco and frescoed ceilings. The Courtship of the Gods mural in the Music Room is almost beyond credibility.

Every room in this magnificent Palladian house has been given a restrained yet striking update, with imaginative use of mouth-watering Georgian colours: violets and mauves; dusty greens and silver and duck-egg blue, and the kind of furniture that, though tasteful, would still cause ripples of excitement at the Milan Furniture Fair.

The new wing is attached via an epic glass corridor that takes in rows of check-in desks and the fine-dining restaurant, the Linden Tree. The best table at the Linden is at the end of the room, in vast picture windows that make you feel like you're eating in the woods. Also in the new wing, accessed via a Guggenheim-style rotunda stairway, is a Molton Brown spa and two ballrooms with some rather natty fibre-optic chandeliers.

Much of Carton House's attractions lie beyond the Murray O'Laoire makeover. Its two golf courses (and club house) are among the best in Ireland, but other pursuits including archery, 4x4 off-roading, rock climbing, fishing and rambling around 12 miles of attractive pathways. The grounds are beautiful – and when the countryside of the Emerald Isle is being rained upon, guests can head inside to swim in the heated pool, a glistening, pared-down recreational facility under a vaulted Gothic arched roof. Like Carton as a whole, it's classic-with-a-twist.

LOCATION

Carton House, Maynooth, Co Kildare, Ireland (00 353 1 505 2000; www.cartonhouse.com). The hotel is 14 miles west of central Dublin and is signposted from the Maynooth exit of the N4 motorway, westbound from Dublin.

Time from international airport: 30 minutes' drive from Dublin airport. A taxi costs €65 (£46) from the airport to Maynooth.

COMFORTABLE?

If you can afford it, you really want to be in the original Palladian wing. The new rooms are wonderful – with grape and pistachio colouring – and share the same fantastic views of the grounds, but the size and style of the suites in the old house make them really special. The Duke Suite has a velvet-clad four-poster, feather-trimmed silk lamps and heavy, silk-lined curtains. The point of difference is a flat-packed plywood stag's head on the wall – again, classic with a twist. The only downside is that the classic nature of the building prohibits air-conditioning.

Freebies: Molton Brown products in all rooms.

Keeping in touch: The hotel is big on business functions. Away from the various well-appointed meeting rooms, Wi-Fi is available throughout the building. There are phones and flatscreen TVs in every room.

THE BOTTOM LINE

Double rooms start at €220 (£157), including breakfast.

I'm not paying that: Hawthorn House, Old Greenfield, Maynooth (00 353 1 629 0400; www.hawthornhousebandb.com) has B&B accommodation in stone-fronted modern cottages for €75 (£54) including full Irish breakfast.