The Arbour
Clonskeagh Road
Dublin 14
Description: Three bedroom, single-storey detached house with outstanding garden
Agent: Lisney
The Arbour, a 1920s detached house close to UCD, has the kind of surprise back garden in which house-hunters will want to linger long after they are first stopped in their tracks by its originality and charm.
Sixteen years ago, the owner commissioned landscape designer and gardener Robert Heslip to design it. Not only did he draw up the plans, but he spent several weeks laying it down and has returned regularly every year to tweak and maintain it. It seems to have been a labour of love for both him and the owner who has lived in the house for more than 30 years.
Described by the owner as “roughly the size of a tennis court” it was always a well screened, secluded space facing southwest. It’s now very much an “outdoor room” with French doors opening on to it from both the sittingroom and the kitchen-diningroom.
A long pond, flanked by Indian sandstone borders, runs the full length down the middle of the garden towards a pretty gazebo screened by a bog garden of reeds and irises.
There’s an old-fashioned wooden swing beside a woodland garden area with hebe, viburnum, red and pink camellias and hydrangeas.
There are other sitting areas, with the mass of trees and shrubs – including an elder tree, magnolia, rambling roses, jasmine and much more – making for a private, contemplative setting.
The house is set back from the road behind a semicircular parking lay-by, but there is also drive-in parking for two or thee cars, leaving the property very well set back from the main Clonskeagh Road, nearly opposite the AIB bank branch. The signs of it being a gardener’s home will be immediately evident to viewers on account of the extensive planting and landscaping in the entrance area.
Inside, there’s an elegant sittingroom which can take a big sofa and comfortable chairs as well as other furniture; large French doors in an alcove area to one side give a view over the garden. There’s a Victorian-style fireplace for cosiness.
The kitchen-diningroom has a fireplace with a live-flame gas fire, making it an attractive second reception room in addition to a well-equipped kitchen area with oak units. There’s a useful utility room with a sink off the kitchen.
There are three bedrooms – two doubles and a single room. The bathroom has a separate power shower as well as a bath.
The house is well maintained throughout and the next owners would be able to move in to enjoy the late summer garden without changing a thing after buying it at the Lisney auction on June 12th where it’s guiding at €680,000.
This would be appealing for someone trading down from a larger and less manageable home.
But equally, it’s a large site with a side entrance in a very good residential area, so unthinkable as it will seem to people enchanted by the garden as it is now, it’s possible that the buyer may decide to ring the changes and extend the living accommodation at the expense of the garden.
