When Johnny Burns of Manorglen Properties began drawing up the plans for the site on Temple Road, which his family had acquired back in the 1970s but for various reasons had been left undeveloped since, he knew the spot needed something that would blend in.
Temple Road is leafy and lovely, and the neighbours take some keeping up with: in May, Alston at Number 19 sold for €10.225 million to former Paddy Power boss Patrick Kennedy.
Burns, with the assistance of Gerry O’Neill from MCORM Architects, has built five houses on the site, each to a different design.
0 of 5
New Haven and Ellington are currently under offer, while the four-bed Avanti sold in April of this year for €1.96 million. Now, Caherdaniel, which at 470sq m (5,059sq ft) is the largest of the five, is for sale for €4.5 million through joint agents DNG and Sherry FitzGerald.
As you’d expect from Manorglen, a firm that likes indulging their customers with a little luxury (they were responsible for the Shrewsbury Square development in Ballsbridge, where Gay Byrne bought one of the penthouses), Caherdaniel has a top-of-the range fit-out.
Generous landing
This includes cement floors on all three levels – so no creaking floorboards, should you feel the need to creep across the generous landing in the middle of the night. A2 rated, the house’s has triple-glazed windows, underfloor heating, ensuites for all five bedrooms and an abundance of reception rooms to conjure with.
Walking through with Burns, and admiring the high ceilings, walnut parquet and elegant fireplaces, we begin to play a game of “the new owners might…”.
This is because they have taken the decision to leave some of the design choices up to the buyer. At garden level this means the fifth bedroom could also be a gym, or perhaps, offers Burns, a “trophy room”.
You’d need a lot of trophies, I think. Next door, beyond the dressing room and ensuite, is another large space which could be a study, “or the new owners might decide on a screening room”.
Equally, the huge, front-to-back space with concertina glass doors to the patio and secluded garden, has been wired ready for a kitchen – there’s an allowance built into the price, so you can spec your own style – but “the new owners might also want to put that in the sun room upstairs”.
The new owners will almost certainly revel in the wine store, and may come to be thankful for the disabled access to the garden level. There is ample parking to the front, and more through double gates to the side.
They may want to open up the dumb waiter, for elegant dining with ease on the first floor. And they will definitely love the ensuite in the master bedroom. As they say in those lottery ads: It could be you.
