Jim Wood Talks Greystones Houses In Sunday Times Interview

It’s quite telling that Jim Wood’s face doesn’t appear in his own Sunday Times interview today.

This is one very private person. Who, it seems, doesn’t really like having his picture taken.

So, for those of you who don’t know Jim Wood, he looks like a fresh-faced Glen Campbell. Fresh out of rehab.

Besides, it’s not like the guy really needs the publicity. Having grown up with a father who liked to build houses as far as the eye can see, Jim was the son who very much followed suit, and is currently the managing director of the Wood Group, based in the town.
Indeed, such was the scale of the family’s estate-building in Greystones and the surrounding area over the last six decades that a certain handsome young wit – who shall remain shameless – would often quip, as far back as the early 1980s, “Around here, you can no longer see the trees for the Woods’.

Oscar Wilde, how are ya?

It was back in the 1950s that Jim Wood Sr, a carpenter, first set up the business, bringing in cousins, friends, uncles and anyone else with the good Wood name to help build the business. And the houses.. The family has never stopped building houses in north Wicklow and south Dublin ever since, with a particular fondness for, of course, Greystones. One of the most desirable addresses in the country, dontcha know.

Currently involved with the highly successful SeaGreen development in Blacklion, the Wood Group have also just completed Glendale, an infill development of large four-bedroom detached homes, also in Greystones.

In today’s Sunday Times interview, Jim talks of the changes in the business over the past 30 or 40 years, with house designs staying largely the same whilst buyers become far more aware of the materials used, the insulation levels, and the construction techniques. Working with Greystones interior designer Eily Roe over the last 15 years has seen the houses become more family friendly, with bigger windows and patios, and more open plan. The growth of the home office has also become a major design consideration.

Which is all well and good if you’re buying a house right now. All we really care about in this Sunday Times interview is what local boy Jim has to say about The Greatest Little Town In The World. Take this opportunity, young Wood, to sell the glory of Greystones to the whole country. To the WHOLE WORLD!

“We’ve such a fantastic outdoor society,” he says of Greystones. “It’s really caught the imagination.”

And, er, that’s it.

Karen, have a word.