Play your own part in the unraveling history of this much-loved 200-year old manor house.

The House was commissioned by Anglo-Irish merchant, Jonas Travers around the first 5 years of the start of the nineteenth century.. Travers himself was a very successful businessman and owner of ships plying a trade between Ireland, South Wales, and main land Europe. It is believed that an architect, Hutchins, was responsible for the design of the House and drew his inspiration from the exploits of Nelson and his victory at the Battle of Trafalgar in October 1805. Hence most of the finishing details and internal features follow a maritime theme which would have been close to Travers' heart.

As the original deeds to the property were destroyed by a fire in the Cork City Records House during the Civil War in 1922, it is not known when the house was finished, and the Travers family moved in, but this is thought to be around 1807.

Jonas Travers of Butlerstown, started what became a flourishing salt fish industry on the Seven Heads Peninsula, due south of the Butlerstown House Estate. It was this industry that helped to radically improve the lot of the inhabitants of this area during the awful famine years of 1847-1849, as there was never the same shortage of food as was suffered in other west Cork towns such as Skibbereen. In fact Jonas Travers was considered very much a friend and benefactor to the local people during those times.

It is not known how far the original landholdings would have extended, it could have been up to 1500 acres. From the various Land Commissions (1909-1913), holdings of large estates were drastically reduced from the large country estates throughout the country, distributing the land back to the tenant farmers who often found that their landholdings then included the original "big house". This did not happen to Butlerstown House, which by 1930 was showing acreage of some 155 acres and being farmed by an Irish family who raced and bred horses. In 1913, the last of the Jonas Travers descendants left the Irish shores for Calgary in Canada.