Built 14 years ago, there's great flow to the space in this five-bedroom house on three-quarters of an acre, priced at €2.25m, writes ROSE DOYLE
ROSEWARNE, ON Glenamuck Road, Carrickmines, Co Dublin, has a lovely, cottage-style garden, rose and wisteria-clad walls, French doors and a rambling style. It has everything, in fact, that an old country house should have – and is exactly what the owners wanted when they built it a relatively short 14 years ago.
After years of city living in high, old houses they had reached the point of wanting the opposite – “a little old house, simple and solid with gracious rooms, suitable for a family and with loads of garden”. Rosewarne is the result and is most of those things; it is not, of course, old and with 302sq m (3,250sq ft) of space is not a small house.
The design, by architect Paul Keogh and interior designer Rachel Chidlow, has all of the rooms flowing into one another on the ground floor, all of the living spaces facing south or south-west, and utility and other areas facing north. With its wrap-around garden and distant views of the old Lead Mines in Carrickgollan, the result is a cheerfully elegant house with a great deal of light pouring into the reception rooms and bedrooms.
Definitely a family house, Rosewarne has five bedrooms, four reception rooms, study, kitchen/breakfastroom and around 0.75 acres of garden landscaped by Rachel Lamb.
It will be sold by private treaty and has an asking price of €2.25 million. Sherry FitzGerald is looking after the sale.
A large part of the Rosewarne appeal is in the expansive welcome of its ground floor areas.
There are no corridors; the front reception area leads to an inner reception hall which leads on, in a semi-circle, through the drawingroom, diningroom, kitchen/breakfastroom and family room. The colours throughout are of the palest grey nuanced with blue or green, the oak floors have the subtle sheen of stain that has been oiled and there are French doors everywhere – the family room alone has three.
The ornate, white marble, matching period fireplaces in the dining and drawing rooms came from a Georgian house on Mountjoy Square.
The kitchen has a cool, uncluttered style with palest grey-blue fittings and an Aga cooker. The oak-stained floors and two French doors to the garden give it a continuity of style with the rooms all around.
The inner reception area is filled with light from a pair of pitched roof Velux windows as is the first floor landing. In the main, south-east facing bedroom there are three windows and a bank of fitted wardrobes. A dressing area leads on to an en suite designed so it can also be accessed by family and/or guests. The other four bedrooms are good-sized, all of them with views.
The garden, seen from every room of the house, is a huge part of the Rosewarne style and mood. Given much loving care through the years, it has high walnut and lime trees, a couple of Spanish oaks and lots of birch trees. There is a herbaceous border and a vegetable patch growing raspberries, leeks, herbs and potatoes. Lawned areas are rimmed by hedging and trees, a yard gives plenty of potting space, a garage gives storage and there are five separate areas for composting.
The M50 is minutes away and Carrickmines Luas station is due to open nearby in 2010.
