Tucked off Clarinda Park, one of the first planned squares in Dún Laoghaire, is Clarinda House, an apartment block with 12 units set over three floors. Its location is quiet considering its setting just minutes from the centre of the vibrant coastal suburb of Dún Laoghaire, with yacht clubs, seafront walks and the Dart, which will have you in Dublin city centre within half an hour.
Number 6 lies on the first floor and offers well-proportioned bright rooms. Extending to 71sq m (764sq ft), the property has two double bedrooms, one of which has a Murphy foldaway bed that disappears into the wall, providing a flexible living/work space suitable for various uses.
These beds take their name from an Irish immigrant to the United States, William Murphy, who wanted to find a way for his tiny apartment to work as a parlour. As he lived in a studio, his bed took centre stage and at that time it was highly frowned upon for a woman to enter a man’s bedroom. According to the Smithsonian Museum, Murphy was trying to impress an opera singer in his one-room apartment in San Francisco, so he created a new type of fold-up wall bed with pivot and counterbalanced design. Murphy married the girl in the end and his invention received a number of patents in the early 1900s. However, the US court of appeals for the second circuit ruled in 1989 that the term Murphy bed had entered common lexicon and was, therefore, no longer eligible for trademarks.
“It’s been a brilliant addition for the guts of €4,000 as it has given us a multifunctional room, which is the biggest room in the apartment,” says the owner, who sourced the bed from bbtfurniture.ie. “As the room now has two office desks that fold up, a large 30-inch screen that hides away and the wall bed, it allows the space to work as a home office for two people, a guest bedroom or an exercise room for yoga.”
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The livingroom, which houses a formal dining area, is bright thanks to two large windows. Lying off this space is a separate well-equipped kitchen, which is also plumbed for a washing machine.
The property has a Ber of B3, enhanced by a combi boiler and double-glazed windows, which were installed in 2018. Number 6, which has an annual service charge of €1,900 and is serviced by a lift, is now on the market through Sherry FitzGerald, seeking €450,000.
