As thoroughfares go, Sandymount Road is about as central as you can get in the Dublin 4 suburb. It has been since 1795, in fact, when the area, and road, were renamed by Lord Fitzwilliam. Number 65 is one of a stretch of 1930s-built houses, all of them with pleasant gardens and lots of leafy green to show for their 80+ years of existence.
The gardens of no 65, front and back, are particularly vibrant, a blaze of colour even as winter trundles in. this is all to do with 16 years of benign care and inventive landscaping on the part of owners, writer Myles McWeeney and his wife Laurie Carr, downsizing for practical reasons but with many a backward glance.
Semi-detached and with a side entrance, the use of red-brick and pebbledash on the exterior is typical of its time. So too is an interior with timber flooring and hardwood fireplace surrounds.
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Additions have increased the original floor space to 1,711sq ft (159sq m) and given it three bedrooms (one in use as a home office and a fourth bedroom is sacrificed to the service of a walk-in dressing room), three reception rooms, a kitchen and sunroom. A fully equipped, timber-made home office in a quiet corner of the garden has wifi, electricity and phone connections.
Agent Sherry FitzGerald is looking after the private treaty sale and quoting an asking price of €995,000.
“It was very basic when we bought it,” McWeeney says, “and although we did a lot of work, we did our level best to maintain the period character.” The hallway, its polished floorboards dappled with light from the leaded glass in the front door, sets the mood. A rear sunroom, added nine years ago and facing into the southwesterly garden, is quarry-tiled, has the feel of earlier times and is, Carr assures, in use winter and summer.
Separated by sliding double doors, the interconnecting sitting and dining rooms have original timber surround fireplaces and polished floorboards. A picture rail, added by the vendors, nicely fits its place on the surrounding walls and a wide, bow window to the front, complemented by French doors to the rear, ensures plenty of light.
A bay window in the rear den/TV room overlooks the garden and also allows in a lot of light. The kitchen, which has an original walk-in pantry, has been smartly made over and now has a polished granite worktop, pull-out butcher’s block and storage units and – a focal point – spacious, much used bookshelves. A utility room has extra storage.
The main bedroom has an en suite, dressing room and distant views of the Dublin mountains. The family bathroom has a claw-foot bath and the attic is floored for storage.
