13 Merrion Square, a film company's dramatic Georgian building, has a separate mews with a cinema and two apartments. Hugh Linehan, Entertainment Editor, reports
While many of the great Georgian houses on Dublin's landmark squares have been ill-served by their commercial tenants over the years, number 13 Merrion Square has benefitted hugely from its current owners.
Home for the last 12 years to Little Bird, one of the country's most successful film production companies, the house and its mews, incorporating a private 30-seater cinema and two duplex apartments, now comprise one of the city's most unusual and handsome properties. HOK Residential is quoting an advised minimum value (AMV )of €7.5 million prior to auction on June 1st.
Founded by producer James Mitchell more than 20 years ago, Little Bird, with offices in Dublin, London and Johannesburg, has produced many movies, TV series and documentaries, from The Irish RM to Bridget Jones's Diary.
Under Mitchell's stewardship, the five-storey main building, comprising 511sq m (5,500sq ft) of floor space, has been strikingly refurbished, sympathetically maintaining the original fabric of the building while adding strongly contemporary architectural signatures.
The original plasterwork has been painstakingly preserved, with underfloor heating and wiring fitted throughout to avoid breaking the original mouldings. The windows are faithful replicas of the 19th century originals, and new marble fireplaces have been installed throughout. The interiors are painted in strong yellows, ochres and reds.
A modern, two-storey return, by Grafton Architects, features a strikingly contemporary garden room, with azure blue pigmented Italian plaster, a dramatically curved glass wall and terrazzo flooring.
Outside, the 21-metre back garden has been dramatically designed with sub-tropical plantings, with deciduous and evergreen species from Japan, New Zealand and Mexico. The garden has been featured in several international books, as well as in The Irish Times, the Sunday Times and the London Evening Standard.
A dog-leg path of polished granite runs from the main house through the garden, passing a circle of cobbles and translucent glass bricks designed by artist Killian Schurmann.
At the end of this path stands the azure blue external wall of 13 Denzille Lane. Although part of the 13 Merrion Square complex, this five-storey, stylishly contemporary building has its own entrance onto the lane of that name which runs to the rear of Merrion Square North.
13 Denzille Lane boasts the property's most unique feature, a fully-equipped 30-seat cinema with 35mm projection and state of the art Dolby Digital sound.
This is the only facility of its kind in the country, and has been used over the years to screen daily rushes for all the major films produced in Ireland. It's currently used for movie previews, and for private parties, as it also houses a fully-equipped bar and reception area along with an upstairs office.
The building also contains two duplex apartments, whose azure plaster and terrazzo flooring echo the main house's garden room.
Apartment one features include a show-off kitchen with Siemens appliances, and full-height glass patio doors opening onto a south-facing balcony looking onto the garden below. Apartment two is even more impressive, with its red high-gloss Bulthaup kitchen, and - another unique feature - access to its own rooftop vegetable garden.
A blue-lit glass walkway to the south of apartment one leads to a second south-facing roof garden, planted with exotic species to complement the main garden below.
Currently yielding €165,000 per annum in rental income, 13 Merrion Square would make a handsome landmark office, or a superb home. The property's parking areas, accessed from Denzille Lane, can securely accommodate six vehicles.
