A week after Killead on Shrewsbury Road and its adjoining property on Ailesbury Road went for sale with an expectation of €20 million, another high-priced property halfway down one of Ireland’s most expensive roads has been brought to market.
Coolbeg, 14 Shrewsbury Road, a 553sq m (5,950sq ft) five-bed detached Edwardian on 0.4 acres, is for sale through Sherry FitzGerald seeking €12.5 million. It was last sold in 2012 for €4.4 million, a few years after the property crash, when prices on the road had fallen from the peak €58 million sale of Walford in 2005. Most recently Walford was sold for €14.25 million in 2016 while Lissadell (number 9) was sold in an off-market transaction to property developer Pat Crean in 2021 for €13.25 million.
While there was a time when the Marlet Property Group chief would have faced stiff competition from rival developers for such homes, a buyer now is more likely to be someone either at home or abroad who’s sold a business, says agent Simon Ensor.
In terms of other sales on the road, number 16 sold for €6.25 million in 2023, while the asking price of Melfort at number 19, which went for sale in September 2023 for €12.75 million, has dropped to €11 million. But number 18 Ailesbury Road nearby has recently sold for around the €10 million asking price, it is understood.
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In 2012, Coolbeg was owned by a cardiologist and his family who’d bought it for a little over €18,000 in the late 1960s and lived there for 46 years. Some scenes from 1990s film Far and Away, starring Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman, were filmed here during that time. The current owner bought it, revamped it and extended it in 2015, and since then the property – which includes a smart 65sq m (700sq ft) one-bed coach house at the bottom of the garden – has been rented out. (Properties in this part of Ballsbridge rent for around €16,500 a month.)
Refreshed and staged (by Cormac Rowell of Rowell Design) for sale, it looks very much in walk-in condition, with no signs of rental wear and tear. A standout feature is the high-gloss dark herringbone Merbau wood flooring used throughout the house, but particularly in all the main ground-floor rooms. Walls everywhere are painted white, a smart contrast to the floors. There’s underfloor heating throughout the ground floor and air conditioning – something American buyers in particular like, says Ensor – in all five bedrooms. Coolbeg has a B3 Ber.
Studio M architect Patricia Mangan oversaw the refurbishment of Coolbeg and there’s a unity and unfussiness to the design throughout: wash-hand basins in the many bathrooms, for example, are set into smart shimmering green glass surrounds; pale light grey/white marble subway tiles are used in kitchen and bathrooms; cream drapes frame windows upstairs and down. The guest lodge has the same smart fitout, with high-gloss herringbone floors. There’s an abundance of storage in cupboards upstairs and down and a very posh utility room with a marble splashback and a slate-coloured tiled floor.
Coolbeg is a redbrick Edwardian house built like most of the Shrewsbury homes near the start of the 20th century. It has period and period-style features – ceiling cornicing, centre roses, marble fireplaces – but is lighter and brighter throughout than many Edwardians.
It’s a house suitable for entertaining: apart from a cosy study on the left of the front hall, three interconnecting reception rooms on the right of the hall flow into a large kitchen/family room/diningroom, all opening on to a large patio at the back.
The drawingroom has a bay window at the front and deep windows at the side (all double-glazed, like all the windows in the house), a gas fire in a marble fireplace and a wide arch opening into a livingroom with a matching marble fireplace and bay window.
Double doors open from here into a bright diningroom – it has two windows at the side and two sets of glazed double doors opening on to the back patio.
More double doors opposite the fireplace open into the very large high-ceilinged open-plan kitchen/family room/diningroom: it’s extremely bright, with a wall of glazed double doors at the end and the side opening on to the patio, along with a large roof light over the kitchen area and smaller one over the side of the living area.
Kitchen units are white as are the stone-topped counter and island unit; a TV is concealed in a panelled chimney breast over a glass-fronted wood-burning stove in the living area. Doors open from the side of the kitchen into a back hall where there are lots of built-in cupboards as well as an extra fridge-freezer.
There are three toilets off the front and back halls, all with tiled floors, marble-tiled walls and wash-hand basins set into the green-glass vanity units.
Stairs leading to the first and second floors are simple, uncarpeted polished wood. There are three double bedrooms on the first floor, two of which are en suite, and two more on the top, second floor, one of which is en suite.
The main bedroom is five-star hotel style: beige-carpeted over the herringbone floor, it has large windows at the side and the front overlooking the large cedar tree in the front garden. Its large en suite has a free-standing oval bath, double sinks in a unit topped with green glass, part marble-tiled wall, dark-tiled floor and walk-in shower. A separate large dressingroom has a long vanity unit and a wall of built-in wardrobes.
The two other double bedrooms on the first floor have vaulted tongue-and-groove timber ceilings with strip lighting; a family bathroom has marble-tiled walls and a shower. The top second floor could be a family member’s work-from-home hideout: one of the two double bedrooms there has a vaulted under-eaves ceiling, a sittingroom space, a partly-exposed brick wall and an en suite shower room. Another smaller double could be a home office.
Outside, the large L-shaped patio steps down on to a lawn bordered by some tall fir trees. A path leads to tall gates that open into the converted garage/coach house built on a triangular-shaped patio.
It’s fitted out very much in the style of the large main house, floored throughout with high-gloss herringbone. A wall of glazed doors/windows opens into a double-height livingroom; painted white, it has a wood-burning stove and a small minstrel gallery in a top corner.
A separate kitchen/breakfastroom with glazed walls/doors opens on to a patio; it has the same Siemens fittings as those in the main kitchen and white stone countertops. Steep stairs lead to a small double bedroom that looks down into the livingroom from the tiny gallery. The shower room beside it is fully tiled.
A paved path beside the lawn leads back to the front garden, where there’s room to park quite a few cars in the cobblelocked front garden.
Coolbeg is close to a locked back entrance into the RDS Simmonscourt complex.
