When the owners viewed Rock Lodge House, an A-frame detached house at the end of a long driveway off Claremont Road in Killiney 14 years ago, they saw different things.
One of them fell for the unloved garden and its potential as well as the peaceful quietness of the tucked-away site, the other saw how the plain, ugly looking 1960s house, both inside and out, could be transformed to create the Hamptons-style look he wanted.
For years the house, owned by the British embassy, had seen a succession of tenants passing through, so it was, to say the least, unloved.
Inside, the ground floor was designed for entertaining so it was mostly open plan but with a small functional kitchen. It comes to the market now totally transformed, inside and out.
Building out to the front vastly improved and updated the appearance of the house and brought more light and space to the living rooms downstairs; upstairs it gave the main bedroom a deep bay window with space for a couple of chairs, all the better to enjoy the uninterrupted sea views.
Open-plan layout
It also gave another bedroom a small terrace to walk out on to – again to enjoy those views. In all there are four bedrooms, three with en-suites while the main bedroom also has a dressing room
Reconfiguring the ground floor for family living meant creating several rooms out of the open-plan layout so there is a snooker room, a TV room and an almost double-height living room with light coming in from tall windows on two sides. Several rooms have floor-to-ceiling windows including the large formal dining room which has a home office area off it.
To enlarge the kitchen, they built a single-storey extension – with windows on three sides and a large rooflight – and it opens out to the part of the now lush garden that has a large circular pond and a patio area with a pretty gazebo.
There is also a large utility room and off the entrance hall, a guest toilet and cloakroom.
Decoratively, there is nothing to do in Rock Lodge House – there’s a sense of meticulous good taste throughout with calm colours on the walls and woodwork, new timber floors in several rooms and smart contemporary bathrooms.
At 375sq m/4,046sq ft this is a substantial house – the owners are downsizing – and it is for sale through Knight Frank for €2,395,000.
