Born December 9th, 1956
Died December 1st, 2025
The extraordinary outpouring of affection for the architect, interior designer and television personality Hugh Wallace, who has died aged 68, was writ large by the number of condolences appended to his death notice on the website RIP.ie.
The notice itself has been viewed by well over 125,000 people (the average is 4,000-5,000) and about 1,500 of them, most of whom knew Wallace only through his TV persona, took the trouble to leave messages after his unexpected death was announced.
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Many of the comments were directed to him personally. Typical among them was one, the author identifying themselves only as “a fan from Dublin”.
“Every time you came on to our TV screens you made me smile with your wonderful personality and your kind words even when you were giving bad news to people renovating homes. I would finish watching you feeling good about things as you lit up our screens. I never met you but I know people who have and they have nothing but beautiful things to say about you. My sincere sympathies to your husband Martin and extended family. The whole country will miss you dreadfully. Rest easy Hugh.”
Another was from a Fiona who had actually met him, but only by chance.
“I had the pleasure of meeting Hugh on a train and could not resist telling him how much I adored his work and shows,” she posted. “He was so courteous and gracious and took the time to chat to me for a while – it made my day.”
[ ‘He was so kind, with such twinkly sparkly eyes’: Tributes paid to Hugh WallaceOpens in new window ]
Hugh Wallace was born in south Dublin in 1956, the only child to father Kenneth and mother Susan.
Kenneth was overly fond of alcohol (as was Hugh himself, something he spoke openly about in later years). The young Wallace had cousins in Portarlington, Co Laois, where he spent time on which he looked back fondly.
The Wallaces were a middle-class, Church of Ireland family and Hugh attended Sandford Park School in Ranelagh. He did not prosper as a pupil, however, and seemed destined to flounder until his English teacher, Greg Collins, suspected a specific problem and in due course, Wallace was diagnosed with dyslexia.
Looking back, he described the 1975 diagnosis as “such a relief”, his lack of academic progress being ascribed hitherto to his being “thick”. The recognition of his condition allowed him sit his Leaving Certificate examination orally and he won a place in the Bolton Street School of Architecture, now part of Technological University Dublin.
People with dyslexia typically have a heightened sense of shape, pattern and colour. Wallace recalled that as a child, he had loved playing with Lego and Meccano – he always knew he was going to be an architect, he said.
While studying in Bolton Street, he met fellow student Alan Douglas and, in 1982, the pair set up Douglas Wallace Architects in their flat in Blackrock, later moving to offices in Clonskeagh.
Early success included winning the contract for interior design at Peter Marks, the hairdressing chain, followed soon after by A Wear, a fashion company taken over in 1985 by Galen Weston’s Brown Thomas company.
That led to Douglas Wallace overseeing Brown Thomas’s move across Dublin’s Grafton Street, from the current Marks & Spencer site Brown Thomas then occupied to its current premises, the erstwhile home to Switzer and Co, a rival department store now long gone. The Brown Thomas interior that shoppers see today, in what is the city’s most high-end department store, owes much to Wallace’s vision of luxury.
In the late 1990s and at the turn of the century, Douglas Wallace was booming and, as was recalled at Hugh’s funeral, clients of the firm “were looking for a wow factor” when they went shopping in Celtic Tiger Ireland.
Douglas Wallace was happy to oblige and with success came expansion. Soon the company had some 200 employees with branch offices in Belfast and London – working “for the glossies” as his funeral heard.
In a novel eulogy, his friend John Waters delivered what he imagined Hugh himself might be saying on the occasion of his departure.
“We lived the life,” said Waters, pretending to be the voice of Hugh. “We took the staff to Venice and Toledo and I’m glad to say that what happened in Toledo stays in Toledo.”
And then came the crash of 2008 and “we all fell over a cliff”, said Waters.
Reminiscing in April 2024, Wallace spoke to Tony Clayton-Lea for this publication about the impact on him of Douglas Wallace going bust.
“Unfortunately, I lost a lot of money during the financial crisis of 2008. I lost everything, and it took years mentally and financially to get back on an even keel,” he said. He was somewhat philosophical, however, adding: “Money is relative, you have to have enough of it to be secure, but it’s not a preoccupation of mine. After what happened to me in 2008, you put stuff in perspective.”
But like many others, out of the ashes of the collapse, a new Douglas Wallace Consultants was born and is today highly regarded and successful, with numerous clients in the residential, retail, hospitality and commercial sectors.
With the bounce back, there also came a whole new career, which turned Wallace into something of a domestic superstar.
In 2015 RTÉ television broadcast the first episode of Home of the Year, made by Shinawil, an independent Irish production company, based on a Norwegian television original. The format was simple: Wallace and two other judges, all with some expertise in architecture and interior design, inspected and scored three homes per episode, leading eventually to a winner, which would be named the Home of the Year.
Wallace – middle-aged and bald, looking slightly owlish with his large spectacles – invariably donned extravagantly patterned and brightly coloured shirts, and often had a cashmere sweater draped casually over his shoulders.
His appearance was itself a flourish of personality, made all the more engaging by his smiley personality and jolly comments. Even when criticising the interior of a home, he managed to avoid being cruel or hurtful. Any spiky comments were directed mainly at his fellow judges when their opinions jarred with his own sense of taste and style.
Home of the Year has been running annually ever since, with Wallace the only one of the three original judges to have stayed the course. Whatever impressions some viewers may have had of him, Wallace was deeply serious about architecture and interior design.
He was a fellow of the Royal Institute of Architects of Ireland which, in a statement on his death, said: “As a broadcaster he connected public audiences with the value that architecture brings to all our lives – from a well-designed room to a large historic or contemporary building. Hugh Wallace made architecture accessible and emphasised that good design is available to everyone.”
Another series, one close to Wallace’s heart, followed. The Great House Revival was in some ways an echo of events in Wallace’s own life as he and his husband, Martin Corbett, spent much of the last three years restoring a derelict and part-burnt-out house off Clanbrassil Street in Dublin.
They met in one of Dublin’s longest-standing gay bars, The George on South Great George’s Street, on St Valentine’s Night 1988.
“We lasted together for 37 years, which I’d take again if I could,” John Waters, speaking as Hugh, told his funeral service in St Patrick’s Cathedral. “Martin never really bought into the celebrity stuff. Martin loved me for me.
“He became my civil partner in 2012 and he stuck with me to the end, right up until Sunday night.
“We really did travel the world together and meet very interesting people. But behind the celebrity and the public persona, Martin and I were really two ordinary guys. We had the same hopes, fears, dreams and wants.”
[ Hugh Wallace radiated sheer joy on the screen. His death leaves a huge gulfOpens in new window ]
St Patrick’s, the National Cathedral of the Church of Ireland, meant a lot to Wallace. He was baptised there and, in the restored home he and Martin had been due to move into the weekend after he died, a new window had been put into the bedroom, giving a direct view of the cathedral spire.
The building was packed for his funeral, filled with some 1,500 mourners. The dean, Dr William Morton, said Hugh’s family wanted the service to radiate “hope, joy and positivity for the future”.
Wallace’s stamp was on the proceedings. The service opened with Judy Garland singing Somewhere Over the Rainbow, and later Frank Sinatra singing My Way – two of Wallace’s favourites. The hymns were Amazing Grace and Thine be the Glory.
Appropriately, the coffin was a thing of design beauty – made of solid ash by Funeral Craft of Kilkenny and decked by an extravagant spray of red, orange, yellow and white flowers.
It departed the cathedral to the organ played Widor’s joyful Toccata.
Hugh Wallace is survived by his husband, Martin; their extended families, and many friends and colleagues.
