20th Century Fire and Renovation
In 1961, the estate, was sold by the 9th Viscount, Mervyn Patrick Wingfield, to the Slazenger family, who still owns it to this day (2010). Wendy Slazenger, daughter of the late Ralph Slazenger, married the 10th Viscount, Mervyn Niall Wingfield, in 1962. Through her children, the Hon. Mervyn Anthony Wingfield and the Hon. Julia Wingfield, there remains a strong family connection between the two families and the Powerscourt Estate.
The house was destroyed by fire on 4 November 1974, while it was owned by the Slazenger family, and was subsequently renovated in 1996. Only two rooms are open to the public as they once appeared while Powerscourt had residents, while the rest of ground floor and first floor are now retail units.
Read more about this topic: Powerscourt Estate, History
Famous quotes containing the words century, fire and/or renovation:
“Hunger is insolent, and will be fed.”
—Homer (c. 8th century B.C.)
“Perhaps my best years are gone. When there was a chance of happiness. But I wouldn’t want them back. Not with the fire in me now.”
—Samuel Beckett (1906–1989)
“Postmodernity is the simultaneity of the destruction of earlier values and their reconstruction. It is renovation within ruination.”
—Jean Baudrillard (b. 1929)