Sandymount: €1.475mCurlew Cottage, 28-30 Gilford Avenue, Sandymount, is a surprise, and a delight. The surprise is that it's there at all, so privately is it tucked into its other-world niche at the heart of the Dublin 4 suburb. The delight is in its bright, cottage-style proportions and a design which gives all of the rooms a touch of its south-facing, sunken Japanese, vegetable and cottage gardens.
The two cottages forming today's Curlew Cottage date from 1855, or earlier, and were most likely built for workers in the nearby Belvedere House, now seafront apartments.
Known as Eagle Place in 1888, by 1901 the name had become Eagle Terrace. That year's census shows George and Ellen Bashford living in today's number 28 with their six children.
Their neighbours in number 30 were William and Catherine Horan along with their four children.
With high, panelled ceilings under a pitched roof, long windows, glass doors, Junckers flooring, exposed brick, latched doors and rooms leading in circular fashion one into the other, Curlew Cottage is spacious, bright and filled with a sense of its period.
Over 107.2sq m (1,155sq ft) of floor space it has three bedrooms, a sun room, reception room, and kitchen/breakfastroom. It is being sold through agent Felicity Fox, with an asking price of €1.475m.
One of the design delights is a small, inner courtyard, cleverly caught between the shower room off the main bedroom and a second bedroom/study.
Others include the varied designs of the five, working fireplaces, the Velux windows everywhere and the floor-to-ceiling brick fireplace with wood-burning stove in the kitchen/breakfastroom.
The sunroom, all timber-framed glass, reaches into the cottage garden where there is a pond and gurgling water feature.
Windows in the living room, along with a glass door, give similar views and a pair of Velux in the pitched, wood-panelled ceiling highlight an exposed brick wall and loft with a bed.
The family bathroom has both shower and bath and there is a second shower room, and utility room where once there was a kitchen, off the main bedroom.
A rear lane gives access to a parking space.
