There’s been a plethora of houses sold on Summer Street in the past 18 months. The cul de sac is just off North Circular Road, and close to both Dorset Street and Mountjoy Square.
The street contains a mix of housing stock with some properties still subdivided into flats and newer residents converting them back into single use homes. Two years ago number 20 sold for €120,000. In April 2014, five houses on the street sold, ranging in price from €175,00 to €204,000. In October 2014, number 14 sold for €249,000 and the following month number 21 sold for €265,000.
Number 18, which dates from 1834, is owned by artist and chef Garvan Gallagher and his partner Kevin Downey, a film and television production designer.
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It comes to market asking €475,000, through agents SherryFitzGerald, a significant price jump in the three-month period.The couple ran the well-presented house, 175sq m (1900sq ft) in size, as a boutique guesthouse, Two Rooms in Dublin, letting out two of the property’s potential four bedrooms. Response to their baked goods breakfasts inspired them to publish a cookbook of the same name as the guesthouse, showing how to recreate the recipes and ambiance they served up.
The house has lots of personality thanks to the groovy retro furnishings, bought from Killian McNulty of Midcentury Online, in the interconnecting rooms at hall level. The sittingroom overlooks the well-planted and well-tended garden with fold-back doors leading to the diningroom. Both rooms have open fireplaces but the one in the diningroom needs some restoration.
The kitchen on the return has a big picture window over the counter drawing light in. A small table for two means you can eat-in here. A door opens out to the small but private north-facing garden that includes bamboo and a New Zealand tree fern.
A catalpa tree, completely bare at present, will create a canopy effect when it flowers later in the year.
There are two bedrooms on the first floor, a great-sized double to the rear, one of the two rooms rented by the couple, with the master to the front. In here a false wall in front of the fireplace means that the wardrobe space is hidden from view. It means the fireplace isn’t on show (it is still in situ), but makes the room look clean and makes the most of its two big windows.
The family bathroom with separate shower and bath is on the hall return. The other two bedrooms are at garden level with the one overlooking it the second of the two rooms rented by the couple.
The other, currently used as a study, is sizeable and could also make a good den space for teenagers.
At the top of the street, hidden around a corner, on Summer Row and shared with the residents of Sean O’Casey Avenue, is a community garden that the couple set up.
The subject of a documentary they made, which was screened as part of the 2010 Dublin Fringe Festival, it includes a polytunnel where tomatoes and lime trees have been planted. Thanks to this initiative, the street won a Pride of Place Award in 2010.
