[3] The then Lord Mayor of Dublin, Sir Humphrey Jervis, built a house on a property in what was then a rural area, probably in the 1680s, though he never lived there, dying in debtors prison in 1707.

Jonathan Swift was acquainted with the Grattans, and their cousins the Jacksons at the nearby Woodlands estate in Clonshaugh, and is known to have visited at least a dozen times between 1714 and 1734.

Laetitia Pilkington also stayed at the house in 1730 and later documented anecdotes of this visit concerning Swift in her Memoirs.

The cooperative was not a success, due to problems such as lack of electricity, poor water supply, damp conditions, and overgrown fields and gardens.

A later nearby house, also confusingly named Belcamp,[6] survived until the 2000s but was demolished to make way for industrial buildings.