Leine (“Mimi”) Hume-Weygand (whose father-in-law, General Maxime Weygand, was in command of the French army at the fall of France in 1940), died without heirs in 1992, and the property was sold at auction. Renata Coleman, a German-born businesswoman and passionate horsewoman, had wanted to buy a farm where she could keep her animals. “I was looking for a nice Irish Georgian house in this area,” she explains. “Alfred Cochrane, the architect and designer, kept trying to get me to look at Mme Hume-Weygand’s house. ‘Forget it,’ I told him. ‘I don’t want to live in a Victorian monstrosity!’ He finally persuaded me to come down with him. It was a wonderful warm summer’s day. I looked down the avenue, and the trees were magnificent. I came upon the house, and it looked utterly magical. And I fell in love with it. Then I said, ‘Oh no. It needs so much work.’ ”
"This warm and cozy room is used by the familiy and has a constant fire roaring during the misty mellow Irish winter"says Colman.
Nevertheless, she placed a bid at the auction through her lawyer. It was purchased by a development company. “I asked the auctioneers to let me know if the situation changed for any reason,” she continues. “Then, lo and behold, I’m in southern Spain and I get a call. The deal fell through, and the castle was offered to me. I said I would think about it. Later I decided to buy Humewood because I felt that fate had meant it to be mine.”
One suspects that William White would approve of his castle’s new owner. An early patron and friend of William Morris, White fulminated against the restrictions of Victorian society, particularly in the matter of female behavior and dress. Coleman, who is rarely out of jodhpurs at Humewood, breathes the kind of freedom White could only dream about. Her style is as different from the late Hume-Weygand’s as Hume-Weygand’s was from White’s original intentions. Hume-Weygand filled the castle with smart upholstered furniture and expensive Parisian draperies. White was closer in style to Arts and Crafts. During Hume-Weygand’s tenure, walls were lined with expensive flock wallcoverings. The unusual detailing of White’s woodwork, such as the dining room shutters, was obscured by heavy velvet draperies. “Mimi’s taste was wonderful in its way,” says Cochrane. “But it was over the top, like a Mississippi paddleboat. It was lush campness in slightly bad taste. She had enough aplomb to pull it off.”