Temple Villas in Dublin 6, that very quiet, leafy stretch that links Palmerston Road with Palmerston Park has been a hive of sales activity in the past two years. Five houses have sold there since late 2011 which is some going given the state of the market and also that these period redbricks are very much at the top end.
They sold for prices ranging from €2.1 million to €3.45 million – the price generally speaking being determined by condition and whether the houses were detached or semis. Now another Temple Villas house has come up for sale, number 18, it’s semi detached and at the corner of Temple Villas and Cowper Road, a position that enabled the owners build a very striking, contemporary mews opening on to Cowper Road, the sort you’d see in an architecture magazine. Sherry FitzGerald is selling number 18, a six-bedroom period home with 3,220sq ft/299sq m and the two bedroom mews: 730sq ft /68 sq m for €2.9 million.
The family, who are downsizing, have lived here since 1989. When they bought the house it was divided into flats but the period details, marble fireplaces, working shutters, decorative cornice work and the rest were still intact so it was more a question of breaking down partitions and creating a family bathroom and kitchen.
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It’s a lovely family house, with three fine, very large reception rooms – the two to the left of the front door interconnect, the one on the right is unusually large and bright because as well as a tall sash window facing the front, it has a deep bay window to the side. A nice feature in the back reception room is the original French door, not often seen in these houses, which opens to steps down to the back garden. There is a fourth, smaller family room with a wood-burning stove.
Upstairs off airy, bright landings there are six bedrooms – five doubles and one single and two have en suites. The family bathroom was given a contemporary makeover when the mews was built in 2007.
Smart granny flat
The single-storey, two-bedroom mews was designed by well-known conservation architect Paul Arnold. Built in 2007, it is very smart and hidden from the house by a low wall and clever planting. Inside the hall door is one large room with a glossy kitchen at one end and a living area at the other which is linked by two glazed courtyards to two double bedrooms, each with ensuites, at the back. It was built for a family member as a very smart granny flat and in terms of planning is not a separate property with its own title. New owners may choose to pursue that.
While the house, which is a protected structure, is perfectly liveable in as is, it’s likely that new owners will do some updating and at some stage extend the kitchen either to the side where there is plenty of space or to the rear.
Around the corner at 23 Temple Gardens, Sherry FitzGerald is selling another very large, five-bedroom semi-detached redbrick period for €3.5 million. Temple Gardens is the more prized address in the area – it’s a quieter road, the houses are bigger, grander – and they rarely come up for sale. Though the sale in 2006 of a semi on the road, needing work, for €9,050,000 which was probably the last big auction-room residential sale in the boom, is still a talking point in the area.
Number 23, with 3,230 sq ft/300sq m, feels quite grand in terms of scale – these were always upmarket houses – with particularly high ceilings, decorative timber architraves as well as ornate ceiling plasterwork, and plenty of space overall. Downstairs, there are three fine reception rooms, two interconnecting, as well as a small kitchen with breakfast room at the back.
Upstairs there are five double bedrooms, one currently used as a home office. Some of the rooms are unfurnished or only partially furnished so it is not presenting at its best.
The house last changed hands in the 1990s and some updating was done then in terms of a bathroom and a new kitchen – but new owners will almost certainly do it all over again as well as redecorate throughout. They will probably look to extend the kitchen and reconfigure the utility room. The rear garden is vast and has mews potential – next door has a smart mews house in its garden.
Both houses at Temple Gardens and Temple Villas have mature gardens, a lovely rambling period feel and off-street parking for four or five cars.
