Clonliffe Road, on the route to Croke Park that thousands of fans will tread for All-Ireland finals in the coming weeks , was once part of the northside’s bedsit heartland. Today many of its villa and terrace-style redbricks have been converted back to family homes.
Roseville is almost unique on the road. It is one of a pair of semi-detached houses built in 1898 by a father for his two daughters; Rose and May. Mayville is next door.
In that late Victorian decade fashion had shed the extravagances of the earlier years in favour of a more elegant silhouette and this house echoes that design shift.
Beautifully proportioned and light-filled, the Victorian property, 235sq m/ 2530sq ft in size, has grown too big for its owners and is crying out for a young family to fill its five bedrooms.
The redbrick, three-storey property has lovely original period features that include 3.2m ceiling heights at hall level where the reception rooms run the length of the house and are bookended by big windows. The drawing room, to the front, has a leaded glass-panelled box bay and is nicely proportioned to accommodate a sofa.
A floor-to-ceiling, four-panel wide, single sliding door can divide the rooms. A feat of Victorian engineering, it has a tiny pull mechanism hidden in its locking system to pull it shut. Both rooms have marble fireplaces, cornicing and ceiling roses. The original formal dining room – used as a second living room – has a Regency-style window to its rear and a door opening directly out to a flagstone patio.
There’s also a breakfast room, in use as a TV room, with built-in cabinetry. It overlooks the garden and leads through to the kitchen, a long u-shaped space that was added in the 1980s before the owners bought. A half-door opens out to the patio. These rooms could do with some reconfiguration – the kitchen could make more of its orientation onto a mature, classic and private garden.
A porthole in the hall hides a fish tank that is no longer in use, but the feature reminds its owner of his grandfather, a reporter for a Belfast-based newspaper who sailed on the Titanic from Southampton but got off at Cobh because he was feeling unwell. There is a toilet under the stairs where a previous owner had, as a child, sheltered from the north Strand bombings – when German bombers Luftwaffe mistook the D3 village for Belfast.
There are five bedrooms, set over two floors and returns. The three biggest rooms are on the first floor. The family bathroom, complete with separate bath and shower, is on the first floor return.
The garden, which is over 35 m/ 110ft long with pedestrian rear access, is home to an mature eucalyptus, some silver birch and other specimen plants. The stone head of Homer, pictured, isn’t part of the sale. The owners found it in a skip and will be taking it with them.
Set well back from the road there is off-street parking for two cars.
The property is for sale for €700,000 through agents MoveHome.ie
