A terraced 1820s house in Sandycove, Co Dublin, was one of the first built on Albert Road, says agent Thom Burke-Kennedy. It is one of four in a terrace designed, he believes, for engineers working on the Dalkey Atmospheric Railway, which ran for about a decade in the mid-19th century.
Now number 77 Albert Road Lower is a 205sq m (2,208sq ft) two/three-bed home that was extensively refurbished about 15 years ago. One of its owners is an architect, and it shows in the way light has been maximised by the use of skylights in the revamp of the nearly 200-year-old house. It has a long back garden, an 85sq m (915sq ft) mews modernised as storage space with room for gym equipment, and parking in the cobblelocked front garden. It is for sale through agent Burke Kennedy for €1,585,000 and has a Ber C3 rating.
Unexpected features include a rather grand pediment over the entrance to the return at the top of the stairs, a narrow fully tiled wet room with a shower in a triangular space towards the back of the house and a wide, bright upstairs livingroom – that could be the main bedroom – extending across the front of the house.
The house has lots of original features, especially in the front hall, which has rich ceiling plasterwork. Unusually, there is a glazed door with stained glass panels – apparently original – opening into the back of the hall. On the left are the interconnecting drawingroom and diningroom, both, like the hall, with timber floors.
The drawingroom has a deep bay window and a fireplace with a cast-iron mantelpiece painted white with pretty tiles inset; the diningroom has a matching fireplace and glazed doors at the end leading down two steps into a utility room and then into the wet room.
The house has been extended at the back, and a long kitchen at the end of the front hall opens into a wide, very bright family room/diningroom. The kitchen has polished granite countertops and windows next to the sink looking into a small, quirkily decorated internal courtyard.
The family room/diningroom is particularly bright with skylights – and in a nook beside the double glass doors opening into the garden.
Upstairs, beyond the pediment over the entrance to the return, is a double bedroom with an original sash window as well as a skylight; the smart family bathroom, with a black-and-white tiled floor and oval bath, is next to it. Up a few steps to the top floor is another large double bedroom overlooking the back garden. The livingroom/bedroom across the front of the house has a large fireplace and two windows looking onto Albert Road.
The back garden has been divided visually into three sections, with first a patio, then steps up to a gravelled space bordered by raised beds rich with garden produce – apple trees, lettuces, potatoes and more. A third space at the end was fitted during the pandemic with wooden seating around a gravelled area containing a fire pit.
Double glass doors open into the mews at the end, restored recently to be used as a gym – it’s floored with rubbery tiles for safety – and for storage. There’s room for a wine store and a mezzanine level. It opens onto a laneway that runs only behind the four houses on the terrace, accessed from Albert Road through electric gates.
Number 77 is close to the corner with Elton Park/Hudson Road, at the Sandycove end of Albert Road, within easy walking distance of the new park and playground on Hudson Road and the shops in Glasthule.
