Simplicity is the key to the redesign of a cottage on Ardbrugh Road in Dalkey, Co Dublin. It was once a traditional Irish cottage, as its whitewashed exterior suggests. This is certainly how Edward Harris, the owner's son, remembers it from childhood, when it was a holiday cottage that his father had bought in 1961.
Last year, the family decided to renovate and extend the cottage to take advantage of its position high on a sloping site with panoramic views of the sea. The home, Hillside Cottage, Ardbrugh Road, Dalkey, Co Dublin, a 110sq m (1,184sq ft) detached three-bed, is now for sale for €995,000 through Vincent Finnegan.
It’s a high price even for a modernised cottage, but the location, on the edge of Dalkey Quarry between Dalkey Hill and Killiney Hill, does command high prices.
Edward’s mother has lived in Hillside full-time for 25 years, and turned to Edward for ideas on its makeover. “I’m very much about clean lines, modern, but comfortable – and I love wood,” he says.
Architect Edward Brady handled the renovation: the walls are all painted white, all the floors are Junckers Nordic oak and glazed doors let light circulate through the building. Hillside has a B3 Ber rating.
The front door of the cottage opens into a side passage which leads to the real entrance as well as to the back garden. On the right of the entrance hall, glazed doors open into the kitchen/diningroom, a wide room with green kitchen units and a green brick splashback at one side, and a large wooden table in the centre. You hardly have time to notice this because of the floor-to-ceiling bifold glass doors that look out onto the back garden and views right across Dublin Bay.
Two of the three bedrooms are downstairs, on the other side of the house, along with a smart new shower room. A closet in the hall accommodates a washer and dryer, and there’s access to the attic from one of the bedrooms.
Step up
Fourteen steep steps lead to the first floor, and to a livingroom the width of the house. Located over the kitchen, the room enjoys the same panoramic views of the sea from a wide picture window. Furnished simply, it has a wood-burning stove.
The main bedroom opposite it is a modest double with a very smart fully-tiled en suite.
The back garden downstairs is a wide patio surrounded by low granite walls and edged with plants and shrubs; it looks across to the sea and down into Enderly, a scheme of 18 expensive houses launched this year.
There is on-street parking outside.
Hillside Cottage is directly across the road from Redan House, a derelict house on 0.3 acres being sold as a redevelopment site.
Ardbrugh Road has seen a lot of building in recent years, with two extremely large houses built further down the road, beyond the corner with Knocknacree Road.
