When the owners of Templeville House, an 18th century house in Killiney, moved out more than 30 years ago, they didn’t go far – and they carried their taste for period living with them.
Field Lodge, the bungalow they built in the early 1980s high up a hill at the back of Templeville’s grounds, has many period-style features. From its floor-to-ceiling sash windows and beautifully carved timber mantelpieces and architraves to its interior decoration, with four-poster beds and period furniture, it is as elegant as any of its neighbours
Field Lodge looks older than most of the properties in Killiney Heath, an enclave of mostly 1960s split-level houses built following the demolition of another Georgian house. Now the 226sq m (2,430sq ft) detached four-/five-bed on 0.44 acres in the first of Killiney Heath's culs-de-sac, is for sale for €1.5 million through Sherry FitzGerald.
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The owners loved Georgian architecture, says one of their children, and “searched for old door architraves and floorboards from Georgian houses in Dublin that were being demolished. They took the old signed fireplace in the drawing room, that they had previously installed in Templeville, with them to Field Lodge”.
Built very much to its owners’ taste for Georgian architecture, the property has an unpredictable layout. The front door, set at the side of the house, opens directly into the long interconnecting drawingroom and diningroom. A large bay window at the end of the livingroom overlooks the sloping rear garden and roof of Templeville House at the side. Killiney Bay can be glimpsed through trees at the bottom of this garden.
The floor is stripped pine as are most of the doors in the house. The diningroom opens into a country-style kitchen with a terracotta-tiled floor, pine units, an Aga and a pine dresser. There is a small utility room off the kitchen and a door to the front garden. A cosy study is founds off the front hall.
Central courtyard
The bungalow is built around a small central courtyard – a sunroom off the diningroom leads to it. The sunroom also leads to a back hall off which are two bedrooms, decorated with pretty wallpaper, and a family bathroom. Steps at the end of the hall open into the main bedroom, with its handsome four-poster bed, glass-fronted pine wardrobes and en suite with rolltop bath. There’s another small double close by.
Ten steps down from the end of the hall lead to a concrete-floored garden level space divided into storage and a long kind of games room. New owners might consider revamping this relatively low-ceilinged space. It opens onto the large back lawn sheltered by mature trees and high stone walls. There’s lots of space for parking at the front, behind large cast-iron gates “sourced from the old Hillcourt School [now Rathdown] which my father found discarded there when he was a governor”, says the owner.
It’s not clear who owns a very large field beside Field Lodge which has lain empty for many years.
