Anyone who has strolled up Strand Road to take the cliff walk to Howth will have noted the turreted red tile-roofed fairytale houses on the left hand side.
Number 42, is one of a pair of verandaed houses where you could imagine yourself out on the terrace taking tea and drinking in the spectacular sea views and the aquatic life below which includes industrious cormorants and fearless seals.
The ornate latticed veranda, which is south-east facing, used to be painted a Barbara Cartland pink and its original timber casement windows were picked out in the same unnatural shade.
It’s a residence that will be familiar to property watchers too for it came to market three years ago, in February 2015 asking €1.4million. This price dropped to €1.2million in March 2016 and it was delisted later that month.
By then the house, which the current owner bought for €720,000 in 2011, according to the property price register, had been stripped of its feminine coloured fenestration and its original windows replaced by uPVC designs that while triple-glazed to keep out the wind and salt are less pretty to look at. But from the inside the lack of wooden uprights gives a far less interrupted vista.
The owner also set about investing about €140,000 into damp-proofing and dry-lining the interior of the late Victorian house which now has an impressive B3 Ber rating.
The property is now back on the market asking €995,000 through agents DNG and has some interesting talking points including a double-pitched roof with a catslide where the roof extends down a distance over the veranda, to reduce the height a feline has to jump to get back onto terra firma.
The house opens into a hall with original waiscotting and rooms on either side. An arch leads through to the rest of the hall, set at right angles to the front hall. Underfoot is a laminate wood floor that continues throughout the house. The sitting room is to the left and the room’s coving has been obscured slightly by the remedial insulation.
It has a tiled inset fireplace, no longer in use, and a box bay window that is the perfect size for a two-sea sofa and a place any dreamer would like to install himself for the views are bewitching. It must be very distracting if you work from home. The traffic to and from Dublin Port can be seen in the shipping channels and the light and cloudscapes change constantly.
Wonderful views
To the right is a dining room with more wonderful views of the water leading through to the kitchen. A door here takes you back out to the hall where there are several other rooms to the back of the property.
One, a velux-windowed space that was built on to the original property, has the property’s cast iron water pump on show and is used by the owners to store wetsuits and sports equipment.
A back door leads outside. Given the siting of this house, the Sutton Dinghy club is just up the street, this would make enjoying activities like sailing, paddle-boarding, sea kayaking or wind surfing a breezy five-minute commute. The club, which offers sailing classes to kids in the summer, was founded by the late John Weaving, a man who was born and bred in Gilmoss and who had a bust erected in his honour a few years ago at Terryglass on the river Shannon where he spent his late years on a barge.
The back door leads out to a sizeable garden laid out in lawn and north-west facing in aspect. The house shares its side driveway with two other properties, a bungalow built to the back and its co-joined neighbour.
One of the property’s four bedrooms is also at this level and adjacent to it is very large utility room that is dual aspect and could also work as a study.
At the top of the stairs is the first of three bedrooms and adjacent to it is a very large, dual aspect bathroom with a separate shower and free-standing bath.
The two main bedrooms are situated up a short set of steps. These are the turreted rooms. Each has a vaulted ceiling and distracting views. Both are L-shaped.
The house is sizeable. It measures 189sq m/2045sq ft but is not for those who crave ensuite bathrooms and open plan kitchen living dining rooms you can roller skate around.
But, if sea views and sailing float your boat, this is a home that could give any sailor a land base to work their lifestyle around.
