Co Wicklow €2.1m: A five-bed house near Rathdrum has stand-out gardens and good views of the surrounding countryside, writes Sandra O'Connell
To the traditional country pastimes of hunting, shooting and fishing, at Ballinanty, a unique rural idyll at Greenane, just outside Rathdrum in Co Wicklow, you can add gardening.
The 17-acre property, which is for sale by private treaty through Sherry FitzGerald O'Gorman in Wicklow, has a price tag of €2.1 million.
Its four acres of magnificent landscaped gardens are stocked with native, exotic and rare plant species and punctuated by ponds - duck ponds, fish ponds and even a wildfowl pond designed to attract migratory birds during winter.
The imposing five-bedroom granite house was built by its current owners in 1982 and is a single storey building running to just over 186sq m (2,000sq ft).
The entrance hall is spacious with marble floors leading to a good-sized kitchen with Rayburn range, English quarry tiles and a breakfast sunroom with grape vines growing at one end.
Flooring throughout the rest of the house is mostly Canadian maple, and both the dining and sitting rooms are spacious and bright with high ceilings and large bay windows that take full advantage of the garden views.
At 22ft by 11ft, the main bedroom is light and roomy, and features an en suite. A particularly nice guest bedroom has French doors to a beautifully planted patio.
Wherever you are in the house, however, your eye is drawn outside. Ballinanty's spectacular gardens represent a 24-year labour of love on the part of the owners, who are now relocating to the west.
The house currently has a doctor's consulting rooms with its own entrance to one side, with its own courtyard and parking. These could easily be adapted to make an attractive granny flat.
However, because the building is rated for commercial purposes, it might also suit any new owners with an eye for change of use - it might make a wonderful wellness centre retreat or restaurant, for example.
The property also has three driveways and extensive road frontage, as well as direct access to the hills behind it.
The formal gardens, currently patrolled by rare white peacocks, have extensive lawns, as well as an orchard with apple, pear, plum and damson trees.
There are also fig trees, mulberry trees, rhododendrons, Chilean flame trees, a "handkerchief" tree and a cherry tree walk. A specially landscaped conifer mound in one remote corner is capped with a bench from which to admire a pond view. An attractive decking area overlooks another pond.
The main patio off the diningroom features a pond and stream, and makes particularly good use of the cut-granite used extensively throughout the property, which was salvaged from a local hospital. Five acres of the property remain as untouched woodland and there are eight acres of grazing, evenly divided into four fields currently used to breed Irish Draught horses.
The property has extensive outbuildings, including a hay barn, six stables, tack and feed rooms, as well as a workshop.
There is also a large garage with a built-in inspection pit for cars.
Ballinanty is in an immensely picturesque spot 20 minutes drive from the N11 at Rathnew, from where the journey to Loughlinstown and south Dublin is a further half hour. Prices in the area have risen significantly since the new dual carriageway opened two years ago.
Brook Lodge Hotel at Macreddin, which is currently building a top notch golf course, is 4kms away.
Also nearby is the Glenmalure Golf Club, as well as more practical amenities such as a hospital, shops and schools in Rathdrum, which also has a rail route to Dublin.
