The house was built on an estate originally called Ballydonagh, after the townland which borders it to the south west.

The house had extensive gardens with winding paths, large glasshouses and panoramic views across the Glen of the Downs (a wooded valley to the west) and across farmland eastward to the Irish Sea.

Peter La Touche built the church in Delgany in 1789 and his wife opened an orphanage and school for female children in the grounds of Bellevue.

He died in 1904 and the estate was divided between his widow and his three sisters, one of whom, Frances, moved into Bellevue with her husband Dr Archer.

The family then ran into financial difficulties and finally left Bellevue in 1913 after which the house fell into decay and was pulled down in the early 1950s.