Palmerston Road, a popular street in the redbrick heart of Dublin 6, fairly bristles with “For Sale” and “Sale Agreed” signs at the moment. The street has had its ups and downs, with Victorian homes converted from flats back into single family homes selling for €6 million-plus in the Celtic Tiger years.
Prices fell in the post-boom crash but are creeping back up: number 65 sold for €1.8 million in July 2015 and number 66 went on the market last November for €1.95 million. Both were in flats, needing conversion.
Now 64 Palmerston Road, a 279sq m (3,000sq ft) two storey over garden level, semi-detached four-/five-bed (the other half of number 65) is for sale by private treaty for €3 million through Knight Frank.
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The house, which has bay windows on three floors at the front, has been completely renovated and refurbished and is in walk-in condition. Most of the major work modernising 64 Palmerston Road – built in the late 1800s – was done more than a decade ago by a builder/ developer, before the current owner bought it and put her stamp on it, says agent Peter Kenny of Knight Frank.
Good effect
It’s a dramatic stamp: the owner has decorated the house with flair, from glossy red kitchen units at garden level to the large bathroom with a black-tiled floor at the top of the house.
The decor mixes traditional and modern to good effect, with period features either restored or replaced. The entrance hall and two interconnecting reception rooms on the right have ornate cornicing, centre roses and Georgian-style marble fireplaces (clearly not original in this Victorian house).
Wide-plank floorboards here, and in most rooms in the house, are painted black. A few steps at the end of the hall lead down into a smart study – which could be a bedroom – on the hall floor return, looking over the back garden.
Stairs lead down to the garden level, which also has its own front entrance. The house is at its most modern here: there are two interconnecting reception rooms, both with stone fireplaces, off the downstairs hall. The family room has a bay window looking onto the front garden; the diningroom behind it opens through glazed accordion doors into a back garden that is virtually another room.
On a sunny June morning, the kitchen/breakfastroom and garden designed by David Ryan has a Mediterranean air: the kitchen has a stone-tiled floor, glossy red units, and glazed accordion doors that fold completely back to frame a Zen- style garden with ornamental plants and trees.
Appealing spot
A wide gravelled path leads past four garden sofas sheltered by patio umbrellas. It may be less alluring in a wet November, but it’s an appealing spot in the sun.
A path leads around from the back to the side of the house, where a rack of trays planted with herbs hangs from a side wall.
There is side access to the front garden, where there’s room to park several cars.
Back upstairs, a staircase with a royal blue carpet leads from the front hall up to a double bedroom on the first floor return and on up to three bedrooms, two doubles and a single, on the first floor.
The main bedroom has a marble-tiled en suite shower room. The family bathroom at the top of the house has a jacuzzi bath, shower, and glossy black-tiled floor.
Number 64 is near the corner with Ormond Road and within walking distance of the Cowper Luas stop.
Palmerston Road has been home to many of Ireland's great and good – including former taoisigh Garret Fitzgerald and Seán Lemass – since Patrick Plunkett, grandfather of 1916 leader Joseph Mary Plunkett, started building houses here in the 1850s.
