Just off Breffni Road as it winds between Sandycove and Dalkey, Bayswater Terrace is a charming row of period homes, three storeys over basement, with shared gravel parking to the front. This is all very nice, but doesn't seem to quite account for the €2.95 million asking price Sherry FitzGerald is guiding for No 4. Go inside, though, and things start to make more sense.
A pair of lofty formal spaces lead off the hallway to the right; these are a livingroom and kitchen, but you’re hardly aware of them, as your eye is drawn to tall French windows at the kitchen end, and what lies beyond.
Who says money can’t buy a view like this? A raised patio area takes full advantage on sunny days of the sweep from Bullock Harbour around Dublin Bay to Howth. The sea is right at the end of the garden, with private shared access for the terrace’s houses to a rocky cove.
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The current owners, who bought the house about 10 years ago as an investment, and have rented it out ever since, purchased the lane to the right hand side, extending the property boundary in 2010, to allow boat access to the back garden, if you had a boat – though with a house like this you probably would.
Semi-separate apartment A family can’t live on views alone, however enchanting
, so what else do you get? The overall floor area is 372sq m (4,004sq ft), and includes a semi-separate basement apartment. This is in use at the moment as an au-pair flat, but could easily be integrated back into the house. There’s a sheltered outside area at this level to the rear, which, while useful for storing wood and the odd sea kayak or two, seems also to be asking to be opened up – maybe into a glassed-in sun room.
The principal bedroom is on the first floor, and has a dressing room and ensuite off it. In any other house, the large front room on this level, currently used as a drawingroom running the width of the house, would be the main bedroom, but as you “only” have views of Killiney Hill at the front, it’s no wonder occupants naturally gravitate to the rear.
There are four more bedrooms, all generous, on the top floor, and a family bathroom.
While it’s all very elegant, and there are all the super proportions and original features you’d expect from one of these houses, No 4 could do with a little extra work. Upgrading the bathrooms, perhaps, and brightening up the basement, but you’re quickly apt to forget about all that as you turn to take in that incredible view.
