Contemporary cool at former luxury Dalkey rental for €2.65m

This large detached house on Saval Park Road in Dalkey, Co Dublin, is one of a pair built in 2005, which combines art deco-ish style with Celtic Tiger flourishes. There’s a wine fridge and a separate Champagne fridge in the kitchen, a centrally controlled speaker system in most rooms, a pewter fireplace in a library, wenge wood floors and an electronically controlled canopy over an outdoor heated back patio.

Chatswood has been partly staged for sale by Bronwen McGouran, the interior architect who designed the house for her parents, and it is in walk-in condition. Up to a few years ago, it was one of the most expensive properties on the rental market at about €7,500 a month.

Now Chatswood, a 345sq m (3,714 sq ft) five-bed house, is for sale through Sherry FitzGerald for €2.65 million.

High electric gates open into a cobblelocked garden in front of the wide, grey-coloured exterior of the house. A tiled porch opens into a very wide hall dominated by a metalwork art deco-style staircase. It’s a bright house, where neutral paint colours contrast with the dark wenge wood floors of rooms at the front of the house, and where glazed doors open into most rooms, many of which are dual-aspect.

A drawing room on the right of the front door has a black marble fireplace; a library on the left has a wall of built-in bookshelves and a striking pewter fireplace. There’s a small study towards the back of the front hall, a cloakroom and a very smart, fully tiled downstairs toilet.

The kitchen/dining/living area, floored with limestone tiles, is a particularly bright space that stretches across the back of the house, with skylights and two sets of French doors opening on to a sandstone patio. The vast kitchen has a large marble-topped island unit, pantry, separate small bar, and a utility room with a door into a side passage. A wide archway separates the living room, with a cast-iron gas stove, from the dining area.

Upstairs there are five bedrooms (three en suite) and a smart family bathroom. Glazed doors open into the main bedroom at the front of the house, which has a lofted ceiling, a walk-in dressing room and a fully mosaic-tiled en suite shower room with double sinks. The family bathroom has an oval bath, separate shower and attractive decorative tiling.

The converted attic space, up 14 steep steps, has two deep Veluxes from which there are views of the sea.

The wide back garden is mostly in lawn, with a sandstone patio stretching across the back of the house. A circular building, described as a summerhouse, at the rear could be a studio; there’s another large garden shed to the front, and space to park several cars.

Wynyard, the twin of Chatswood, built at the same time next door, sold for €2.25 million in 2010. Fairlawn House, a striking, completely revamped, turreted Edwardian on one acre across the road, sold for €2.88 million in March.