It is not surprising that the house owned by the late Nancy Duffin has splashes of colour and top quality details. She was terrific businesswoman who, when she retired as a top buyer for Brown Thomas, told her then boss that she wouldn’t be putting her feet up, she intended taking a lease on a shop on Grafton Street and opening up her own high-end bedding and homeware shop. He, rather than risking the competition, quickly offered her space in the department store and, so 25 years ago, Bottom Drawer opened.
Not long after she bought 134 Merrion Road, Ballsbridge. Again, it wasn’t the typical post-retiree move. The 1950s double-fronted detached house has 265sq m (2,850sq ft) and she gutted it – even repositioning the staircase and knocking the existing narrow hall and a small study together so that her home could have a large square hall with a window and a fireplace.
As she did a lot of buying in Portugal, she was able to source the hall’s new white marble flooring there and, ever the perfectionist, she brought over Portuguese workman used to handling marble to lay it. She added an extension at the back with a curved, glazed wall to enlarge the open plan kitchen area.
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On one side of the hall are two rooms, a living room to the front, a formal dining room to the rear. On the other, in what would been the garage, is a large family room with an open fire and the surprising addition of a full bar at the end of the room – it had taps, sinks everything in its stylishly designed mosaic-covered curved wall – and it was used by the family – Duffin had seven children – for entertaining.
The well-designed kitchen is fitted with silver finished Siematic units with a large peninsula made from grey granite and the entire area is floored with maple. The units are Miele. It is unusual to come across a house fitted out more than 20 years ago where new owners would be crazy to change a thing about the kitchen. There is also a utility room, opening out to the garden, and a storage room.
Upstairs are four double bedrooms, the main one with a good sized en suite. A fifth bedroom was converted into the large family bathroom with full-sized Jacuzzi and Villeroy and Boch sanitary ware, marble flooring and vivid pink wallpaper. Designer wallpapers are a feature of all the bedrooms.
The back garden has had the same gardener for years and it is beautifully planted and maintained and there is a pedestrian exit out on to Merlyn Drive. Merrion Road is busy at just about all times of the day but the house is well back from it with parking for several cars.
134 Merrion Road is for sale through Lisney – it is an executor’s sale – for €1.95 million.
