A striking cottage-style house at Stillorgan Road, Donnybrook, Dublin 4, has been given a guide price of £750,000 in advance of its auction by Finnegan Menton on October 20th. Belville Cottage, the home of builder Joe Cosgrave of the Cosgrave Group, will be familiar to commuters by virtue of its pink facade and roadside position on the Stillorgan Road at Donnybrook church. When he bought the house in l982, Mr Cosgrave divided Belville Cottage into two distinct and separate homes while maintaining the integrity of the facade.
The house now being sold has two reception rooms, three to four bedrooms, a gravelled courtyard and 2,055 sq ft of space. While period features such as tiling, coving, picture and dado rails have all been restored, most of the original windows have been replaced with triple-glazed versions.
Belville Cottage was built for Lord Mayor Arthur Morrisson in 1835.
It was later the preferred lodgings of the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins on his visits to the capital toward the end of the 19th century.
The entrance is just a few hundred yards from Donnybrook Church, through electronically controlled gates which open into a gravelled courtyard.
Immediately inside there is a small, self-contained building which now serves as a study, but could equally be used as a guest bedroom or playroom. The house proper has a granite step up to the front door and a porch with the original tiled floor. Double doors lead to the entrance hall, which leads into a larger reception hall. To the right is the main bedroom, which has a large, well-appointed en suite. It overlooks the gravelled courtyard. Beyond this there is a study/ bedroom and, further along, the sittingroom, which has a period white and ochre fireplace.
A large window looks out on to the courtyard. The kitchen gives a feel of the original house, with its oak floorboards, Belfast sink and cast-iron fireplace.
The worktops are of polished granite, and the fittings are pine with a splashback of hand-painted tiles. Double doors with coloured glass inserts lead from the kitchen to an oval livingroom/diningroom, where a window takes up most of one wall, while another curves into the courtyard.
Decorative plasterwork has been added to the ceiling and there are polished wooden floorboards and an ornate fireplace. Also at this level is a utility room and a family bathroom, which features a claw-foot, cast-iron bath. Up a small and winding stairs there are two bedrooms.
The courtyard has flower beds with lots of geraniums, as well as shrubs and surrounding trees.
To the rear there is a paved, patio space where a traditional-style Dublin street light has been installed. The trees give privacy from the next-door apartment building, built by the Cosgrave Group.
