The owner of a detached house on one of Glenageary’s best roads had three features in mind when she designed the house for her family. Achill, the 1920s house on Marlborough Road they bought at auction in 2002, was completely demolished and “every square inch” rebuilt over two years to her specifications: her demands were that the house would have as much daylight as possible; that every room, every corner of the house, would be used every day; and that the house would have as much storage as possible. She also wanted the new house to blend in with other houses on the road, and used the original red tiles on the roof.
Now Achill, a 304sq m (3,275sq ft) five-bed family home in walk-in condition with a lovely 152ft long rear garden, is for sale for €2.395 million through Sherry FitzGerald. The road leads directly down to Glenageary Dart station.
Achill is set well back from this wide, tree-lined road, where imposing Victorian and Edwardian houses mix with homes built around the 1920s. A covered timber porch at its front has an Edwardian feel. The front door opens into a very wide front hall that looks straight past the dining room to the rear garden.
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The L-shaped kitchen/dining/living room spans the width of most the back of the house: it’s a very bright space with windows and doors opening onto the garden and window seats. A rooflight with an amber-coloured border filters sunlight at certain times of the day: it was hand-made in Blackrock, and matches glass panels around the front door. In fact, says the owner, most of the expense of the house went into the windows.
Laundry chute
The kitchen has a cherrywood floor, a Smeg six-ring gas range and Silestone-topped island and countertops. The utility room off it has floor-to-ceiling storage, a timber-topped countertop and a space to collect clothes at the bottom of a laundry chute. The dining area is beside French windows opening into the garden and at the opposite end to the kitchen is a small lounge area with a fireplace.
Two large reception rooms with wide picture windows looking onto the front garden open off each side of the front hall: the carpeted drawing room has a limestone fireplace, the cherrywood-floored room facing it is fitted with storage units and desks. There’s also a study and smart bathroom downstairs.
Upstairs there are four bedrooms on the first floor and a fifth in the attic area, all doubles and all with fitted wardrobes, and a part-tiled family bathroom. The main bedroom has a walk-in wardrobe where the laundry chute – a rare but very useful design feature – is located. It also has a smart en suite with bath and shower.
A few steps lead down from the wide patio at the back of the house onto the long west-facing back lawn: there is a pretty red-roofed concrete shed at one side of the garden and at the end, a red-roofed stone-clad studio.
There are plenty of mature shrubs and trees in the gravelled front garden, where there is room to park up to six cars.
The house next door, Larkvale, 27 Marlborough Road, recently sold for around its asking price of €2.045 million through Sherry FitzGerald.
