A three-storey house at the corner of Sorrento Road and Vico Road in Dalkey, Co Dublin, is a grand Victorian with most of its period details – elaborate plasterwork, tall sash windows, working shutters – intact.
It has views past the grand terrace of houses on Sorrento Terrace, also built about 1850, towards the sea and views towards Bray Head from the side of the house.
Villa Vico was renovated about 20 years ago and rented – most recently for €4,470 a month – since being sold after auction for about €2.9 million in 2005. It will need some TLC from new owners but the house is still the fine, airy house with large windows and large high-ceilinged rooms it was when it sold.
Now Villa Vico, Sorrento Road, a 294 sq m (3,164 sq ft) five-bed semi-detached house, is for sale through Sherry FitzGerald for €1,950,000. It has a Ber of G.
Near neighbours in a suburb once dubbed Bel Eire because of the number of celebrities living there included Van Morrison and Eddie Irvine, who had houses across the road – and, briefly, Matt Damon, who rented Irvine’s house in summer 2020.
Villa Vico backs on to a cliff wall, with a courtyard at ground level and a raised terrace that runs along the side of the house, catching views over nearby trees of Killiney Bay. New owners are likely to upgrade this outside space. There’s a large house currently under construction on top of the cliff behind the house, with trees screening its view of the back of Villa Vico.
High gates provide privacy on a corner that’s often busy with pedestrians walking from Dalkey to Killiney.
They open into a good-sized front garden, with room for parking. Inside the house, on the right of the grand front hall with its arch and elaborate plasterwork, are the livingroom and kitchen, connected by double doors, stretching from the front to the back of the house.
There are two large sash windows in the livingroom at the front, a cast-iron fireplace with mantelpiece painted white, and timber floorboards as in most rooms in the house.
The kitchen has white units, brown polished granite countertops, a range and French doors to the courtyard at the back. Other rooms at the end of the hall, floored with apparently original tiles, include a utility room, a part-tiled shower room and a room described as either a study or fifth bedroom.
A garage at the side of the houseprovides more storage, and has potential for conversion. A double bedroom on the first return is dual aspect; a door opens from the landing to the raised terrace outside.
The drawingroom on the first floor is the grandest room in the house, stretching across the width of the house with three nearly floor-to-ceiling sash windows looking over Sorrento Road.
A glazed door opens onto the side terrace and double doors lead into the diningroom at the rear.
A large modern part-tiled family bathroom on the second return has a clawfoot bathtub and walk-in shower.
Views of the sea are best from the third, top floor of the house where there are three double bedrooms – two with fitted wardrobes – and a shower room.
The main double bedroom is dual aspect, with views across rooftops and trees to Killiney Bay.
