Dublin 7: €775,000: There's a sense of an older Dublin in the streets and roads behind Berkeley Road, Dublin 7. Just minutes from the city centre, Dublin's only linear park runs behind them and the wonderful waters of the Blessington Basin are to the side.
Number 37 Goldsmith Street, for sale through HOK Residential with an advised minimum value (AMV) of €775,000, is central to it all with the basin and park a short walk away. Owner John Fingleton, the ex-Competition Authority chairman recently appointed CEO of the UK's Office of Fair Trading, is selling what has been his home of almost a decade to move to London.
It has 133sq m (1,430sq ft), three bedrooms, interconnecting reception rooms and a kitchen/dining room. It goes to auction on May 18th. The houses on Goldsmith Street were built in pairs in the 1860s so that roof heights and frontages come in interesting variety. Number 37 has been revamped and rebuilt to a design by architect Richard Pierce which gives it a bright and spacious kitchen/dining room to the rear and highlights the period features in the main part of the house. Original brick and stone have been re-used wherever possible in the rebuilding of the kitchen/diningroom and feature in the low brick walls of the patio.
Richard Pierce is an expert on vernacular architecture and interesting touches abound: a terracotta wall in the dining area continues into the patio, a shower room, utility and storage areas are hidden behind "cupboard" doors, a sitting niche allows the cook have company, a draining rack is over the sink and storage is extensive.
Bleached, original floorboards in the hallway and main reception rooms, high ceilings and stone coloured walls make for a sense of space. There are two, carefully restored, cast-iron fireplaces and a wall opening framing a view of the stripped back, original staircase.
The main, front-facing bedroom is the width of the house and has views of the church spire on Berkeley Road. A rear bedroom has a cast-iron fireplace and a third, on the return, has extensive wardrobe space.
