A Georgian house a two-minute walk from the clock tower in the centre of Enniskerry village was, like the village itself, once part of the Powerscourt Estate. Hidden away at the heart of an acre of lushly-planted gardens, the house, built in 1820, was originally a guesthouse for the Powerscourt family and then a Church of Ireland rectory for 100 years – you can imagine Jane Austen strolling in from the garden.
The house, carefully maintained by its owners, has the simple elegance of its era; the gardens, a series of secret lawns filled with mature shrubs and rare plants sheltered by woodland with tall oak, pine and chestnut trees, will appeal to gardeners.
Enniskerry Lodge, a 405sq m (4,358sq ft) two-storey over-garden level four-bed, is for sale through Lisney for €2.75 million.
The family who have lived here for 30 years have done a lot of structural work on the nearly 200-year-old house, replacing all the chimney stacks and much of the roof, as well as replastering “everything” and redecorating.
It’s not a listed building but “you are custodians of a house like this, and it needed TLC”, they say. It has its original windows looking across a dry moat onto the gardens all around.
Across the road from Enniskerry Garda station, electronic gates open into a gravelled driveway leading to the front of the house: a tiled front porch with a trellis surround opens into a wide timber-floored entrance hall.
Four reception rooms open off the hall: the most striking is the drawingroom towards the back of the house where a wide floor-to-ceiling bow window set into a curved wall overlooks a garden at the side.
It has a white marble fireplace, in contrast to the separate diningroom at the front of the house which has a black marble fireplace, and deep red walls.
Like the diningroom, the family room on the other side of the hall is dual aspect, with a deep oriel window overlooking the garden.
Behind this is a fourth reception room, built 60 years ago on to what was originally an L-shaped house; there’s a toilet off it.
A door at the end of the hall leads to stairs down to the basement: new owners will likely want to update the kitchen/breakfastroom, but they’ll probably want to keep the large Aga, “the furnace which we keep going 24/7”, say the owners.
An entertainment room/den below the drawingroom has the same curved wall, with a window inset. A room behind it is a study but could be a fifth bedroom.
There’s a good-sized utility space opening on to a courtyard at the side of the house.
Upstairs the main bedroom has a wide bow window in a curved wall, like the drawingroom below, and an en suite runs off it.
There are three other double bedrooms, two with cast-iron fireplaces. The family bathroom is as big as the double bedrooms, with striking maroon walls, a timber floor, double shower and a free-standing clawfoot bath.
Outside, separate lawns surround the house. The owner, a keen gardener, maintains paths which wind from one to another through woodland, past hydrangeas and exotic plants like a Dicksonia fern.
There is lots of room to park in the gravelled space at the front of the house.
