Tucked away behind electric gates in Dublin’s Killiney is a super-swish house that wouldn’t look out of place among the LA hillside homes featured in hit Netflix reality TV show Selling Sunset.
Situated at the very top of Violet Hill – a private road off Killiney’s Church Road and home to about 20 discreet, detached homes – it offers, space, light and stunning views to the Dublin Mountains.
Built into the hill and bordering Killiney Golf Club, the three-storey to the front and two-storey to the rear modernist house is, in effect, an extensive remodelling of the original property which was bought by its current owner, Tony Lambert, of electrical contracting firm Lambert & Sons, in 2006. He and his family lived here until they built another Sunset-worthy property, Cruachan (the name of the original house), in its garden, which is where they now live.
This residence, Sarrett, is the fruits of a collaboration with architect Fergus Flanagan, and completed to Lambert’s design. Daughter Niamh has helped too with the finishing touches. She studied property economics and has returned to Dublin having spent almost a decade in Delhi working in commercial leasing before getting into residential development.
Sarrett is wrapped in 100mm of external insulation, has triple-glazed alu-clad windows, underfloor heating across its top two floors and not one, but two heat recovery ventilation systems (one was not sufficient to service the enormous property).
Zen garden
The property is full of surprises, starting with the Zen garden of ambiently lit Thai goddesses that greet you in the entrance hall. An open-tread staircase leads up the first floor but off it to the left is a sizeable one-bedroom unit that could be integrated into the overall footprint of the house or accessed via a side door that gives it complete independence from the other floors.
At the top of the steep stairs is a landing washed in light. To the right is a livingroom with a wall of glass opening out to a terrace running the length of the room and taking in the moody blues and violet tones of the Dublin Mountains in the distance.
The real scene-stealer is the enormous open-plan space across the cut-stone-walled hall. The Alto kitchen with duck-egg blue units beneath a grey quartz-topped island appears to float in the middle of the space. More than 5m above in the deep light well is a roof light bigger than the island that floods daylight in, with at least six different mood lighting settings, Lambert says.
In fact, each room has layered lighting schemes offering colour-changing programmes, as one might expect from an expert in this field who down the years has fitted lighting systems in Dublin hotspots such as Club 92 and Sachs Hotel.
But really, this house is all about natural light and space, qualities it has in spades across its 510sq m/5,500sq ft (the original footprint of the house was 325sq m/3,500sq ft). The overall lighting plan for the house is a cool, white light very much in keeping with its contemporary design. “White light is more modern, clean and crisp. In a really well-insulated house lighting that offers visual warmth is not that important,” he says of the property which comes with an A2 Ber rating.
There’s a utility to the rear of the kitchen and an intriguing secret space, screened off by a large-format sliding door, one of many made by Lambert on site. This would work well as a home office or a playroom for children.
The dining area opens out to a terrace that gets lunchtime sun while the lounge is set around a turquoise wall and ceiling feature with strip-lighting framing where the TV will live. Strip lighting also outlines the kitchen’s form and can change colour to suit your mood, from upbeat magenta pink to melancholic blue. “There’s even green for St Patrick’s Day,” says Lambert.
Unique feature
The home’s unique feature is a glass-roofed terrace running the 11m length of the livingroom where you can drink in the views and stargaze in any weather. The views are mesmerising and will beguile even in darkest winter. Sweeping across from the cranes at work in Cherrywood to the towers of the Sandyford business district, the only sound is birdsong.
Above the kitchen is a glass-fronted bridge that connects two of the property’s four sizeable double bedrooms. The main is to the front and frames the same views as the terrace below. It has a stylish walk-in wardrobe, set out with shop fittings that offer real ease of access to hanging rails. The ensuite has a double-ended bath and a separate shower where a floor lamp brings in atmospheric light and is cleverly glassed off from the water.
The second bedroom to the rear has a balcony that takes in morning sun and from where you can see the tops of the golf buggies on Killiney Golf Course driving by.
There are a further two doubles on the floor below, one ensuite; the other has a Jack and Jill bathroom.
Set on 0.4 of an acre, with a lawn to the rear planted with fruit trees, the property includes a separate garage where rainwater-harvesting tanks that feed the property’s grey water needs are housed and where there is room for several cars.
The property is seeking €2.85million through agent Savills.
