The original houses on Maple Road in Clonskeagh, while Crampton-built like their neighbours in the adjoining Whitethorn and Whitebeam Roads, are of a very different type. They don't have as many charming features as their neighbours but what these later-built homes on this quiet, wide road have is size – they are very large detached houses on very generous sites.
Number 14 is a fairly typical Maple Road house, with 210sq m (2,260sq ft) of space built in the early 1950s on 0.25 of an acre. It is for sale through DNG for €1,895,000.
It is a red-brick two-storey detached house which, when originally built, would have had a detached garage to the side. In a previous owner’s time, this was incorporated into the property in a two-storey extension. At just one room deep on the ground floor, the house is long and relatively shallow. Downstairs, the living room opens into the dining room in an L-shaped configuration – separated in true 1950s style by sliding doors.
There is a good sized eat-in kitchen which opens into the room created by the garage conversion which is now a small living room. Upstairs there are good-sized bedrooms.
The extension made space for an ensuite – its brown suite an indication of the date of its last makeover – and dressing area for the largest bedroom. There is also a study accessed from this area.
While the owners have made many improvements to 14 Maple Road, including new windows, a updated family bathroom and a new kitchen, it is likely that new owners will make major changes – the size of the north-facing rear garden gives plenty of scope for extending.
That tends to be the pattern on this road – when the 1950s houses change hands they are either extensively renovated or even knocked down and a new, much larger house built.
Examples of both approaches are directly across the road from number 14, with one of them – number 9 – which sold earlier this year for €3 million, currently roofless and gutted as it undergoes a massive renovation and extension programme. The gardens are mature and well planted and there is off-street parking to the front.
