A detached five-bed on a site overlooking the sea in Greystones, Co Wicklow looks like a villa in Florida from the outside, with arched windows, glazed doors and floor-to-ceiling windows on all sides. Inside, it has a Scandinavian flavour, with smart interiors decorated in neutral shades, and stone features such as recessed alcoves at the end of the T-shaped front hall.
The owners of 5 North Shore have put their own stamp on the house since they bought it in 2011 for €1.01 million. They enclosed what had been an open sunroom and it’s now a warm bright space with rough stone walls, timber floor, floor-to-ceiling windows, glazed doors and a 12ft-high roof lantern. They also put larger windows into the kitchen and turned the upstairs bedroom into a two-room suite with large rooflights that open to give views of the sea.
Number 5 is one of 13 detached houses on large gardens in North Shore, a gated enclave developed in 2003 high on a sloping site overlooking the sea, a short walk from the Bray-to-Greystones cliff walk. The detached 409sq m (4,402sq ft) five-bed – with a separate 61.8sq m (665sq ft) garage outside – is now for sale through Sherry FitzGerald for €1.8 million. The house has a B3 Ber and an annual service charge of €1,500.
It shows itself to its best advantage on a sunny winter’s morning, with sunshine streaming in from all angles. Glazed double doors open into a high-ceilinged entrance hall, floored, like most of the downstairs rooms, with pale tiles. An attractive feature is a mosaic square inset into the floor.
A T-shaped hall off the entrance has four bedrooms and a good-sized home office opening off it at either side of the house. Double-glazed doors – that open both ways – open into a livingroom with a stone fireplace facing a wall hung with tall mirrors.
This opens into both the sunroom and the L-shaped kitchen-dining-family room. The kitchen has units painted white, marble-topped counters and splashback and an island that is part timber-topped, part-marble-topped with a semi-circular breakfast bar at one end. There’s a wine fridge beside the large fridge freezer and a decent sized utility room off the kitchen. A corner window offers views of the sea.
Smart cabinetry conceals a workstation with a computer; in the dining area, a fitted dresser with glass-fronted cabinets lines one wall and French doors open to a patio. There’s a marble fireplace in the family room.
Three of the four bedrooms off the hall have smart, fully tiled en suites. The main bedroom en suite has a Jacuzzi bath and shower; a dressingroom has plenty of hanging and shelving space. A tall corner window has sea views and double glazed doors open onto a patio. Other bedrooms include a guest room with a huge arched window overlooking the garden. Opposite it is the family bathroom fully tiled in stone; it has an oval bath and smart wash-hand basin like those in the en suites.
Up carpeted and white-painted stairs is a self-contained suite: it has a large livingroom and a separate bedroom with very deep roof windows which can be opened to give views of the sea. An en suite shower room is fully tiled.
The home office downstairs is a large, bright, timber-floored room, with a tall arched window and glazed double doors opening on to a patio: it has plenty of room for sofas and chairs as well as a desk.
The house is set on two-thirds of an acre. Outside, a large garden is mainly in lawn at the back – from here, you can hear the distant hum of traffic on the busy Bray to Greystones road. A sandstone patio with different spaces for dining wraps around the house. There’s a blue limestone patio and box hedging in the landscaped front garden. The separate garage is being used as a gym, but has potential for conversion.
It’s a short walk from North Shore to a road that leads across the rail line towards the Greystones end of the Bray-Greystones cliff path.
