Look out the back windows of this grand house set back from the busy thoroughfare of Upper Leeson Street, Dublin 4, and you’ll see a little football goal and a basketball hoop in one of the nearby gardens. It’s a reminder that even though number 80 is so close to the city centre – and just along from Donnybrook village – it is a good place to bring up a family, with Herbert Park just down the road, umpteen schools within walking and cycling distance, and lots of sports clubs in the locality. And the buses stop outside the door.
Built in the mid-19th century, number 80 is one of six red-brick two-storey over-basement houses that form Waterloo Terrace, which starts at the corner of Waterloo Lane. Recently renovated after a period of being rented, it has had a crisp paint job and new wooden floors laid throughout downstairs.
Up the stone steps, the pretty fanlight draws sunlight into the hall and the blue of the door is picked up in the edging on the stairs runner. It’s a wide hall with a plain arch and botanical details on the ceiling plasterwork.
Two large, bright reception rooms open off the hall to the right; connected by folding doors they have simple matching mantels with modern gas fires, as well as leafy centrepieces and detailed cornices. As a protected structure it is Ber exempt, and the original sash windows light the principal rooms of the 24sq m (2,583sq ft) property.
The windows – plain at the front, six over six at the back – are shielded by shutters as well as luxurious drapes; the house has been partly staged for sale.
On the return is a double bedroom with built-in shelving and, unexpectedly, a glass door to an exterior spiral staircase down to the town garden, which is set out with artificial grass.
Facing northeast, it is bordered by greenery and old granite walls, and feels quite private, even though most of the gardens along this stretch have been divided to build mews houses that front on to Waterloo Place. The three at the end are the distinctive trio built by de Blacam & Meagher almost 20 years ago, with their copper barrel-vaulted roofs adding more green to the setting.
The garden is also accessed from a lobby off the kitchen, off which are a utility and a recently fitted shower room. The kitchen is painted a dark grey, with black marble worktops and a lot of wooden units painted a greyish green. There is room for a round dining table but you could equally make the brighter room at the front into a living/dining room as they are connected by a glass door.
The front window looks out to a cute garden seating area sheltered by hedging; another glass door leads out to the door under the front steps, and to the lower hall where there is plenty of storage for stuff you mightn’t want to drag through the fancy upstairs.
On the first floor are three bedrooms; the largest, at the back, has lots of built-in wardrobes and a shower en suite. At the front, another double is bathed in light from the south; the ceiling plasterwork seems not to have survived on the fourth side. A single room over the hall is set up as an office, and a third bathroom is up the top stairs. Number 80 Leeson Street Upper is for sale through DNG, with an asking price of €1.495 million.
