Buyers who want period homes usually have to accept that they will never enjoy the comfort and low energy costs that they would get in a brand new home. So a house built in the 1860s with an A3 energy rating is a rarity.
Developer Ecologic Design & Build and architects Keenan Lynch have developed such a house in Dalkey, Co Dublin. Now Clonlost House on Killiney Road – a short walk from Fitzpatrick’s Castle Hotel – is for sale for €2.4 million through agent Eoin O’Neill.
Clonlost is a 445sq m (4,800sq ft) five-bedroom, two-storey over garden level house with good sea views. Some of its original period features have been retained and others replaced, but it has kept its period style while undergoing a thoroughly modern refurbishment.
Bedrooms are smart, modern en suites and there’s a large open-plan kitchen/diningroom opening on to the back garden. The basement/garden level is now a relatively self-contained unit that could be accommodation for a grandparent or adult child. The house, fashionably fitted out by House & Garden Interiors, is in walk-in condition.
Clonlost House, a former Legionaries of Christ retreat house, is at the entrance to a development of new homes called Dalkey Manor, where Ecologic is building 21 new homes, many of them already finished and sold.
The Victorian house is not a protected structure, which allowed Ecologic to incorporate all the energy-efficiency features it wanted to. For example, it insulated the entire outside of the building, rebuilt the roof with the original slates and replaced the windows with double-glazed sash windows.
The house is fitted with photovoltaic panels that generate electricity, a heat recovery system and a hot water system which promises immediate hot water in all taps and showers.
Clear views
From the outside, Clonlost appears to look as it must have when it was built in 1860. Wide granite steps lead up to the original front door, which opens into a hall with a smart grey-and-white tiled floor and its original centre rose.
The dual aspect drawingroom on the right of the hall, like the livingroom on the left, has a large bay window with clear views of Dublin Bay – down the road that separates Dalkey Manor’s terraced houses – and a tall window on the side. Its white marble fireplace is original and it has an enclosed wood-effect gas fire. It has a herringbone oak floor, like the rest of the hall-level floors.
The livingroom has a woodburning stove set into a marble fireplace; just to the left of the fireplace, an opening has been created to connect the livingroom to the large open-plan space at the back.
The kitchen/diningroom is a very bright space which runs the entire width of the back of the house, with large windows and French windows opening on to the back garden. It can accommodate a large dining table next to a marble fireplace at one end, while in the kitchen, there are an oval island, navy wooden kitchen units and white marble countertops and splashback. There are also a full-height wine cooler between two fridge/freezers and a small utility room off the kitchen.
Upstairs there are four double bedrooms, all very smartly fitted out with tiled en suites. The two at the front have clear views of the sea, while the two at the rear have views over houses to Killiney Hill.
The main bedroom, which is dual aspect like the room below it, has a very smart en suite with a freestanding bath with a sea view and a walk-in shower. It also has a large walk-in dressingroom where there are two separate closet areas, one a few steps down from the other.
There is a ramp from the front of the house to the entrance at the side into the garden level accommodation: this includes a smart entrance hall with a fitted bench, a study, family room opening into a patio at the back (from where there are stairs up to the lawn), downstairs toilet, utility room and a large bedroom with a walk-in wardrobe and large fully-tiled en suite wetroom.
It also has underfloor heating, an understairs brick-lined wine cellar and a kitchenette off the family room. This doesn’t have a cooker in it, but presumably could be fitted with one if necessary.
There are two very old trees in the landscaped back garden, which backs on to Killiney Road. There is lots of room to park in the gravelled space at the front and side of the house.
