It’s a house of ponies and dogs, of parties and happy memories, and with two acres of enclosed, gorgeous, wooded gardens it’s no surprise that the owners, Mary and Bill McDowell, don’t want to leave.
On winding, leafy Ballybride Road – just nine minutes walk from the local pub, according to Bill – Greenacre, which was built approximately 60 years ago, is convenient to shops, schools, walks and other amenities, but, as Mary says, as soon as the gates are closed, “it’s like being on your own little island”.
Now that their children are grown up, the six bedrooms are too much, and the couple have put it on the market with Sherry FitzGerald for €1.295 million. Reached up a curving drive, which wraps around a lawn, and in spring is lined with daffodils, Greenacre has a rambling feel to it.
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The ground floor has a smallish kitchen leading through to a breakfast room, that joins with a TV room and conservatory. A utility room beyond opens up into a separate guest bedroom (en suite).
On the other side of the kitchen, there are two bedrooms and a bathroom, and a sittingroom, drawingroom and dining room, all connected via glass-panelled doors, so you can open them all up, as well as throw open the French windows to the patios, and have, as the owners describe it, “one hell of a party . . .”
Back garden
Upstairs there are three more bedrooms, although only one, the master bedroom, is en suite. The other two use the downstairs bathroom. There are some nice touches to Greenacre: original iron window frames, wooden floors salvaged from old churches, and a very nice modernist-influenced fireplace, all plain stone with a wooden surround.
Out in the huge back garden the family dog frisks, nosing around hazelnuts from the trees. There are apple trees too, oaks, rhododendrons, and Bill says that in spring there is a riot of blossom from the Japanese cherry trees.
There’s lots of horse riding in this part of the world (as the host of multi coloured rosettes in the kitchen attests), and the back part of the garden could be fenced off for a paddock, while still leaving plenty of lawn.
New owners will probably want to work out how to put in an upstairs bathroom, and will upgrade here and there, but one thing they won’t want to change is the lovely family atmosphere of Greenacre. Just along the Ballybride Road, San Moranth, a much newer five-bed, sold in June this year for €1.2 million.
