Marianella is Cairn Homes’ first apartment-led scheme. Set well back from the road on a mature site on Orwell Road in Rathgar, Dublin 6, the high-spec build was so hotly anticipated that 128 of its 198 apartments – about two-thirds of its stock – have already sold ahead of its public launch.
“Prospective buyers kept dropping by – some quite persistently – to ask how the site was progressing,” says Cairn chief executive Michael Stanley. Their tenacity paid off and the first residents have already moved in – the boxes and belongings are in evidence everywhere as you walk around the site.
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Stanley is very hands-on at the site. Having been dragged out of bed every weekend morning as a child and teenager to help out at family firm Shannon Homes, set up in the 1970s by his father Joe and uncle Seán, he learned to read buildings decades before design was used as a concept to sell property in Ireland.
With housing in his blood he is “always-on” and constantly “pinging” new ideas that he photographs on his phone while travelling to and from the publicly quoted company’s headquarters, a third-floor building on Grand Canal Street. Here Cairn Homes has its own in-house design studio comprising architects, planners, interior designers, quantity surveyors and landscapers.
The joined-up creative thinking can be seen all over Marianella where the 60 one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments now being released boast lofty 2.7m (8ft 10in) ceiling heights; cantilevered balconies at least 2.5m deep; floor-to-ceiling powder-coated balustrades; gorgeous glazing by Carlson & Company; kitchens by McNally that include Miele appliances and Whirlpool washing machines and condenser driers; and hotel-finish bathrooms that feature a variety of sanitaryware brands including Flair frameless shower doors, twin sinks in some main en suite bathrooms and mirrored cabinetry as standard.
Róisín Lafferty of Kingston Lafferty decorated the show units where ideas include hanging art onto mirrored walls, a clever play with the depth of field in rooms.
But the collation of ideas begins at the offices on Grand Canal Street. The team has an internal Pinterest board where they upload Michael’s photographic inspiration and add their own. The level of fine-tuning is impressive. There are layers of redrafted floor-plans piled high on a drawing board, each new version tweaking the layouts of the two- and three-bedroom apartments to give residents, mainly traders-down from large properties in Rathgar, Dartry and Churchtown, the best space and spec possible. For example, in one two-bedroom apartment a large storage unit in the hall is reduced in size by about 60cm to allow room in the bathroom on the other side of its dividing wall to install a generous 120cm size shower. In others a small velvet banquette area has been included to give a second seated area within the open-plan space.
Shared facilities
At Marianella the properties start at €395,000 for one-bedroom units measuring 64sq m/689sq ft, of which there are 11; €525,000 for two-bed units, which measure from 84sq m/904sq ft and of which there are 38; and from €850,000 for three-beds, which are from 118sq m/1273sq ft in size and of which there are 11. All units are for sale through joint agents Hooke & MacDonald and Knight Frank. An attractive feature of the development is the inclusion of shared hotel-like facilities; including a sauna, a steam room, a gym, a sound-proofed meeting room, a cinema room and a clubhouse where residents can relax or book to host a private party. There will also be a shared Go car service operating on site.
“Our ambition is to become a name in housebuilding like Stringer, Kenny and Crampton became years ago,” says Stanley. Cairn has multiple sites currently on the go including first-time buyer homes at Parkside, Balgriffin on the Malahide Road, where phase two has almost sold out and three-bedroom semis started from €355,000 and four-bedroom terraced houses from €375,000; Churchfields in Ashbourne, Co Meath, where three-bedroom terraced homes start from €290,000 and four-bedroom semis from €355,000.
At Albany in Killiney, the company is selling the last in a scheme of four- and five-bedroom new homes priced from €895,000 and €1.175million, through joint agents SherryFitzGerald and Kelly Walsh.
At Elsmore in Naas, Hooke & MacDonald is selling three-bedroom mid-terrace houses off plans from €285,000 and four-beds from €340,000.
Coming down the tracks is an exciting city centre scheme at Six Hanover Quay, where residents can configure their internal space as they wish; Greenfield Park (the name given to the lands at Montrose in Donnybrook that Cairn bought from RTÉ for €107.4 million – 43 per cent above the guide price – earlier this year) will begin construction once planning for the substantial site has been approved; and there are another 101 units under way on Dublin’s northside at Griffith Avenue, comprising two-bedroom apartments as well as three-, four- and five-bedroom homes.
