Developer Eugene Renehan’s Orwell Park Gardens began life when the house builder paid a reported €30 million for the 3.9 acre Mill Hill Missionaries site on the south side of this exclusive address.
By the time the market had headed south he had built three large neo-Victorian homes fronting on to Orwell Park. One – number 51 – came to market in 2008 with an asking price of €7.5million. The six-bed red-brick house was later sold for €2.4million (plus VAT) in 2013.
Development on the site restarted in 2011/2012 when a new phase of red-brick homes were launched off plan and sold out, as did a second phase of 10 homes launched in late 2013.
Comprising mainly three-bed plus study, two-storey units, to the rear of the red bricks, these Orwell Park Square houses sold for between €940,000 and just over €1.65million in the eight months between August 2014 and March 2015.
Renehan also converted Dartry House, the original Victorian mansion on the site, into seven luxury apartments, which reportedly sold to a single buyer. It had originally been the home of newspaper magnate and entrepreneur, William Martin Murphy, who founded the Independent in 1905.
Orwell Park Gardens is the courtyard development to its rear and it is set around a mature formal garden with planting by the Sap Group where there is an ancient olive tree at its centre. Prices achieved for the first 10 units here ranged from €878,689 in December 2016 to €1.1million in May 2018, according to the property price register.
Now the last eight terraced units in this section are being brought to market. These are all three-storey in height and built into the sloping site to the rear giving them a lovely private setting overlooking Darty Park and the Dodder Valley. All have south-facing terraces whose mature planting by Sap makes them feel already established.
The mix of three- and four-bed houses are two-storey to the front and three-storey to the rear with access at hall level where the ceiling heights are 3m (9.84ft), part of Niall Brennan & Associates Architects design to emulate the period features of the surrounding Victorian housing stock. It works. They have large windows and well-proportioned rooms but these houses come with under-floor heating and are A rated.
The interconnecting reception rooms are light filled and in some the interior design by Brian S Nolan is set up as a formal dining room and living room, while in others the kitchen and family room are at this level. In all there is a balcony to the rear to enjoy the gorgeous south-facing aspect. It is exceptionally private.
In the units where the kitchen is downstairs at garden level the layout includes a sizeable, separate utility and an L-shaped layout for the Nolan Kitchens design and a living room with glass sliding doors opening out to a south-facing terrace, about 30sq m in size. Ceiling heights here are 2.7m. But the offer allows a degree of flexibility with the layout – you could also put a master suite at this level with an internal bathroom to the rear and have space for a living room.
Upstairs there are three or four bedrooms, with the main en suite depending on which property you choose. The houses range in size from 178sq m/1,916sq ft to 181sq m/1,948sq ft and prices are from €1.25million to €1.5million through agent Hooke & MacDonald.
At Cairn Homes Marianella scheme nearby a smaller, three-bed, terraced house with 155sq mis seeking €900,000, while a five-bed, five bath, three-storey semi with 248sq m, is seeking €1.6million.
The houses at Orwell Park Gardens feel less a part of a new homes development and more a part of the already well-established Orwell Park.There is an artificial turfed green to the side of the terrace and annual management fees are expected to come in around the €1,100 mark.
