The transformation from a two-up/two-down former council house on Hyde Road in Dalkey, Co Dublin, to an innovative, four-bedroom family home is quite exceptional. It’s difficult to picture a modest 69sq m home where there now stands a dwelling that is more than 2½ times the original size.
The owners of 16 Hyde Road purchased the house in 2016 when they returned home after five years in Australia. The corner site was a big attraction as they knew they would have space to work with. The generous front garden allowed for a larger than average extension, resulting in the 181sq m (1,948sq ft) standout property that you see today.
The work on the house was done in two phases. The first job started in 2020, with Covid looming. As the owner was a builder, he was allowed to keep working on the house when restrictions were put in place to halt building work on all projects, unless it was your own home.
The first job entailed a lot of work on the downstairs of the house but just as it came to an end, the couple discovered they were expecting their first child. This new addition to the family brought with it a realisation that another job would have to be done to create more bedrooms upstairs.
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So, just last year, the second phase of the work was completed with the upstairs extension providing two extra bedrooms. This was clad in Canadian red cedar as the final statement piece on the 1950s house.
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On the market now with a guide price of €1.1 million through Lisney Sotheby’s International Realty, the house is in turnkey condition.
The interior has a kind of back-to-front feel about it with the kitchen opening out to the front garden rather than the back yard. To accommodate this switch, a wall with a door has been built between the carport and the garden, and a hedgerow has been grown to 8ft to provide privacy and security.
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The entrance hall is full of personality with the walls painted in a dusty blue-green shade (Fleetwood’s St Swithun) with a darker blue-green on the skirting boards (Sylvia Beach, also by Fleetwood). To the right is a dual-aspect livingroom with timber flooring and a fully panelled cool-grey wall. There is a shower room to the left of the hallway, with a genuine Crittall door beyond that leads to the kitchen/living/diningroom.
This expansive room is where all life happens, with a separate living space that has a bespoke media unit, and a dining area that faces on to the garden. The kitchen, which is matt black, features a wood-topped island.
The lawn at the front can be accessed by sliding doors in the kitchen, while at the back there is a west-facing barbecue area with cedar panelled screens providing extra privacy.
Upstairs, the main bedroom runs the width of the house and has a walk-in wardrobe with doors that came from India via a salvage yard in Kildare, as well as a glass fanlight that once belonged to a Georgian building on Merrion Square. There are two more bedrooms in the new extension at the front of the house, and a fourth at the back beside the main bathroom.
The owners had the help of interior designer Elaine Verdon of Leo and Cici when it came to colour choices, fittings and furnishings.
Impressive for a house of this age, the Ber rating is a B2. There is underfloor heating downstairs, and all windows are double-glazed.
Although often associated with the rich and famous, Dalkey still manages to retain the feel of a small seaside village as you cut down the side streets to get to the coastline. Hyde Road is situated at the edge of the village, so the saying “a stone’s throw away” really rings true for this property. There are cafes, supermarkets, restaurants, pubs and specialist shops aplenty within walking distance.
Kids will never have to travel far for activities with Hyde Park and Cuala GAA at the end of the road. The Dart station is less than 10 minutes away on foot, and residents are also served by the number 7 and 59 bus routes, as well as the Aircoach link to Dublin Airport.
So, after all the hard graft that went into transforming this former council house, won’t it be difficult for the owners to move on?
“We’re not going too far. We feel good about the house because we’ve had great years in it. It is a really good feeling to know we maximised what could be done to it and to leave it in a good place for the next owners,” they say.
