Something of a showhouse for all that was best and new about Edwardian architecture, number 1 Villiers Road is airy, light and high-ceilinged. The move away from Victorian clutter and fuss is evident everywhere: in the cleaner lines of less-finicky plasterwork, in a front door with stained-glass panels, in an expansive hallway with shining floorboards and in windows giving natural light all over. Living in no 1 since the late 1980s, the vendors have cared for and emphasised its design qualities and given it a bright, comfortable elegance.
Original features live alongside contemporary additions all through the house, none more strikingly than a marble fireplace in the main bedroom and fine plasterwork in the entrance hallway. The bedroom’s high, Art Nouveau-ish marble fireplace is red-brown with a fleck and has ornate inset tiles. The hall’s plasterwork is highlighted with inset pale green panels.
Pat Mullery of Douglas Newman Good is asking € 1.25 million for the private treaty sale. The same agent has sold four houses on Villiers Road in the last three years, with prices ranging from €940,000 to €1.1 million. The price quoted for no 1 reflects its larger, corner site and the side vehicular access from Vernon Road.
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With a decent 196sq m (2,133sq ft) floor space, it has four double bedrooms, two reception rooms, rear kitchen/dining/ family room, three WCs, family bathroom and sheltered rear garden. The formal reception rooms are separated by double, fold-back doors. A wide bay window to the front frames a cherry tree in the garden, there are distinctive marble fireplaces in each room and white on a creamy ochre colour nicely picks out ceiling roses and cornicing. A traditional arch in the hallway has a benignly smiling plaster head on each side and a dado rail runs along the staircase wall.
The kitchen/dining/family room extends to the side and rear, with the dining area neatly fitted into a large box niche/window overlooking bamboo and other plants. The timber window frames match a long, timber window seat. A Stanley range in the kitchen sits in an alcove with granite joist, and the family area has a hanging laundry dryer on a pulley as well as French doors to the garden.
On the first-floor return there is a bedroom with small, cast-iron fireplace and a bathroom. The main bedroom has a second, wide bay window, built-in wardrobes to either side of the bed and a ceiling rose. A third, rear bedroom has a cast-iron fireplace and the fourth, on a second floor return, has another cast-iron fireplace and sloped ceiling.
No 1’s south-west facing aspect has been a bonus for the gardens where, to the rear, there is a lawn, patio and thriving plant life. The front garden has high, protective hedging.
